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Indigo Prophecy (PlayStation 2)

Reviewed by: mlprosper Has Written 1 Review
Reviewed on: 1-Oct-2006

Description

Some video game developers have tried (and failed) to create an "interactive" experience with their video games. Often these attempts lead to games with an underdeveloped story or complicated controls. Indigo Prophecy tackles these two problems with ease and strikes the perfect balance to create a genuine interactive experience.

You start the game as Lucas Kane, a run-of-the-mill New York IT manager. Things go terribly wrong on one cold, snowy night at a local diner. Kane finds himself in the diner's bathroom, stooped over a fresh corpse, with blood all him, the corpse and the floor. He doesn't remember what happened, who killed the man, and what he was doing with the knife. You take control of Lucas at this point - and this is where the immersion begins.

From the very beginning, you are presented with a control scheme that allows you to experience literally everything in the game room. In that first room where the murder occurs, you can wash your hands, use the air dryers, touch the broom, move the body - the list goes on and on. These movements and actions are carried out by simple movements with the analog stick - indicated by symbols at the top of the screen. After a few tries at each of the movements, I became almost instantly adept at them. After a while, the movements became intuitive, and enhanced the sense that I was actually participating in the experience.

The choices in this game are numerous and important. Should you try to run out of the diner, past the police officer? Should you try to hide the body and clean up the mess? Some choices affect the rest of the story while others only affect a particular scene and don't ultimately change the story. It's these small elements that make the game seem so much more interactive.

The story unfolds in much the same manner - make a choice, see how it unfolds. Ultimately, though, the story seems too short. At the beginning of the game, the sharp writing leaves no detail uncovered - often using mundane tasks to flesh out the experiences of the characters. But near the end, the story leaves a lot to be desired. It's not bad by any means, but you have grown so close and cared so much about these characters, that you wish there were more "meat on the bone" near the end. Then ending (or endings) of the game also seem abrupt and rushed - almost as if the developers ran out of time and had to wrap things up very quickly.

In conclusion, Indigo Prophecy is still a fantastic game, worthy of any PS2 owners’ game library. While it doesn't have much replayability (unless you want to unlock every little extra), the first play through is more than worth the price of admission.