Indigo Prophecy Review

Posted by shootzombies on November 12, 2005 in Reviews | ∞

Ever wonder what you would do if you had been made to commit a murder against your will? What would you do afterward? Would you go to the cops right away, or try to figure out what really happened? These are just some of the moral choices you need to make in the cinematic world of Indigo Prophecy.

In Indigo Prophecy you are placed into the shoes of a man named Lucas Kane- a man guilty of the murder of a complete stranger. Sounds like a pretty good premise right? Well it is. This game has some of the best choreographed action sequences I’ve ever seen in a video game. You’ll find yourself dodging cars, bullets, and ghostly apparitions just in the first half of the game. Lucas Kane makes Neo from the Matrix look like a pretender. Thats how well these sequences are executed.

The story adds to the games appeal; it’s filled with a nice amount of twists and turns that will keep you guessing about what’s going to happen next. Not to mention the games way of screwing with your head- you play as both the hunter and the hunted. The reason this messes with you is because you care so much about what happens to your characters that it becomes a psychological mind game of cause and effect choices. The game is filled with decisions that are left up to you to make. But don’t get ahead of yourselves- some decisions don’t affect the game play as much as the developers at Quantic Dream said it would. There are certain decisions that, if you choose poorly, will just result in a “game over”. I didn’t appreciate this that much because it eliminates some of the games aspects of free-choice. Your decisions are also timed, keeping the player involved in the game, which is something that your aiming for when you create a game like this anyway. Some other aspects annoyed me in this game though, for instance the stealth missions in which you play as a young Lucas felt unnecessary. I felt that they weren’t really needed and served as more of an annoyance than anything else.

It’s not just your conversations either that are being timed- special actions are executed by playing a sort of “Simon-says” like game where you push the analog sticks in the direction in which the reticles light up. Another mini-game implemented into the Indigo Prophecy is the pushing of the shoulder buttons to perform actions that usually involve stamina. If your not quick enough and you fail these actions though there can be various good and bad consequences. This makes Indigo Prophecy a game that demands your full attention while playing it.

The graphics in Indigo Prophecy are a bit choppy (at least playing on the PS2) but the facial animations and models are very well polished as you can see from the screen shots in this review. Mouth movements during conversations are excellently modeled as well. It may not look as good as say something like Ninja Gaiden (even on the X-box) but it certainly isn’t an eye-sore either. Some of the environments themselves however don’t look as good as the characters, they tend to be a tad blocky looking. For me though it didn’t kill the game.

The sound in Indigo is excellently implemented. The score is composed by Andrei Badalamenti and fits into the game and its atmosphere very well. Voice acting is very well done as well, from Lucas Kane’s depressed and confused voice, to the Oracles dark and foreboding one, Indigo hits it right on the dot.

In conclusion, you owe it to yourself to at least try out Indigo, its a nice change of pace from other less original games out there right now. With its unique style of storytelling and presentation to its great story Indigo demands your attention. Even with its flaws (graphics, some aspects of game play) Indigo is at least worth a rental.

Graphics: 8.5- While the facial animations and movements look pretty realistic, some pop-out and jagged edges hold this one a bit back.

Game play: 9.0- A great change of pace from games out there right now- with some excellent action sequences and storytelling this game has some great aspects to it. However, I was annoyed by some of the timed sequences and the unneeded stealth missions.

Sound: 9.5- Great soundtrack and great voice acting really propelled this one to the cinematic aspect the creators were aiming for.

Entertainment: 8.5- This game will keep you going until the end, if you can ignore some of the choppy graphics, and some small aspects of the game play.

Overall: 8.9/10