Well, ****, there's only two sex scenes
On the outside, Indigo Prophecy (IP) looks like a PC point-and-click adventure game. Murder investigation, mysteries, you’ve played it all before. However, the exterior only offer so much; the story, while extremely cliche, is well developed for a video game story and the gameplay is extremely unique…
… though only because no other developer is stupid enough to try and make their game a Simon Says rip-off. Ok, scratch that; the game kinda sucks. Many times while playing you’ll be reminded of The Matrix and other Sci-Fi films because this game rips from the best and leaves little new to gobble up. The characters aren’t developed well enough to make you really care about them, and there’s only a couple sex scenes. IP should naturally suck. However, there’s a certain something about it that nags at you… and it’s tough to say exactly what it is.
It isn’t anything you can see or hear. Realistically detailed graphics help the game but are inconsistent; while character models are well done (the female investigator’s ass has notable detail, and it’s clear the developers had really striven to give it a fleshy, fine look) the environments don’t always fare so well (attending a library owned by a wise-man Chinese dude, the flat shelves of books make you wonder why more detail was put into the sexually attractive parts of the characters rather than the environment they move about in. As nice as it is, we didn’t pay $40 for smut). It also isn’t the (usually) well done voice acting. No, it’s partly because it feels so different; you’re in control of the characters… but not really.
The game is only a game in the sense that a choose your own adventure book is. There are multiple endings in IP that reflect the choices you make in the game and how well you do throughout it, including multiple dead ends (the ‘Game Over’ screens in other, more traditional games). You move the characters from destination to destination, but it’s all preset; your choices lay in the actions you choose to make your characters do. In the opening sequence, main man on the bad end Lucas commits murder in the bathroom stall of a restaurant. You have to get out of there, but you have to make several choices first. Should the body be moved? What about the murder weapon? Should you go out through the door, or the window? Oh shoot, the window’s barred shut - what about these cuts on your arms? At the climax of every scene things become a hectic, yet fun mess of choices.
And then there’s the ‘other’ type of climaxes… the action scenes. These scenes are the previously mentioned Simon Says games. Circles representing the two joysticks appear on the screen as your character is running away from a car bent on running him over, for example. The circles will flash in a certain direction, say the left flashes at the top, and then the right flashes at the bottom. After the sequence of flashes, you have to move the joysticks in the exact same direction. If you fail, you lose a ‘life’, of which you have several of (and can gain more of). Lose all of them and it’s a dead end for you. Succeed, and the action sequence carries on. Sometimes it turns into button mashing affairs; jamming on the L and R buttons alternatively is another way that an action sequence can carry out. These particular parts of the game aren’t dull, but it would’ve been so much better if you had full control over your character during the sequences. But then it’d be a game again.
The main problem with IP is that while it makes a bold attempt at being different (and succeeds in that regard), it doesn’t make it that fun. It’s an entertaining run-through (slowed down twice by two extremely boring stealth sequences, I might add), but after you complete it the first time you’ll realize there’s really not much will to go through it again. I mean, if don’t watch movies then the plot’s several other endings may compel you to give it another spin, but the game isn’t really fun enough to warrant that. It disguises its faults the first time because you’re so awed by it’s innovation that you can ignore it; the second time it shows its ugly face and makes you realize what the game really is. IP is a solid fray into the void of oddball games, but unlike Katamari Damacy or Ico, it isn’t thoroughly fun. But for that first time through, man, is it awesome.