Issue 96 will be recorded in the usual Thursday/Friday evening slot next week. It is the opening gambit, in many ways, to Issue 100 which will be on Quantic Dream's second game, Heavy Rain.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves though. First things should always come first, and the calm before the storm (however relative) comes in the form of Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy to our friends and listeners in that there North America). As usual, we'll be including forum comments on the show, and this is the place for them. Don't worry, there'll be a separate thread for Heavy Rain, so we can afford to keep this thread as Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy-centred as we like.
The forum comments included in the podcasts have been getting better and better. Thank you all very much.
It's been a while since I played Fahrenheit, but I remember it very much as a game of two halves. I imagine there will be a couple of pretty divisive discussion points too.
Ah, I wish I'd managed to replay this in time for the podcast. As it is, I have a very hazy memory of the game. I would like to say, however, that I know I really enjoyed it. The few things that have stuck in my mind over the years are the over long QTE sequences, the bloody awful stealth sections where you play as yourself as a child in flashback scenes (were we sneaking in to a military base? I think so) and the absolutely batshit crazy story. Yeah, I remember loving it though. In fact, I still have my boxed PC copy so I may well see if it runs fine in Windows 7 and have another play through of it soon.
Fahrenheit is one of those games that I tend to think of as being a 'glorious failure'. The opening sections of the game, with you playing as both the criminal and the cops trying to track him down were very clever indeed, but at some point they seem to have ran out of ideas for that and the game goes massively off the rails into all sorts of crazy secret society, ancient prophecy stuff.
There are some amazing moments. The quiet scene where your ex visits to get her stuff back, and the ways in which that scene can go, for example (at least in the EU version, I think one of the outcomes of that scene got the chop on the US console versions).
Then they throw in that huge and extremely irritating to play stealth section, and most of the goodwill they've built up rapidly vanishes. Finally there's an ending that makes zero sense if you missed one optional and easy to miss part of the plot.
I think the most telling failure is the fight sequences being entirely QTE driven. There's some fantastic action choreography going on there, but you can't actually take any time to watch it because you're having to concentrate so hard on the QTE pop-ups. There's even an option in the menu once you've finished the game to watch them back so you can see what you missed.
The score is outstanding though, one of my favourites.
After all the Hype of Heavy Rain and me not having a PS3 I thought I would have a go at Fahrenheit.
The opening despite it's ageing graphics had me hooked, the story of a man who committed a murder when in a trance trying to come to trams with it and figure out that's going on and the clever switch to the cops investigating had me in the pram of it's hand. I loved the subtle blend of supernatural and police periodical. Then BAM! The "killer" is flying, what? BAM! Flashback to childhood in Area51 , OK? BAM Sparky Internet man WTF?!?!?!
I feels like that they had a story they wanted to tell only to Wight half of it then wing the second half!
For a game that stands or fails on its story this should not have been released in this state.
Telltale have now should us how games like this should be made!
Forgive me if my memory of the game fuzzes the facts, I don't want to wiki it as I want to get it on XBLA if it's still on there soon and replay it.
SPOILERS BELOW!
I picked up Fahrenheit for the princely sum of £2.99 at a car boot sale, I was intrigued by the choices the game claimed it would give you and hoped that the bold claims of David Cage (never heard of him at this point) would pay off.
The tutorial was weird with a Avatar of Cage speaking about emotions and talking us through the subtle motions needed to play the game. Then it started...
I hid the knife, moved the body then realised it was a waste of time washed my hands then made a quick exit!. Only to remember that my bloody hands would be all over the taps!. To then switch to the police investigating the murder was genius, I deliberately gave a sketchy image of myself to the police to give myself more time to find out what was going on. The snowy setting was excellent evoking memories of Max Payne. The soundtrack is also fantastic and well worth checking out even if you have no intention of playing this.
The story starts off very well and interesting but after a touching scene playing the guitar for my lost love (I'm ignoring the shagging scene, hated that) it starts to descend downhill when Lucas suddenly turns into Neo from the Matrix, flying through the air and dodging bullets. The rest of the story is a jumbled mess, I can remember Lucas dying yet managing to come back to life thanks to the internet and father a child!?!?, then fighting the internet and saving the day as well as the "golden child". I got the "good ending" (the snow goes away huzzah!!) I believe there's two or three.
Overall I'll always have fond memories of this game and love him or hate him I'll always appreciate someone who tries something different even if that different goes to shit half way through.
So Indigo prophecy this is a interesting game to say the least,I got the game from a friend of mine who kept saying how I needed to play this game because of how unique it was and how It had a great story and I wouldnt regret playing it.Well I eventually started the game and was immediately greeted by mister David Cage himself and right then I knew I was in for something different.I'll say that the start of the game is probably one of the strongest starts I've seen in a videogame probably in the same league as Bioshock,it gives you a interesting set up and forces you to think quickly,pay attention and execute many of the main mechanics of the game while having multiples ways to resolve the situation and you'll probably screw up the first time,it's also sad that this is also the best part of the game,the story falls apart by the middle and none of the parts of the game manage to hit the tension or challenge of the start,the quick time events are not really all that good and dont even get me started on those awfull stealth sections that almost made quit the game.
This may very negative but I actually loved my time with the game overall mainly because when the game went crazy with giant bugs,Matrix fights and Mayans I just rolled with it and had great fun laughing at everything that was happening on screen I also liked to see the characters interacting and while I dont think any of then is a great character they were fun to watch,so while I think indigo prophecy fails as a serious drama it certainly succeeds as a game that entertains its player from start to finnish and it's one I reccommend people play.
I have always admired ambition and at the very least Fahrenheit had that. It wanted to try new things and create new scenarios for a console generation that was very used to the same old genres appearing with regulated consistency. So for that reason alone I was interested, and after the first section in the toilets of the bar where I was filled with panic, fear and nerves while trying to cover up what had happened was something so incredibly different for me at the time I had very high hopes for the rest of the title.
What followed is an interesting examination for me both directorial desires and mechanical implementation. It felt throughout like there was a balancing act that never quite evened out between the desires to tell a story, find a way to get the player to emotionally resonate with this and also have some form of interactivity. It felt to me like the team really wanted the player to feel the main protagonists emotional state as much as possible, to press that through the context sensitive actions and heighten it by the QTE action sequences to incite a range of emotions based on what was happening at that time.
But this requires character investment, and while the initial mystery of what had happened was interesting I never felt it built on that. Which meant it became a bit more likes Dragons Lair, providing a scenario that I was intrigued by because it seemed to keep getting crazier with every step. The actions the developers took to try and involve me more in the game just became mild obstacles to the next wacky plot point resulting in having to replay failed QTE sections or muttering to myself that I had completed the action the game requested but not recognized.
But I was never bored. I found the game compulsive primarily due to the reasons many may hate it, the plot. It is so mental, and so out there I always wanted to see what the hell is coming next. I stopped trying to make any sense out of it after halfway and just rolled with it.
What we have seen more and more in the last few years is that an interactive experience does not necessarily require complex, or even simple, mechanics to be both enriching and emotionally resonant. The simple act of creating an environment with a tale to tell can be enough to instil that impact where exploration and curiosity provide a sense of reward instead of mastering a core skill. Quantic Dream I think sometimes struggle because they feel there has to be a bigger game element when maybe there really does not need to be, and Fahrenheit fell into that unhappy ground for me.
