Real time strategy is all very well and a change of pace from MMORPGs and FPSes, but I picked up another game which is…a genre-bender, I think.
Indigo Prophecy.
Now the graphics aren’t super. When I first revved it up, I was a little disappointed at the quality, it seemed like this guy (David Cage, the designer) had this dream of making this game five years ago and plodded away at it with a small team and finally completed it in 2005, but with an engine and technology that was showing its age. However, I was smart enough to start tweaking with the graphics settings, and I discovered that it had defaulted to low textures and no anti-aliasing.
Bringing it up to high textures, 2x anti-aliasing and adding shadows made a world of difference to my eyes. Suddenly it got photoreal enough (think about Final Fantasy 8 level) for me to suspend disbelief and get into the world and the story.
This guy knowingly made a game that is less about action, and more about emotion. It’s centered on story. Think interactive fiction, but with really good music/effects, movie-style camera angles and tricks, and multiple choices and decision paths to take.
The innovation is refreshing. And very elegantly brought into effect.
The reviews are right. You’ll need a game controller for this. It’s that kind of game. If you try and keep track of keyboard controls, you lose the emotional effect because you’re too busy fighting with the input interface. Luckily enough, I happen to have a USB game controller – best buy evah, used it with Madden 04, various LOTR arcade games, GTA: San Andreas, and so on. No problems there.
The intro opens like a movie. You get opening credit sequences and the all-seeing sky-high camera panning across the landscape and some brilliantly freaky music. I can’t help but keep ranting about the attention they paid to making the thing resemble a movie. They have extreme close ups, juxtaposed flashes of images, exposed film negative, the works.
They intend to scare the fuck out of you, and it works.
Think suspense and horror movie. They got it all. They have the tricks down pat. And I suppose I helped them by playing the damn game at 2am, with the only light a dim yellow fading desk lamp behind the monitor, and shadows everywhere. (I seem to favor this sort of lighting for scary games like this – I played Doom 3 in similar surroundings = very bad for my heart but thrilling for everything else. Must finish that game some time.)
I was stifling the urge to be scared. I was moderately unnerved, and wanting to look away during the weird flash sequences. And the bastards got me with a cheap but well-played trick. :)
Mild spoiler warning: It’s not really a biggy, just describing the scene that made me yelp and my heart race badly. See, you’re a murderer. You wake up from a trance to find yourself holding a bloody knife, you know you didn’t purposely –want- to kill this victim but there the body is. You have to hide it and get away and you do. You’re in your apartment with bloody arms from having lacerated them during your trance, trying to hide evidence of your crime.
This part is interactive. You use the controller to walk around, look at stuff in your apartment, and do random stuff with it. It’s a very slow, methodical section. You do something, you see the cupboard open. You do something else, you close the cupboard. You open the wardrobe, you make the bed, you pick up clothes, yadda yadda. Point is, you send a command down the line, and you expect a very prosaic thing to happen on screen. The expectation has been set up.
So I’m wandering around in the bathroom, opening the bathroom cabinet because I want to fix these nasty scratches on arms. I figure there must be bandages in here. Standard place to put ‘em, and this is interactive fiction in a gussied up, sophisticated form, right? Sure enough, there are. I say, put ‘em on. The character tells me, oh, I need to shower first and clean the wounds before I put the bandages on. Fine.
So I say, close the bathroom cabinet. We’re going to walk over to the shower then and shower. The character closes the cabinet door and…POW, besides the standard reflection of your character’s face, there’s a SECOND FACE in the MIRROR, it’s your VICTIM staring right back at you.
AAAAAAAAAHHHHH! The character yells, and fuck if I don’t yell also. Well, I’m not really the type to scream aloud, but I sure got the fright of my life and had my heart pounding madly and wondered if I could fucking fall asleep after that without developing serious nightmares. :P
What a good trick. It’s been done, of course. Horror movies do it all the time. You’re watching for the freaky weird supernatural shit to happen. But here, you never expected it, especially not in a GAME and so it worked all over again.
Good stuff. I think this one may be a sleeper hit. Something like Grim Fandango, except not that humorously touching. It’s special and innovative for its attempt to make a game more focused on story-telling and playing with your emotions with a movie’s dramatic flair.
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