Fahrenheit Review
Firstly, you must excuse me for not getting this up sooner, and in addition I apologise for perhaps a lack of specifics as it's been a while since I played the game (but, I assure you, not too long that I've forgotten everything).
Now that's over and done with let's begin.
Fahrenheit, otherwise known as Indigo Prophecy outside of Europe, is an adventure game developed by the people at Quantic Dream, the people who created Omikron - The Nomad Soul which, judging by the GameStats info, was fairly well received by gamers (Third apology of the article - I haven't played Omikron).
However, Omikron was no-where near a run away success which, because of the somewhat mixed reaction from the press, I feel is a good thing as it's therefore likely people will approach Fahrenheit without bias for or against Quantic Dream resulting from their earlier work. And believe me when I say Fahrenheit is a game where you want to start playing without being prejudiced.
When you first start playing you will immediately recognise the introduction if you've played the demo (The demo was essentially the first segment of the game (3 percent if I remember correctly)), except this time we don't have to wait through David Cage's introductory speech, which, by the way, I feel you'll appreciate a lot more when you finish the full game. One thing to note, however, is that you cannot skip cut-scenes or anything of the like in the game; you won't want to do this one your first time through, but on replays it could become tedious. I can see the point behind this as one of the things Quantic Dream wanted to do was to make it feel like an interactive movie, but the option to do it wouldn't be unwelcome.
At this point I'm going to assume you've played the demo, or at least read my piece on it, so I don't need to mention about the gameplay mechanics etc - but I will reiterate that the control system is great (mouse movements), the camera control system is superb (IT'S A MOVIE! :D). One thing that I've changed opinion on, however, is the mood meter - yeah it's good because it guides you through the game and makes you avoid continuously doing stupid things, but you get no bonuses by having it high/maxed or just having different levels of your mood. A nice way this could've had more effect on the game would be to tie it into the conversations; if your mood is maxed out then your characters speech is more friendly, persuavive, whatever. Despite this it's still a nice feeling to get +20 for doing something right.
When you egress the location as Lucas you immediately return as Carla/Tyler - the two police detectives that have been assigned to this case. In the most of the sequences when you play as one of them you can switch between them, even if they're not in the same location (one instance springs to mind later on in the game when Tyler is at the police station doing some work, and Carla is at home). As this pair you have to search for evidence and unravel the mystery of the murder in order to track down the killer. You can stay for as long or as little as you want in the restaurant and there is a huge amount of things to interact with - a trend that fortunately continues throughout the whole of the game (the team at Quantic Dream should be showered in praise for this - the amount of detail and interaction is awesome). You could stay for hours trying to find absolutely every scrap of evidence in the diner, or you can succumb to Tyler's whining about being tired - the choice is up to you, and affects what items and information you take away with you.
However, it's gripe time, and also spoiler time (the spoiler's further below, keep reading). Despite all of the hype saying about the alterable storyline it's only alterable in parts, certain events must happen and it always happens in a certain order. The best way in which I can show how the choice system works is in this diagram:
Welcome back.
Although absent from the demo, yet present in many of the screenshots and in the full game, are the action sequences, which have been refered to by many as Dance Dance Revolution™ sequences. In my opinion it's a good control scheme as it ports seemlessly between console and PC, resulting in a complete absense of complaints normally associated with bad console ports (I'm not saying Fahrenheit is a bad console port, or even a console port at that). This results in a simple to use, easy to learn and versatile system. My complaints about it however, are that because you have to focus so intently on the coloured circles you cannot concentrate fully on what's actually happening in the game, especially in the faster sequences. The only other gripe that I have with it is that most of the time in the big action sequences your key presses don't have great association with what's actually going on (don't mistake me here - there is a correlation between what you have to press and what happens if you succeed, but sometimes it seems as though you're having to press a lot of keys other than the main ones which link to what is shown on screen). For example, in one of the scenes late in the game, to block an attack from your right you might have to press < ^ , ^ v , > > (or perhaps even more, with only one set of presses 'doing' the action on screen). Anyway, whatever your view on this control system if you play the game, I think you'll find these action sequences to be fairly fun and, for the 'big' ones, spectacularly choreographed (although at one point late in the game you do wonder whether David Cage has watched The Matrix a bit too much).
The story in the game is very good, and the story telling employed is terrific. One note though, about the story, at first I wasn't too keen on it, but now I find it very enjoyable, if not up to the quality provided by some of the best adventure games (but then again, there are reasons why they are at the top). But as I said, the story is very good and it is somewhat unfair to compare it to other adventure games as there simply isn't anything similar to stand it next to.
Througout the game you will be able to find "bonus" cards, which will give you a certain amount of "bonus points" (indicated by the Roman numeral on them). This is, without a doubt, one of the best 'after-game' features (Yep, even compared to The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay with their hilarious art director (Jens Matthies I think his name was, but I'm not sure)). There is a whole section devoted to unlockables that you can buy with your bonus points. And there's a ton of stuff to unlock: the soundtrack; about fifty pieces of artwork; movies etc etc etc. Incredible - as much fun as trying to find all the points required might be, the quality of the stuff in there is such that it'd probably be worthwhile to find a code of some sort to unlock everything.
A quick note on the engine - I think I might have said Unreal at some point before; if I did I'm very sorry, and even more so that I can't remember the name of the engine used. Interactive Drama Studio or something? Well, whatever it was it needs to be used more as it has been put to truly excellent use.
Conclusion:
An excellent adventure game - the best in years, but not without some complaints. These being predominantly the Dance Dance Revolution™ action control system and it making it hard to watch what was happening in ingame and on the coloured rings, the amount you can change the story (and lack of permanent choices, and in some cases, variety), and also the conversation system - you are presented with cue-words to select from, but the question asked is not always the one you predicted - a standard Lucas Arts' style line-selector would have been nice.
Overall this game is proof that there are still people out there that know how to make outstanding adventure games, and that the genre is by no means dead. If this is a success commercially, and with the possibility Omikron 2, then it's possible that we could see a big resurgence in adventure games. Personally, I believe that Fahrenheit is a spark hot enough to set the adventure game fire ablaze once again.
92/100
Now that's over and done with let's begin.
Fahrenheit, otherwise known as Indigo Prophecy outside of Europe, is an adventure game developed by the people at Quantic Dream, the people who created Omikron - The Nomad Soul which, judging by the GameStats info, was fairly well received by gamers (Third apology of the article - I haven't played Omikron).
However, Omikron was no-where near a run away success which, because of the somewhat mixed reaction from the press, I feel is a good thing as it's therefore likely people will approach Fahrenheit without bias for or against Quantic Dream resulting from their earlier work. And believe me when I say Fahrenheit is a game where you want to start playing without being prejudiced.
When you first start playing you will immediately recognise the introduction if you've played the demo (The demo was essentially the first segment of the game (3 percent if I remember correctly)), except this time we don't have to wait through David Cage's introductory speech, which, by the way, I feel you'll appreciate a lot more when you finish the full game. One thing to note, however, is that you cannot skip cut-scenes or anything of the like in the game; you won't want to do this one your first time through, but on replays it could become tedious. I can see the point behind this as one of the things Quantic Dream wanted to do was to make it feel like an interactive movie, but the option to do it wouldn't be unwelcome.
At this point I'm going to assume you've played the demo, or at least read my piece on it, so I don't need to mention about the gameplay mechanics etc - but I will reiterate that the control system is great (mouse movements), the camera control system is superb (IT'S A MOVIE! :D). One thing that I've changed opinion on, however, is the mood meter - yeah it's good because it guides you through the game and makes you avoid continuously doing stupid things, but you get no bonuses by having it high/maxed or just having different levels of your mood. A nice way this could've had more effect on the game would be to tie it into the conversations; if your mood is maxed out then your characters speech is more friendly, persuavive, whatever. Despite this it's still a nice feeling to get +20 for doing something right.
When you egress the location as Lucas you immediately return as Carla/Tyler - the two police detectives that have been assigned to this case. In the most of the sequences when you play as one of them you can switch between them, even if they're not in the same location (one instance springs to mind later on in the game when Tyler is at the police station doing some work, and Carla is at home). As this pair you have to search for evidence and unravel the mystery of the murder in order to track down the killer. You can stay for as long or as little as you want in the restaurant and there is a huge amount of things to interact with - a trend that fortunately continues throughout the whole of the game (the team at Quantic Dream should be showered in praise for this - the amount of detail and interaction is awesome). You could stay for hours trying to find absolutely every scrap of evidence in the diner, or you can succumb to Tyler's whining about being tired - the choice is up to you, and affects what items and information you take away with you.
However, it's gripe time, and also spoiler time (the spoiler's further below, keep reading). Despite all of the hype saying about the alterable storyline it's only alterable in parts, certain events must happen and it always happens in a certain order. The best way in which I can show how the choice system works is in this diagram:
I apologise for the horrible, and unintentional, pun on "storyline". I realise why this has been done, because of design and workload considerations, but the game leaves you craving for choices that actually make a significant impact on the game and the ability to break away from the 'on rails' game dynamic.
Below are two examples of the system in action, but they do spoil the story therefore they're in black text - highlight it to read.
SPOILERS
Firstly, about the evidence gathering. No matter what you pick up from the diner or, more specifically, what you didn't pick up, there will always be a certain amount of evidence that is provided for your use when trying to prove Lucas to be the killer. For example, one of the forensics people picks up a book for your use as evidence, because it is needed later in the game. While this makes sense it removes the feeling that you are in control of what happens in the game. And in a game that wants you to feel as if you're the director/scriptwriter/actors in a movie this removal of control is a major stumble.
Secondly, there is a character in the game that dies when you try to save her - there is absolutely no way to save her. This is needed because
[MEGA MONKEY UBER FUCKING PIRATE SPOILER LOLLERSKATES]
In your attempt to save her, you fall to your death with her, which is a needed plot twist. It's stuff like this that takes away the feeling that you can alter the story as you wish and that you are very much confined to a set series of events, with minor deviations (refer to the diagram again if you need to).
Right, now back to the rest of the review.
Below are two examples of the system in action, but they do spoil the story therefore they're in black text - highlight it to read.
SPOILERS
Firstly, about the evidence gathering. No matter what you pick up from the diner or, more specifically, what you didn't pick up, there will always be a certain amount of evidence that is provided for your use when trying to prove Lucas to be the killer. For example, one of the forensics people picks up a book for your use as evidence, because it is needed later in the game. While this makes sense it removes the feeling that you are in control of what happens in the game. And in a game that wants you to feel as if you're the director/scriptwriter/actors in a movie this removal of control is a major stumble.
Secondly, there is a character in the game that dies when you try to save her - there is absolutely no way to save her. This is needed because
[MEGA MONKEY UBER FUCKING PIRATE SPOILER LOLLERSKATES]
In your attempt to save her, you fall to your death with her, which is a needed plot twist. It's stuff like this that takes away the feeling that you can alter the story as you wish and that you are very much confined to a set series of events, with minor deviations (refer to the diagram again if you need to).
Right, now back to the rest of the review.
Welcome back.
Although absent from the demo, yet present in many of the screenshots and in the full game, are the action sequences, which have been refered to by many as Dance Dance Revolution™ sequences. In my opinion it's a good control scheme as it ports seemlessly between console and PC, resulting in a complete absense of complaints normally associated with bad console ports (I'm not saying Fahrenheit is a bad console port, or even a console port at that). This results in a simple to use, easy to learn and versatile system. My complaints about it however, are that because you have to focus so intently on the coloured circles you cannot concentrate fully on what's actually happening in the game, especially in the faster sequences. The only other gripe that I have with it is that most of the time in the big action sequences your key presses don't have great association with what's actually going on (don't mistake me here - there is a correlation between what you have to press and what happens if you succeed, but sometimes it seems as though you're having to press a lot of keys other than the main ones which link to what is shown on screen). For example, in one of the scenes late in the game, to block an attack from your right you might have to press < ^ , ^ v , > > (or perhaps even more, with only one set of presses 'doing' the action on screen). Anyway, whatever your view on this control system if you play the game, I think you'll find these action sequences to be fairly fun and, for the 'big' ones, spectacularly choreographed (although at one point late in the game you do wonder whether David Cage has watched The Matrix a bit too much).
The story in the game is very good, and the story telling employed is terrific. One note though, about the story, at first I wasn't too keen on it, but now I find it very enjoyable, if not up to the quality provided by some of the best adventure games (but then again, there are reasons why they are at the top). But as I said, the story is very good and it is somewhat unfair to compare it to other adventure games as there simply isn't anything similar to stand it next to.
Througout the game you will be able to find "bonus" cards, which will give you a certain amount of "bonus points" (indicated by the Roman numeral on them). This is, without a doubt, one of the best 'after-game' features (Yep, even compared to The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay with their hilarious art director (Jens Matthies I think his name was, but I'm not sure)). There is a whole section devoted to unlockables that you can buy with your bonus points. And there's a ton of stuff to unlock: the soundtrack; about fifty pieces of artwork; movies etc etc etc. Incredible - as much fun as trying to find all the points required might be, the quality of the stuff in there is such that it'd probably be worthwhile to find a code of some sort to unlock everything.
A quick note on the engine - I think I might have said Unreal at some point before; if I did I'm very sorry, and even more so that I can't remember the name of the engine used. Interactive Drama Studio or something? Well, whatever it was it needs to be used more as it has been put to truly excellent use.
Conclusion:
An excellent adventure game - the best in years, but not without some complaints. These being predominantly the Dance Dance Revolution™ action control system and it making it hard to watch what was happening in ingame and on the coloured rings, the amount you can change the story (and lack of permanent choices, and in some cases, variety), and also the conversation system - you are presented with cue-words to select from, but the question asked is not always the one you predicted - a standard Lucas Arts' style line-selector would have been nice.
Overall this game is proof that there are still people out there that know how to make outstanding adventure games, and that the genre is by no means dead. If this is a success commercially, and with the possibility Omikron 2, then it's possible that we could see a big resurgence in adventure games. Personally, I believe that Fahrenheit is a spark hot enough to set the adventure game fire ablaze once again.
92/100
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