November 15, 2005 - I’ve always been a big fan of first person shooters and real time strategy games, both of which are plentiful in today’s game market. If we looked at a list of my favourite games, it wouldn’t take long for titles such as Halo or Total Annihilation to crop up. Never did I imagine that Indigo Prophecy would find a place on my list. Who would have thought that an adventure game could break through into a market dominated by first person shooters and RTS games? It is an incredible feat for the Quantic Dream development team, and it is my hope that we see a sequel to this game.

The first thing that needs to be said is that Indigo Prophecy is not your typical video game. If you are looking for a fast-paced and action packed game, you might want to search elsewhere. The game does have its intense moments, but on the whole it’s a lot more about the story than bullets flying through the air. The game takes place in New York City in the middle of winter. One of the main characters, Lucas Kane, commits a murder in a late-night diner restroom. Amazingly, Lucas only realized what he had done after waking up from a trance. Most of the game revolves around Lucas trying to avoid getting caught by the police, and at the same time trying to prove his innocence.

The first thing that I noticed when I started playing the game is that the storyline progresses more like a movie than a game. The highlight of Indigo Prophecy is definitely the plot, and my favorable review of this title really comes down to this. While you control what your character does in any given situation, one chapter of the story will always lead to the next with only slight changes in the plot. For example, you might never find the murder weapon, but you still find out who killed the victim.

There are three main characters that you will control throughout the game. At the outset, you take control of Lucas Kane, a man who committed a murder with no excuse other than the fact he allegedly wasn’t in control of his body at the time. Lucas has a brother named Markus whom you will also interact with at different times during the story. Even as a priest, Markus has trouble believing everything Lucas has told him. This relationship between the brothers leads to some interesting plot developments, but I’ll leave that for you to discover.

The other two characters that you will be able to use are the two detectives assigned to the homicide case dealing with Lucas’s unfortunate encounter with a patron in a diner restroom. Carla Valenti is a detective who seems to always maintain her calm and collected composure. Her partner, Tyler Miles, originally lived on the streets of New York before deciding to join the police force. Tyler provides a lot of unintentional comic relief to the story – who ever heard of playing a game of one-on-one basketball in the snow? I sure haven’t, but it’s pretty funny to watch.

One of downsides to Indigo Prophecy is that the graphics are not as great as they could be. When the camera zooms in for a close up of Carla on the phone, or Lucas pouring a glass of gin, or Tyler making out with his girlfriend, this issue becomes fairly obvious. To be honest, I didn’t really notice this early on in the game. It was only later on when the developers really tried to do a lot of character development and interactions that the graphic detail – or lack thereof – really started to show its true colors (no pun intended). In spite of this, the character models are generally well done overall, with each character having his or her touches that make them unique. As a side note, Indigo Prophecy put a new name on my roster of favorite female video game characters. In my opinion they did an amazing job with Carla and should be given a gold star. Okay, make that five gold stars.