Indigo Prophecy for PlayStation 2 Reviews by Gamers

The main reason I rented this was because of my interest in the upcoming game Heavy Rain, Quantic Dream's follow up to Indigo Prophecy. If you're like me and are curious about the gameplay of that one, I highly recommend you give this one a play-though, if only to give you an idea of what to expect. From everything I've seen the two games will share similar play mechanics, where all the action is done primarily through quick-time events.

I really appreciate QD's desire to try something new with gaming and don't fault them for their "Simon Says" style of gameplay or it's "Choose Your Own Adventure" style of storytelling. I personally enjoyed the game, but this certainly isn't one for the hardcore FPS, Gears of War crowds. The pacing is much different and is literally a story driven game. QD tries to emphasize this on the menu screen, where players are prompted to "Play Movie" instead of "Play Game." That helps put the player in the right frame of mind, but still, if this was actually a movie, it would be seen as a bloated, poorly edited one (where otherwise delete scenes were left in) with a shoehorned third act that make Metal Gear Solid plots appear normal.

All that said, if I had played this game in 2005, before the current generation of consoles, I'm pretty sure I would have enjoyed it a little more than I did, and had I bought it I would have definitely played it through a least twice to try the different story paths, so I'm adding a point to my score, giving it an 8 in stead of a 7. If anything, I'm anticipating what these guys will do with Heavy Rain even more and look forward to their current-gen follow-up.

Definitely worth a play through. While not the longest experience, for a game w/ such a simple system you'll be pleasantly surprised. In an industry where so much is same-story-different- disc lately, this is an excellent change. The adventure game genre is almost dead, a throwback to earlier PC games, and this offers a chance to breath some life back into it. Nothing is that difficult, but the story and the characters are so compelling that what starts as a murder mystery becomes something entirely different. The camera angles are a bit annoying, and the controls do feel a bit clunky at times, but it doesn't detract too much from the game itself.

As far as "action" goes, this isn't a shooter, a hack n' slash, this is more like an interactive movie. But it's well written and the voice overs are excellent, something that a lot of games that have fallen into a similar category over the years have failed to do.

If you're looking for something outside the norm that won't consume several weekends of your life, and is worth the time you do spend on it, check this out.