Update Two Hundred and Ninety-Five: 26 March 2019
Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy Remastered
13.4 hours playtime, ~6 hrs actual, 17 of 17 achievements
1.5/10
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
David Cage makes bad games, and this is one of them.
The game’s store page says that Rock Paper Shotgun has said that its the ‘16th best adventure game ever,’ which tells me that the person who compiled that list has played only ten adventure games.
This isn’t about ‘good for its time’, either - 2005 was a while ago, yes, but it’s also after Half-Life 2, Kingdom Hearts, Katamari Damacy and concurrent with Psychonauts—all different types of games that pushed envelopes, were great in their day, AND ALSO aged just fine.
I literally don’t know where to begin. I just can’t—the voice acting, the controls, the camera—fuck the camera in this game. The story out of a ten cent thriller you can only buy in an airport that gets extra stupid by the final third of the game, when they introduce awfully choreographed midair fights that would make me laugh if I didn’t hate this fucking game with a passion.
David Cage’s racism and misogyny showed up just as much as I expected them to, with Tyler’s blaxplotation musical theme and his jaunty, completely out of place strut and how you can disappear him out of the game and it makes no difference (be free, Tyler, be free!) paired nicely with Carla spontaneously falling in love with Lucas after knowing him for two minutes and having absolutely nothing to do after that. Even by the baby-ever-after ending, which is almost identical no matter who ‘wins’ the final confrontation, feels like an especial eye-rollingly bad moment.
Oh, and in particular: fuck the little kid stealth sections, where every bad aspect of this game joins together in one awful, ripe asshole of a symphony that makes one want to die.
Do you want a murder mystery that starts weird and gets weirder with supernatural elements slowly being introduced? Do you want a strange game that makes nearly every choice wrong, but somehow everything ends up together so, so right? Do you want a game with no incredibly awkward sex scenes with miserable stroke game? Do you love yourself? Play Deadly Premonition instead.
Next up: Challenge Me 3 of 5! I definitely won’t 100% clear it, but I’ll spend some time with—
See you soon!
lol how the hell do you manage to push through games you hate? Life’s too short for self torture ;)
Just bought Rise of the Tomb Raider and installed it too. Hopefully that’ll be a better time for you!
I know rise of the tomb raider is probably going to fuck up my percentage, and I didn’t want to leave any on the table in this game.
It’s so bad I wanted to spite-finish it because it sure as fuck wasn’t going to kneecap my achievement score >:c
Well, maybe if you’re up for it we can get a few folks together for the MP cheeves. Timezones are the handicap though
Aww, that’s really nice of you! When I get to that point, I’ll see if we can’t hook each other up.
This comment was deleted about 5 years ago.
Ha, your colorful description and passion towards hating the game really make me want to peek into the game. Would it be in my backlog, I would surely play it after this great review :D
Oh god, I feel like Cassandra.
Vito…..! I warned you…..!
No worries. Enough games are left in my backlog. There is no need to go and buy another game. Not even this one :)
I have never played a David Cage game, but what I’ve read of them, they don’t sound like anything I’d enjoy. I always think it’s funny how games get a soft pass in the narrative department, where plots and acting that wouldn’t be good in a B grade hollywood movie get high praise in a game, just because. Like people going on about heavy rain, but reading the plot of it because I figured I’d never play it, I was like… “and? seriously, that was the big twist?” I’ve seen a lot of tv shows where the case of the week had a better plot than that, but by all means, let’s drag ‘heavy rain’ out every time ‘games as narrative masterpieces’ is being discussed. I think lonely nerds just got extra excited about that one for the fact they got to shower an ‘almost real’ girl.
But yeah, the fact they are coming to Epic store is not exactly motivating me to give any money to Epic.
“I think lonely nerds just got extra excited about that one for the fact they got to shower an ‘almost real’ girl.”
HA! Tru. Heavy Rain is similarly just fucking asinine and awful.
I remember that soft pass happening back then, yeah, but luckily I definitely don’t think it happens anymore - at least, it doesn’t HAVE to anymore. We have tons of games that have honestly just great storytelling without excuses.
Wow, I’ve never seen you pan a game that badly. I’ve never played the game, but I’ve certainly heard mostly good things about it, despite being an older game. I did hear it got weird toward the end. Anyway, I don’t know who David Cage is or what other games he’s made (I doubt I’ve played them), but I suspect I wouldn’t like the game much, but probably not as much as you! :) I have it on an alt…maybe I’ll take it for a spin just to see what you’re talking about.
I also don’t understand why you put ~six hours into it if you hated it that much. But it’s our gain! ;-)
The only game on here I’ve hated more was the VN where the player character literally raped someone out of nowhere. That is one piece of faint praise about this game - at least no one’s raped in it.
I’m really trying not to be mean, but I really just cannot in any way see anything good about it by ANY stretch of the imagination, at any time. I’m honest to god befuddled and gobsmacked by any positive feelings towards it. David Cage (Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, Detroit: Become Human) is a game developer who focuses on ‘cinematic’ games, making nightmare versions of the kind of games I enjoy, because he’s bad at games.
Play at your own risk! I tried to warn you! I feel like I’m watching you (and Vito above) walk into a raging fire and it’s like I’m in a bad dream and I’m running and waving my hands shouting ‘come back! don’t go! no! come back!’ but I never get any closer and you both just walk into bad game land…
I finished it out of spite - and, in the end, it’s not HARD to play (EXCEPT THE FUCKING STEALTH PARTS). Just awful to sit through. There was no way in fuck I’d let this kneecap my percentage.
Welp…I don’t know what to say. I’ve actually played Beyond: Two Souls a bit– I liked it except for the action parts…I kinda suck at action with a controller and not so great with kb+m either… I wonder if you would have liked it more if you didn’t know it was from David Cage? Like I said, I don’t know anything about the guy.
That said…don’t worry, I’m not looking to play Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy any time soon. I seem to recall hearing it had a bunch of QTEs and got weird toward the end.
Anyway, enjoy RotTR! :)
Naww, even that one had some hanky shit going on. I know Ellen Page really had a very negative experience working with Cage, up to and including him making her in-game model anatomically accurate explicitly against her wishes. Then the model leaked and people used it to make very accurate 3D porn using her likeness.
In unison, viewers at home: Fuck! That! Guy!
It absolutely has a lot of QTEs and got VERY weird at the end. If you want QTEs done well, I really enjoyed Until Dawn a couple of years ago.
I think I will! I found some good resources for it, and it’s been a while since I played this kind of game. As soon as I come back from my dog walks today, I’m launching it!
Seems like my choice to abandon this game a few minutes in was probably for the better :P
Now I really want to start Deadly Premonition though.
See? You’re smart. You got brains.
Please please play Deadly Premonition I love it so much, that darling, goofy game.
I take issue with your opening statement. I haven’t played Fahrenheit yet, but I absolutely loved Heavy Rain, and really enjoyed playing the demo of Beyond: Two Souls.
Also, to be fair to RPS, in their recommendation they do say that it “isn’t anywhere near as good as people say it is”, “a giant mess of a game”, and “ignore some really tired racism”, but that it is “novel, intriguing, peculiar, and ultimately extremely silly” and “packed with superb moments”.
I have the original version, not the remaster, but now I’m really itching to play it to see if it’s as bad as you say it is, or if instead you committed the awful sin of being wrong on the Internet. ;)
………….
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiif……… I really……….. grit my teeth……….. maybe I can see how someone can feel towards Indigo Prophecy how I feel towards Deadly Premonition………
but then I’d be committing the adjacently awful sin of changing your position on the internet! I can’t have that!
Well, I haven’t played either, but I think they’re kind of different experiences. I’ve heard that Deadly Premonition really appeals to people who loved Twin Peaks, but I didn’t really enjoy Twin Peaks, so… /shrug
I’ll just have to play both of them at some point so I can compare. :)
I don’t know who David Cage i but I really enjoyed Beyond: Two Souls. My friends and I had a lot of fun co-oping it. I’ve never played his other games though (I borrowed Detroit from a friend but still haven’t played it.). Do you dislike the games because they are bad or because David Cage is a bad person? I’m a big fan of cinematic games because I love films, and it’s like playing a film I can interact with.
I do have Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy in my library, but now it’s pushed very far back in the backlog thanks to this review :P. Hope you enjoy Tomb Raider!
Oh, 85% they’re bad games and 15% bc he’s a shitty dude, for sure.
I… will probably… play through them all when I can (years from now, at a STEEP discount or hopefully as a SG win) because I like cinematic games, too! Like I said to Neku below, they just have to be GOOD cinema.
I hope I do, too - and I have pretty high hopes for it.
If you liked Beyond: Two Souls, I’d say give Fahrenheit a chance. I mean, TS seems to hate David Cage’s games, and that’s fine, but I absolutely loved Heavy Rain and enjoyed the Beyond: Two Souls demo. And RPS has Fahrenheit as their 16th best adventure game (admittedly, that was back in 2015, and there have been a lot of great adventure games since).
That’s a good point. I’ll definitely try it since I own it anyway so there is no real loss. I’m starting Detroit too so I’ll have to add Heavy Rain to my list.
Uhhh now I feel SO BAD for challenging you this… I’m sorry? And I also feel bad for liking those games haha (especially Detroid Become Human!). I liked Fahrenheit because I liked it’s symbiosis of hunter and hunted. It was funny (for me at least |D) to hide any evidence and search with the others exactly those. Well, except for the last arc that was… uh. Yeah. You already said that.
The only game I didn’t like as much as it was hyped was Beyond Two Souls probably because I couldn’t see why it was THAT MUCH hyped. Maybe I’m also too biased b/c cinematic games are my fav genre and there don’t exist enough games! >.<
Oh no, please don’t feel bad! I bought the game myself, and I’d have played it eventually. And while I get the impulse, I don’t want you to feel bad, either - you’re not alone in liking them, for sure. That aspect you mentioned - hiding evidence against yourself that you yourself will look for later as another character - is an interesting one, just drowned out by all the other bugfuckery so I barely even noticed.
I like cinematic games, too - but this, to me, is bad cinema AND bad games.
What if i already completed DP? I’m lost now!
Also DP has the absolutely worst opening for that kind of game, i actually dropped it at first, but then forced myself through later and discovered a wonderful game… what if i didn’t give it another go?
I’m still intrigued by Fahrenheit, some say it’s great, some say it’s terrible… i guess there is only one way to know for sure…
You’d be missing out on a real odd gem, that’s for sure!
I don’t remember the opening being that bad… though you saying that contrasting with how the best part of Fahrenheit is the opening scene makes me smile a bit.
Play at your own risk!
So, ehm, as I see it, I shouldn’t be mentioning that I have played Fahrenheit a log time ago and even though it sometimes frustrated me, I have liked it? Ehm, also I have won it recently on SG and I plan to play it like in a few days… XD
I wonder if my opinion will change somehow after those years.
I played to after finishing heavy rain and beyond 2 souls since I wanted to know what the 1st one was like. I didn’t mind it either apart from the stealth bits, kept failing and took ages to figure it out. Its a very weird game though but certainly not as bad as some things I’ve played or watched lately
oh yeah that’s right– I keep forgetting David Cage is a virulent racist. also that he’s an AUTEUR just like ALFRED HITCHCOCK and that one time he sent 400 blank pages to a media outlet saying that’s how long the script for Detroit Become Human was???
i’m gonna play this eventually cos it’s in my backlog and also i am a masochist, but because of your review i’ll keep a bottle of whiskey nearby. thank you for the warnings and heralding of shit to come.
I have to disagree, most of the people overlooked its faults and cookie cutter story precisely because of its time - “cinematic experience” was a novelty, even more so on PC. But its kinda funny that almost no one can name a good scene after the opening one.
And I’ve gotta admit, this game is top-tier hilarious ride with the writing that awful yet sincere. At least it’s not as boring as Beyond, imo.
There are Emily’s cooking quests for those who don’t though.
And there’s also Life Is Beatiful to slowly drive you insane by getting stuck in your head for the rest of your life.
God I love this game.
The opening one WAS good… for it’s time… but all goodwill it elicits it wastes immediately.
Oh, I liked doing those! And Life is Beautiful, too.
Deadly Premonition is the fuckin best.