Indigo Prophecy is a big twisting murder mystery that is as much a game as it is a movie you get to control. This is a very different sort of experience than the shooters and action games that make up the majority of the Xbox lineup, but it is undeniably one of the best. It isn’t for everyone, however, and there are some fairly serious issues that get in the way of the incredible storyline, but it is still definitely worth playing.
Story
Describing too much of the storyline in Indigo Prophecy would basically ruin the whole experience, so I’ll keep it basic. At the beginning of the game, a man is murdered in the bathroom of a restaurant by Lucas Kane. Kane doesn’t know why he did it, but he did. Investigating the crime are detectives Carla Vincent and Tyler Miles. Throughout the game, you switch between all three of these characters as they find discover new clues and figure out what happened. The overall storyline is absolutely incredible and the style of storytelling really makes you attached to the characters, which is always a good sign in a videogame.Gameplay
Where Indigo Prophecy really sets itself apart from other games is in the gameplay. Most of your time in the game is spent choosing from a list of context sensitive actions as they appear at the top of the screen. You can move around each area freely and when you come to something you can interact with a command will pop up at the top of the screen. Pretty much everything you would expect to do, you actually can do. You can open the fridge and drink some milk, turn on a stereo and pick some music, play a guitar, throw dirty laundry into a washer, use a computer, and much much more. In each chapter you have to accomplish certain tasks such as talking to the right people, finding certain objects, or, say, cleaning up your apartment before the police arrive in order to move on in the storyline. What makes it all so interesting is that everything you do affects everything else later on and there are lots of different ways to get through each situation. For example, at the very beginning of the game the way you dispose of the body and then try to clean up the crime scene as Lucas has a direct affect on the way the game will play when you investigate the area as Carla and Tyler.
Even conversations have a huge affect on what happens. New conversation options will pop up all of the time and asking the right questions and saying the right things make all the difference between getting a juicy bit of info or missing something important.
Something else that is absolutely amazing is that since you are playing as characters on both sides of the story it is incredibly interesting when your characters all meet. You really become attached to them and don’t want any of them to get in trouble so making choices that skew the game in one direction or the other can get pretty emotional for you the player. Very few games can do this.
An element that governs everything in the game is the mood meter. Doing things such as listening to music, getting some coffee, or having a nice conversation make you happy. Other things such as turning on the TV and seeing a news report about the murder will make you depressed. Keeping your mood in balance is vital to the game because if you get too depressed it is game over. When every single thing you do affects your mood you have to be careful sometimes of how and when you do something because it can occasionally backfire on you pretty badly.
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