Indigo Prophecy Teaches us how to Ruin a Story.

I really liked Indigo Prophecy. The mystery, the interesting characters, the unique dynamic of playing the killer/investigator, it all drew me in. But I was fooled. I didn't see it coming. Indigo Prophecy falls apart so fast that you'll hardly know what happened.

In less than an hour of gameplay, your character will go from an average Joe who works at a bank, trying to patch up things with an ex-girlfriend who finds himself at the giving end of a bathroom stabbing to an undead Neo clone making love to the woman investigating him for murder in a subway car. Yes, those are spoilers, but since the story makes no sense, it doesn't really matter. At right about the same time, the game transforms from a clever evolution of classic adventure games to a button mashing/simon says game placed on top of cinematic scenes. It's a real shame that this game wasn't given more time to fulfill it's potential.

On the plus side, there is more good than bad, time-wise. It's only the last few hours' sloppy wrapping up of the story which ruins things. You can enjoy the multiple story threads, well written dialog, and the well developed and believable characters for about 75% of the game.

On the mechanical side, sometimes the controls just don't act naturally, because whenever a camera angle shifts, your character seems to want to turn around and start walking another direction. It's tough to explain, but not as tough as moving your characters where they need to be in the timed sequences. I can't speak for other versions, but on PS2 there were numerous times when the audio would skip and stutter for 10-15 seconds at a time, while the game froze, and also when the incorrect lines of dialog would be played, out of sync, or on top of the character's actual dialog. This was a brand new copy I played, so I'm calling it a software issue, and you may not experience it.

I do like using the right stick for dialog selection and interaction with the environment, and Indigo Prophecy looks great, with lots of detail and good animation that communicated emotion very well.

Scoring Indigo Prophecy is difficult because of the split in quality. I can, however, ruthlessly give it a 6/10 for wasted potential, and say play it if you get the chance, for $10 or less.