Lucas
Versantvoort / December 15, 2014
Ah, the
memories. I must have been about 14/15 years old when I first played Fahrenheit—or
if you’re American, Indigo Prophecy. Naturally, the game blew my mind. I had
been playing games for quite a few years, but Fahrenheit was more cinematic
than anything I’d experienced up to that point. The ‘daily life’ gameplay
Quantic Dream is famous for was for me quite a revelation back then, the
graphics were atmospheric, the voice acting was good, the choice and consequence
system was exciting, the dialogue system kept you on your toes and the story
was well presented…if only the developers didn’t jump the shark at the end.
The game starts with some nice
aerial shots of snowy New York City, accompanied by Angelo Badalamenti’s
melancholy music. The camera zooms in on the place where all great adventures
start, a diner’s restroom. Our protagonist, Lucas Kane, is being possessed by
‘something’ and murders another man. You take control and—in a Hitchcockian
moment—have to quickly clean up the crime scene before anyone else walks in. Afterwards,
you flee the scene and the police show up. Someone’s bound to notice a dead
body in a diner’s restroom after all. The two policemen that are assigned the
case are Carla Valenti and Tyler Miles. Already the game shows promise by
allowing you to take control of Carla and later Tyler. (You spend the rest of
the game taking turns controlling these characters.) Lucas tries to forget the
ordeal, but is haunted by strange creatures only he can see. He thus decides he
has to find a way to figure out what happened to him and why, with Carla and
Tyler hot on his trail.
A pretty basic setup, but the reason
I still vividly remember this game is its cinematic nature. Developer Quantic
Dream sped up the dialogue system. Whereas in most games you could have your
glass-eyed protagonist stare blankly at his conversational partner ad infinitum
while you thoroughly analyze every convo option, Fahrenheit presents you with
the more cinematic option, a time limit: quickly select the option that seems
most appropriate. The game also allows has these 'slice of life' sections where you can explore your apartment and just do things, interact with objects or people. Rather than slowing the game down to a crawl, these segments always felt really wonderful. Usually, games were all about moving from one action set piece to the next, so these sections were a breath of fresh air.
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| How does a game go from this... |
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| ...to this!? |
The story and its presentation are also
wonderfully done, but they’re also the game’s greatest weakness. While I
thoroughly enjoyed controlling Lucas/Carla/Tyler and have them interact with
their environments, the longer the story goes on, the more it you realize it’s
taking a one way trip to Jumping the Shark Ville. I still find it downright sad
to remember how such an engagingly presented story went full retard and make no
mistake, it does with fucking aplomb, though I suppose I should’ve seen it
coming as the very game begins with Lucas being possessed. Indeed, the game doesn’t hide its supernatural themes,
but a lot of the gameplay felt so grounded that I could deal with it. But then
some hooded guy stalks you, who turns out to be some ancient dude who’s been
possessing people, having them kill others so he could extend his own lifespan.
Why? Because he seeks the Indigo Child. Wait, what’s an Indigo Child? Some kid
with special powers that mustn’t fall into the wrong hands. As it turns out,
another cult or two are also after the Indigo Child and you have to protect her
more or less. And then the end of the world is coming, etc. All this is told
with a straight face, mind you! How, in merciful fuck, does a story screw up
this bad? It would have been so much better had the story replaced all the
supernatural nonsense and Matrix-styled
fight scenes with a more ‘normal’ story, more focus on the three main
characters and more ‘grounded’ gameplay. It says it all that it’s the little things I remember most dearly; working on the
case in the police station with Carla and Tyler, questioning the waitress in
the restaurant, walking around Lucas/Carla/Tyler’s apartments and doing stuff, thinking on my feet as I decide how to answer people's questions.
It’s the kind of gameplay that let me take the story in on my own terms and
pace and allowed me to slowly get to know these characters.
It’s a game I have fond memories of, but that
storyline just defies belief. I recently discovered some people are clamoring
over an HD remake of Fahrenheit. If Quantic Dream decides to make one, which I
doubt, then the first things they need to do is fully rewrite the second half of the story, if not all of it.
Stray
observations:
Fahrenheit
was one of those games that was a bit controversial because of its sexual
content. This was more of an issue in America, so the American version was
censored, but not the European version. What I find most hilarious however, are
the differences between the two sex scenes. One is just a cutscene, but the
other allows you to…get interactive. I have no idea how the people over at
Quantic Dream thought that was a good idea. Watching pixelated people—on the PS2
mind you—get it on is awkward enough without the game instructing me to ‘push
up to thrust’…
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