Interactive Cinema as a genre rose and fell in the early to mid 90s, with (infamous) titles such as
Dragon's Lair and
Cyberwar that gave you superior graphics at the expense of gameplay - requiring you simply to press 'Left' or 'Right' at the correct moment occasionally. Now wacky Frenchman David Cage of
Quantic Dream has made his attempt to resurrect the genre with
Fahrenheit.
In their previous outing
Omikron: The Nomad Soul (1999), Quantic Dream employed instead "Sandbox" (I hate that definition) style gameplay for their "immersive experience": cutting the player loose in the city of an alternate dimension. Now they've changed their tack to Interactive Cinema (to read their gaming manifesto in handy point-form click
here), although they still utilise their
motion-capture studio to its fullest.
Being a big fan of
Nomad Soul (as it was named out here in Aus), I'd been awaiting the sequel (which has just gone
back into development) for some time; until it was put on hold indefinitely to complete their new project
Fahrenheit. This game looked promising enough, especially with the interesting idea of playing it from multiple (often directly opposing) viewpoints; each bundled as a separate episodic module to be released (roughly) monthly - to give it the feel of a television series. Various things conspired against Quantic Dream, and the episodic structure was abandoned, as well as their original publisher. That it came out at all is miraculous to say the least; to be successful at all is the icing on the cake.
Nomad Soul was criticised for trying to be all things to all men: it attempted to integrate several genres into one (Adventure; FPS; Fighting), while leaving adherents of each genre unsatisfied. While Cage would no doubt try to defy categorisation of
Fahrenheit under anything but "Interactive Cinema", the game has been all but offically adopted by the Adventure genre and community. It might best be viewed as one of
several possible new directions for the ailing genre to take.
It starts out promisingly enough, beginning with a cinematic sweep over New York City with the main character providing voice-over that sounds slightly cheesy, but not unforgivably so. The first scene is suitably gritty, not to mention tense. The primary innovation on the branching dialogue trees typical of Adventure games is that there is a time limit to your choices, so everything you do is given an urgency, but unfortunately this urgency isn't always appropriate. From 'level' to 'level' you are given the option of controlling any one of the 3 main characters (not 4, despite what the game promises - if you're going to include Marcus' tiny part, then why not also The Oracle's?), however this choice is seemingly illusory, as all must be completed to advance (although this might not be entirely true, I've only played it through once, and it's possible that you might be able to skip less important sections depending on the choices you make).
And this is another claim the game makes for innovation: that the branching storyline choices provide for alternate endings. The autosave feature (which is activated virtually every scene) means that you cannot really create multiple savegames on the one playthrough to make different choices; instead, you must play the whole game through to see the different story branches (although it seems it may be possible to circumvent this feature with the help of a little inventiveness).
Somewhere around the middle of the game, the complexity and pace of the story speed up dramatically and, unfortunately, bottom-out somewhat. One is left with the feeling that this is the result of abandoning the episodic structure in favour of a single 'feature'. It seems that the story from this point was written, but not yet fleshed-out, and any subsequent 'fleshing-out' was cursory to say the least. The relationship between the two main characters is never really developed, and when it climaxes there are definite titters to be heard from the 'audience'.
This may not be a result of rushed development, however, and may instead just be bad writing. The same accusation can be made of the bizarre love-twist finale to
Nomad Soul; indeed many elements of that game are included in
Fahrenheit. In fact, at times it feels like someting of a 'Best-Of' of
Nomad Soul (in the same sense that some of the best gags in
Shaun of the Dead were just rehashed from
Spaced), and certain story elements (such as the aforementioned relationship) come across as rather farcical. Come to think of it, there are more farcical elements than just the storyline: for instance, Afro-American character Tyler Miles is always accompanied by a funky, porn-ish soundtrack, even during the darker moments of the story.
That said, the awesomeness of the soundtrack is truly revealed upon unlocking it as one of the easter eggs (which is what those coupons you pickup through out the game are for), besides which it makes for some damned funny gaming. The downtime scenes such as where where the same character has a basketball shoot-out with a colleague to avoid paying back the 100 bucks he owes him is equally cool, as well as when the two cops have a spar in the gym.
I bought it on PS2 rather than PC, as for several years Adventure games had been simultaneously released on PC and console, and I'd never tried the console versions. Given that the controls were usually geared towards those platforms, it was worth a try. The graphics were decent for PS2, but not suitably improved from
Nomad Soul to impress me overmuch. Everything is muted by the grainy filter and subdued colours, and this serves to disguise the lower level of detail: I'd be interested to see what the X-Box and PC versions look like. The motion-capture, however, has not improved enough since 1999, and the models still tend to exaggerate all their movements. Thankfully, characters no longer only mime wielding objects (as in
Nomad Soul), and are now provided with appropriate props.
The control system has been discussed at length elsewhere; suffice it for me to say that my biggest criticism of it is that it means you can only watch the action set-pieces of the game in your peripheral vision, and
most of them aren't unlockable as easter eggs. This can be slightly annoying, as they're quite spectacular in a Matrix-y sort of way. Indeed, the game manages to fall on the right side of the very fine line between homage and plagiarism/derivativeness; a fall that always seems to be inexplicable. Oh, and the sex-scene that was cut from the US release ISN'T interactive. At least in the Australian version. Or maybe I just hadn't made the right story-branch decisions earlier ...
This is a game that every serious Adventure gamer (and they all take themselves a bit seriously, don't they?) should play, if only to see one possible trajectory their beloved genre may take. It's also part of the gaming vanguard where developers are trying to make games for people who don't usually play them (see the above-linked manifesto). Interesting stuff; watch this space.
