When the
Fahrenheit demo came out on PC, the gaming crowds seemed really impressed. Oddly, so were pure adventurers (of the point-and-click variety). This, you see, was a very unique and refreshingly innovative game with a demo that managed to brilliantly showcase all its best elements and leave you wanting. It was immediately evident that
Fahrenheit was a game heavy on story, a game that was very proficient in using cinematographic techniques, a game that was obviously an adventure at heart, but also a game with beautiful graphics, impressive production values, excellent music and convincing atmosphere. The fact that it opened with the protagonist brutally murdering a random guy in a diner’s toilets did help establish the mood too.
What’s more, the full game, and that was a most refreshing change, mostly delivered on what the demo promised. Not that it didn’t have its mediocre bits, some incredibly bad writing or a shockingly silly ending, mind you, but it really was unique. And if you haven’t played it yet, it will still feel unique in 2010, as no other game, beside its
PS3 exclusive sequel, dared pull its tricks again. First of all, its context sensitive interface had both an early
Wii-like mentality and let you interact with almost anything in the game in a variety of ways, that almost provided you with the -perceived- interactivity of a text adventure. Secondly, the brilliant cinematics were turned into quasi-interactive ryth mini-games, and you also got to play a variety of different characters, solve some pretty interesting puzzles, intelligently interact with incredibly detailed environments and even get (almost) scared. Then, the use of multiple cameras went beyond mere aesthetics. It was a new gameplay element, that allowed you, for example, to see an adversary approaching while still trying to solve a puzzle or decide what to do next.
Still, the strength of the game lay elsewhere.
Fahrenheit, though admittedly only at times, managed to offer players a sense of complete freedom and the branching storyline to go with it. Take the game’s opening scene for example. You have just murdered a man you never knew and are standing bloody-handed in a toilet. You can simply try to escape unnoticed, you can try washing up and hiding the body, you can hide or simply ignore the murder weapon, you can panic and run out of the diner, you can go back and seat at your table pretending nothing happened, you can try to figure things out by examining the crime scene or even just leave via the back door. Assuming you actually left via the back door, you now had the option of either wasting time and talking to a weird yet intriguing homeless person, leaving the place on foot, going for a taxi or riding the tube. And then, when you assumed the role of the not totally unattractive detective chasing the former you, you’d have to actually deal with your former actions.
Intriguing, isn’t it? And it does get better, trust me. Sports a ton of minor innovations too. So, uhm, if you haven’t played
Fahrenheit (
Indigo Prophecy in the US), and you can stomach a mediocre B-movie plot, I strongly suggest you give it a try.
Here's the PC version demo.
