[jeld]

I´ve said it before (and people wanted to kill me ) it´s not even an adventure game. It´s like Dance Dance Revolution, with a story. Or wait, did Dance Dance Revolution have a story. In that case it´s exactally like Dance Dance.

Or like LSL:MCL, wich was crap as well.

[AFGNCAAP]

Did DDR also feature exploring locations, talking to characters, taking care of hero's mental balance and making decisions that slightly alter the story?

[NcroManiac]

Yes

[JemyM]

I liked the story, I liked the characters.
I even liked some of the action sequences since they made me feel a part of it.
The best sequences IMO was the one were you play guitar and the one were you play basketball.

There was, however, plenty that felt a bit too much, which I wont mention since they would be too much spoilers.

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by jeld

and people wanted to kill me

Oh come on, aren't you overreacting a little? You're still alive.

Note to self: Next time you hire hitmen, check if they charge per hour.

[Aj_]

Originally Posted by AFGNCAAP

It wouldn't, thanks to the fantastic characters. The writing, and one of the best examples of voice acting in games ever, made them feel like actual people, much more believeable than in majority of games, but also in quite a lot of movies. Granted, they deserved a better story than the latter half of the game, but I really cared for Lucas, Carla or Tiffany and that's a testament to Fahrenheit's excellence, as flawed as it may be in other areas.

It might have been on par with The Matrix: Reloaded and Revolutions, in that it was terrible. The dialogue wasn't bad, or the voice acting, but it wasn't captivating at all. Good writing, are you serious?

There's so little incite into the characters anyway, that for me the only possible way to care deeply for the characters is projection by the player. How much time and dialogue is spent on character development? Hardly any.

Straight to video material.

[jeld]

Originally Posted by insane_cobra

Oh come on, aren't you overreacting a little? You're still alive.

Note to self: Next time you hire hitmen, check if they charge per hour.

I said wanted to. I´m just too sneaky for them.

They seek him here, they seek him there...

[kuddles]

Originally Posted by Aj_

There's so little incite into the characters anyway, that for me the only possible way to care deeply for the characters is projection by the player. How much time and dialogue is spent on character development? Hardly any.

Remind me to never take any film suggestions from you, because the amount of character development in that game was, if anything, overwhelming to the point of being detrimental. More time was put into providing insight into the characters than actually explaining what was going on. In fact, some aspects had entire gameplay segments built into them,

Spoiler:

for example Tyler's strained relationship with his girlfriend, Lucas and his brother having a tumultous history and a lack of trust between them, and most interestingly, Carla's claustrophobia problem that she could never deal with and paranoia about if she was making the right decisions in her life (as the discussion with her friend, followed by the tarot card game clearly demonstrated.)

[MdaG]

I also just finished it and have to agree with whomever said that after the amusement park everything went down hill. Still I enjoyed the experience :-)

Btw.)

Spoiler:

I'm having a hard time coping with the fact that Carla fell in love in about 24h, had sex with the dead guy she loved and ended up getting pregnant by porking a living corpse... Another thing, I got the "Lucas becomes a God endning". What are the other endings?

[Junkface]

Originally Posted by MdaG

I also just finished it and have to agree with whomever said that after the amusement park everything went down hill. Still I enjoyed the experience :-)

Btw.)

Spoiler:

I'm having a hard time coping with the fact that Carla fell in love in about 24h, had sex with the dead guy she loved and ended up getting pregnant by porking a living corpse... Another thing, I got the "Lucas becomes a God endning". What are the other endings?

It actually sounds a lot more appealing the way you describe it...

[AFGNCAAP]

Originally Posted by MdaG

Spoiler:

I'm having a hard time coping with the fact that Carla fell in love in about 24h,

Spoiler:

David Cage explained that there is actually a gap of several weeks between Lucas and Carla meeting at the cemetery and the next scene. It's actually acknowledged in the subtitles appearing on screen, but everybody misses this fact. (Yeah, I did, too )

Spoiler:

Another thing, I got the "Lucas becomes a God endning". What are the other endings?

Spoiler:

The final cutscene (of which there are three versions) is entirely dependent on who learns the Indigo Child's secret, so you'll only have to replay the last chapter to see the alternatives.

[Q Son]

I have finished the game. I am beginning to understand why the game has an alternate title "Fahrenheit".

However, I don't see there are more than 1 ending. There is no "End of the World" ending is it?

[Rizu]

Originally Posted by AFGNCAAP

Spoiler:

David Cage explained that there is actually a gap of several weeks between Lucas and Carla meeting at the cemetery and the next scene. It's actually acknowledged in the subtitles appearing on screen, but everybody misses this fact. (Yeah, I did, too )

Chalk me up as another gamer who was disappointed with Fahrenheit after the amusement park events.

Spoiler:

I probably wouldn't have minded it so much if QD had shown us their relationship developing. Even a quick montage of time passing by, giving indications of Lucas and Carla developing feelings for one another would have sufficed.

This was what annoyed me about it: that they gave us a very vital, very marked change in the dynamics between the two protagonists with nothing more than a "3 weeks later" disclaimer at the bottom of the screen. Considering that, earlier in the game, they spent time on kickboxing and basketball matches that didn't really serve much purpose storywise, I thought that it was incredible (in the 'not so good' sense) that they'd just toss us the Lucas and Carla relationship so flippantly like that.

[oerhört]

Agreed about the rushed ending, but Fahrenheit is still the best story-exploring game for years. It may or may not be an adventure by some imaginary, strict standard, but who actually cares about that?

It's engaging, it's soothing, it's tense, it's accessible to newcomers, and it's got lots of fresh, creative energy. Yes, the story's not quite what it could have been. It's not perfect in any way, but if you didn't like Fahrenheit at least quite a bit, I wonder what kinds of "story-exploring games" you do like.

[MuyaMan]

Yeah, the story did get all messed up closer to the end, but it was really great (imo) for most of the game. What bothered me much more is the gameplay - or rather the lack of gameplay... There were almost no puzzles at all, certainly none like ones we're used to seeing in other adventure games. Breaking the game into those rather short 'scenes' doesn't even let you travel around the locations in the game as you like (at best, you can choose the order in which you want to play the 2-3 you're presented with)... and even inside each such scene, you hardly ever have to think about what to do or how to get past it - it's more like "talk to this or that person" or "get this and that". Not to mention the mini-games and action scenes with the horrible (and usually unrelated to screen events) controls (I played the PC version), which also needed much attention for the 'Simon Says' circles on the screen, not allowing you to fully enjoy the spectacular action happening on the rest of the screen...

Well, 'nuff whining for today

[oerhört]

Yeah. I still think that's missing the point. Sure, Fahrenheit wasn't at all the kind of adventure game we're used to, and it did indeed simplify things.

But at the same time, it kept itself interesting in a manner far more convincing, than say, Syberia. It did this by constantly changing the interactions, the settings, the moods and so on. And even though the "simon says" parts were quite simple to do once you got the hang of it, it was never their purpose to replace, or take the role of, the rock hard puzzles in other adventure games.

My point seems to be that you should take Fahrenheit for what it is, and not judge it just because it's not traditional adventure fare. I for one actually enjoyed both the "simon says" action parts, and the dialogue, and the storytelling, and all the small "games" such as shooting, breathing, "getting some coffee" and so forth. These parts aren't actually inherently flawed -- for the most part, they're just a bit different to what we're used to. And the main point remains: Is the player kept interested in the game? In the interaction choices? I'd say the answer is a resounding 'yes' for this game. You never know what comes next.

It was a different kind of game -- an experiment, and mostly successful at that. To nitpick that it didn't delve into large puzzles Ã* la "le serpent rouge" or some Broken Sword-ey manuscript deciphering is not very fair when the game excels as much as it does in so many fields.

[MuyaMan]

It's not that I don't appriciate the innovation in the game. I'm not even saying that I didn't enjoy the game - as I really did. I am even willing to accept some of the flaws of it as the game was somewhat 'experimental', and I certainly think it has raised the bar for future games in terms of production values and cinematic story-telling. But I think the gameplay itself was certainly one of the weaker points of Fahrenheit, and that's quite an important aspect of the game.

Playing the game, it was hard to escape the feeling that you are more a viewer than a participant. You hardly make any significant desicions, and some dramatic events don't have any impact at all on the story:

Spoiler:

For example, you can save the kid in the park or leave him to die - except for a comment by lucas at the end of the scene it doesn't change a thing throught the game. Worse, 2nd time I've played it, I couldn't find the friggin' phone in the church (when Lucas called Markus to warn him about the oracle). As a result, Markus got killed. The consequences of his death were Lucas having a mental state drop, and him not showing at the subway scene with the homeless people at the end. One would have thought that getting one of the 'main' characters killed would have had some more notable results.

So, though enjoying the game's atmosphere and story, I got the feeling I was just watching a movie which has to be constantly 'pushed' with rather technical actions.

[Birky]

I agree with most of the usual criticism given about Farenhiet so I won't repeat it here.

However, I am still waiting for a game in which the designer has had the guts to cut off certain sections of the game from you if you make certain descision or mistakes. This means you can still go on and complete the game but on another play thorugh you can see a genuine working out of the same plot in a different way. Not just a case of you choose this dialog option and you start the next scene in a different location, but it's the same scene really (DX:IW I hated for this after it claimed your choices would genuinly effect the game) This gives a game real replay value.

The only game I've found to come close to this is planescape:torment which had a genuine feeling of freedom, and wasn't afraid to let you miss some of the big plot points and twists if you didn't work for them - technically an RPG but it's closer to an adventure game once you get past the interface as all the big experience points are gained from conversations and character interactions... not hack and slash.

...sorry rant over.

[bysmitty]

Originally Posted by Birky

I agree with most of the usual criticism given about Farenhiet so I won't repeat it here.

However, I am still waiting for a game in which the designer has had the guts to cut off certain sections of the game from you if you make certain descision or mistakes. This means you can still go on and complete the game but on another play thorugh you can see a genuine working out of the same plot in a different way. Not just a case of you choose this dialog option and you start the next scene in a different location, but it's the same scene really (DX:IW I hated for this after it claimed your choices would genuinly effect the game) This gives a game real replay value.

The only game I've found to come close to this is planescape:torment which had a genuine feeling of freedom, and wasn't afraid to let you miss some of the big plot points and twists if you didn't work for them - technically an RPG but it's closer to an adventure game once you get past the interface as all the big experience points are gained from conversations and character interactions... not hack and slash.

...sorry rant over.

Check out this little game. It's short, maybe a half hour or so each time, but you will be hard pressed to play through the same way twice. It is not the large-scale game with high production values you're looking for but I serve it up just as an example of how it can be done.

...bysmitty

[oerhört]

Also, The Last Express. And Metal Gear Solid 2, in which an entire act of the game could be skipped depending on whether or not you said that you were familiar with the series. Quite radical.