Fahrenheit Xbox

[Family Fry]

Anyone notice that this game is selling quite well on http://www.gameplay.com/ and www.play.com

we sold out of our copies in the shop, but thats down to me going "buy it buy it buy it"
we'll find out in this weeks MCV where it stands in the charts... i hope it makes it into the top 10!

http://www.chart-track.co.uk/index.jsp?c=p/software/uk/latest/index_test.jsp&ct=110015

New in at Number 3 all formats Chart.
Number 3 in PS2 Chart.
Number 1 in Xbox Chart
Number 2 in PCCD Chart.

NOT BAD NOT BAD, my faith in the buying public has been reinstated.
Think the xbox/ps2 and PC demo may have helped push sales as the demo gives you a tiny glimpse of what is possible in the game world.

[sj33]

Think the xbox/ps2 and PC demo may have helped push sales as the demo gives you a tiny glimpse of what is possible in the game world.

Indeed, I am basing my forthcoming purchase of this game on my experience of the demo.
Demo's are invaluble IMO, they allow users to experience games they may have previously just walked past. I look forward to the 360's promise of downloadable game demo's on Live.

Err, drifting OT now...

[PeteJ]

Excellent for a game like this, restores some hope in the world. Interested in what the actual sales figures are though, it hasn't really been a big week for new releases.

You are probably right about the clock Concept - it did feel like a lot more than 6 hours. I didn't 'fail' much in the game though, once I got to grips with the QTE's early on I didn't ever fail them again. All that time playing Frequency has paid off The only time I got stuck for ages was...

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When Markus is about to get killed, Lucas is in the hotel and the police are about to break in. I spent ages trying to escape from the room, not thinking about that damn telephone. Doh!

[Concept]

PeteJ -

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I just completed the game again (to see the AI/Oracle endings), and I was surprised to meet up with Marcus later in the adventure. It's possible to let him die if you have enough mental health, as first time through he was killed and we didn't hook up at the Subway. I thought that was a very nice touch to see that he survives later on.

Oh, and nothing happens if you let Tyler stay. On my first playthrough, I said no to Sam's offer of leaving with her, and he separated from Carla and joined up with the Police to help the rescue efforts.

[PeteJ]

Ahh cool,

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I had to resque him at this point because I only had 5 mental health. From Agatha getting killed right up to the rooftop scene Lucas was very unstable, I had to be really careful what I did or didn't do. Breaking into the apartment was incredibly tough, falling once while climbing ended the adventure. The bit where you hide from Tyler was also pretty tough, I had to get it perfect. Meeting up with Marcus was quite a nice moment though

.

I've been reading threads about the game over at rllm and gaming-age, some people have really come down hard on the game. Surprisingly so. I think some are expecting a film like script and book like characters, something which is nearly impossible to do in a game (because the player has to have some control over the actions and conversations). For a game, I really believe this has one of the most gripping stories and interesting characters ever. I just hope the 'industry' takes onto it positively and builds upon what Cage has designed.

QuanticDream's next game will certainly be one to watch...

[PH]

Bought and played this twice through from the start over the weekend. Loved it. Totally agree with that PeteJ just wrote. Gripping storyline and really interesting characters.

Has anyone mentioned the voice acting yet? Spot on as far as i'm concerned. The voices really did seem to belong to the characters. Too many adventure games really fail in this area and therefore the atomsphere of the game is spoiled - anyone who is currently playing Nibiru at the mo will know what i mean.

Its funny because when i first started playing i assumed the game would be more of a traditional point and clicker. After an hour or so i realised it was, wait for it, an interactive movie. LOL. I actually preferred it this way because the storyline was so engrossing that i didn't want to get stuck in parts of the game trying to figure something out for hours and hours on end. Just going with the flow making choices on the fly (first time around anyway) was a lot of fun.

What did people make of the action sequences? I thought they were far too easy. It took me a couple of goes on my first play through to get use to them, but after that i don't think i messed up at all. I thought later on in the game we might see some really fast sequences or more than 2 lights flashing at once.

A thought, which i guess i should put in spoiler tags :

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I wonder if its possible to play Carla and Tyler as inept as possible so they never work out Lucas is the killer? I guess thats asking too much? I know when the waitress is helping the police construct the picture of the killer she can get it all wrong. I guess that would at least effect the meeting between Carla and Lucas at his place of work.

[Concept]

PH -

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On my second time through, I had Lucas' picture-fit make him look like the Rasta tramp who helps you down the sewer, and when you're in his apartment checking the television news he no longer panics to himself over it , in the evidence room it's impossible to link the picture-fit to the photo-fit, and when you interview him at his place of work and he's asked about the picture-fit you can give any answer without a negative reaction (Tyler/Carla say to themselves that they're going to have a hard time finding the Killer). Speaking of which you don't have to use Carla to interrogate Lucas at work... you can also use Tyler in her place and the scene plays out a little differently (I found it easier).

[Concept]

Thinking on this a little longer, I suppose these small details of being able to deliberately help or hinder the investigation play to the game's structural strengths. For example,

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just as you can make life hard for Carla and Tyler to help Lucas, as Lucas you're able make mistakes to help the police. The role reversals encourage you to think carefully on whose side you want to be on, and weigh up the potential costs.

For me, there are two specific moments which standout highlighting the the game's two most successful approaches to design.

1) The moment when Sam walks into the poilice station and the game throws you an emotional dilemma in determining where Tyler's priority lies for his future. I thought it was probably one of the most underplayed moments in the whole game, and because of this, it was amongst the most touching.

2) The immediate role reversal at the bank, where Lucas and his hunter/s come face to face, where to begin with you're on his side, and then immediately after on his. Did anyone else notice that if you actually fail the QTEs whist being interrogated it seems to arouse less suspicion? And how the reality of the bugs seems to be set to his mental disposition, implying that they aren't part his connection to the Oracle, but of his own making? This implies some of what he perceives is only happening inside his head and merges the boundaries a touch? I admired the fact that immediately after you've helped Lucas evade capture, you're put into the position of having to find clues to convict him. That duality, and the close reversal of it, seems to highlight the way in which Fanrenheit is constantly spinning and forcing you to come to conlusions on who you want to help and why. On this scene, the game clearly folds back in on itself to present that contrast. It's something which seems to be the opposite to what happens at Carla's apartment, where the entangled switching between characters is used to develop co-operation rather than opposition.

Edit. Forgot to include spoiler tags - sorry.

[Chief H]

Indeed, though the only problem with that design is that the game is bound to it's linear narrative - you can stray from the path a little, but the path can never be rewritten. Fahrenheit repeatedly makes a point of what it believes the overall goal of the player ought to be - almost all of the 'game over'-style endings mention how each character laments over not revealing the mystery of what happened in the diner and what happened to Lucas. Inevitably, in order to 'finish' the game, Lucas must evade capture and this is a choice that is almost forced upon you (though the game does well to not make you dwell on this point for very long). The efficiency of the detectives investigating the events is a little more open and this is where the interest lies. If you really wanted to have Lucas caught and thrown behind bars, you can do this in the first scene of the game. What the game cunningly leads the player to do is tease themselves on in a cat-and-mouse chase, where the player is both cat and mouse. The player in fact plays with themself and not so much with the computer and it's this that makes progress in Fahrenheit so compelling. It's not a magnificent plot that urges the player to play on, nor is it a wonderful script or awe-inspiring graphics - it's the player's own toying with the powers of action and consequence that offers the greatest lure.

[EvilBoris]

i've started playing through it a second time and have seen a few scenes which I didn't see the first tmie, but I've been left slightly dissapointed by te lack of variation in the story, I assumed that you could majorly alter the story by doing different things

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for instance I tried to let the little boy drown, but when I did all that happened was lucas handed himself in at the police station, also in the first scene I tried not to find the murder weapon, but it wouldn't let me leave til I had

[PeteJ]

I thought the

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failed QTE being better than winning

was lifted directly out of Shenmue 2, and a fairly cheeky unfair game mechanic. There is nothing to suggest you need to do this (unlike the situation in Shenmue), which is harsh.

The

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bugs I always thought were part of the AI attacking Lucas. Notice how they only appear indoors near electrical components? Ok the huge bug when being questioned comes from the roof, but that doesn't completely disprove my theory! The only reason I believe this is because of the short dream sequence just before Lucas wakes up in the hotel (when Marcus is close to being killed), which is blatently the AI discussing his future, and the graphical effects are the same as the bugs. Maybe?

The best moments for me where always

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when the police closed in on lucas leaving very little time to escape - at the start when you need to hide the evidence with the officer at the door, or when Tyler\Carler approach lucas in the office, or in particular when the police are speeding towards agatha's home and you are inside. This last one was crazy-good - I actually left through the window as the police burst through the front door, but left without the information I required. I found what I needed, but couldn't get it out of the cage. This one scene was one of the most intense I've ever played, and this is not down to the action, but because the situation is so believeable.

Perhaps this is why the final sections lose their impact so much - the best moments feel like real life situations, and they work because they've never been done before in a game.

[spagmasterswift]

i've started playing through it a second time and have seen a few scenes which I didn't see the first tmie, but I've been left slightly dissapointed by te lack of variation in the story, I assumed that you could majorly alter the story by doing different things

->Open Spoiler<-

for instance I tried to let the little boy drown, but when I did all that happened was lucas handed himself in at the police station, also in the first scene I tried not to find the murder weapon, but it wouldn't let me leave til I had

->Open Spoiler<-

I let the boy drown and just legged it off to the left, thus avoiding the police. He just gets more depressed and guilt ridden though as a result.

Also although I ran out with the knife in my hand, the police found it hidden in a toilet o_O

[Concept]

What the game cunningly leads the player to do is tease themselves on in a cat-and-mouse chase, where the player is both cat and mouse. The player in fact plays with themself and not so much with the computer and it's this that makes progress in Fahrenheit so compelling. It's not a magnificent plot that urges the player to play on, nor is it a wonderful script or awe-inspiring graphics - it's the player's own toying with the powers of action and consequence that offers the greatest lure.

That's why I think structurally, it's unlike any other game of this type out there. We're forced into a lack of loyalty towards the characters we control, but it's that very standpoint which eventually allows us to relate to them more than we otherwise might. We come to understand the motives and aspirations of everyone (central) involved.

I think primarily the structure is what fuels the game, and our ability to sympathise with its characters more. As PeteJ said early, I think criticising the game for not having a quality film standard script is a little unfair because the main reason the experience works isn't due to the action, it's what glues the action together for us to participate inside it. A result of that is a closer relationship between the system, ourselves and our interactions with the characters the system represents.

i've started playing through it a second time and have seen a few scenes which I didn't see the first tmie, but I've been left slightly dissapointed by te lack of variation in the story, I assumed that you could majorly alter the story by doing different things

Yeah.. it isn't as open as some would you like to believe, but as Spagmasterswift points out, there are a number of little things you can do to alter things later on, even if the outcomes are the same. I mentioned a few aspects before which change things slightly, and if you pay close attention to

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the restaurant, there are other details you can trigger (such as phoning Marcus from the restaurant and collecting a call list with the police, or speaking to Bogart with Carla/Tyler outside if Lucas takes the backdoor).

Main outcomes don't change, but you can have an impact on seemingly small details to change character viewpoints/the way you solve things later on at certain points. I also like it how the game offers you the chance to choose the order the scenes play into each other at the end of each chapter too.

I thought the

->Open Spoiler<-

failed QTE being better than winning

was lifted directly out of Shenmue 2, and a fairly cheeky unfair game mechanic. There is nothing to suggest you need to do this (unlike the situation in Shenmue), which is harsh.

The

->Open Spoiler<-

bugs I always thought were part of the AI attacking Lucas. Notice how they only appear indoors near electrical components? Ok the huge bug when being questioned comes from the roof, but that doesn't completely disprove my theory! The only reason I believe this is because of the short dream sequence just before Lucas wakes up in the hotel (when Marcus is close to being killed), which is blatently the AI discussing his future, and the graphical effects are the same as the bugs. Maybe?

The best moments for me where always

->Open Spoiler<-

when the police closed in on lucas leaving very little time to escape - at the start when you need to hide the evidence with the officer at the door, or when Tyler\Carler approach lucas in the office, or in particular when the police are speeding towards agatha's home and you are inside. This last one was crazy-good - I actually left through the window as the police burst through the front door, but left without the information I required. I found what I needed, but couldn't get it out of the cage. This one scene was one of the most intense I've ever played, and this is not down to the action, but because the situation is so believeable.

Perhaps this is why the final sections lose their impact so much - the best moments feel like real life situations, and they work because they've never been done before in a game.

Aye. I can see the Shenmue II comparisons

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now that you mention it in regards to that scene, though I think Lucas' reaction does suggest that failing them is the right thing to do. You have a point on the AI aspect, as they do seem to appear around eletrical equipment, and you could say that the 'murder' message Lucas sees on his computer at work near the start is the hypontic trigger the purple clan plant inside him. However, the game is open to interpretation, and I think it's also possible to view it as an aspect of his deranged mind... though it only goes so far when you consider that the orange clan must be real due to the other various, viewpoints the player is allowed to control.

I enjoyed the tension with the police closing in on Lucas after he discovers Agatha's body. On my second time through I just about made it out in time after discovering the scrap of newspaper in the bird's cage. Did anyone get to open the locked closet in the sitting room? I couldn't find a way into it.

One open goal I think Quantic Dream missed to make the scenes with Agatha more clever is on the flashbacks to the restaurant. I thought the reason there were QTEs during that segment was because Agatha happened to be manipulating Lucas from the future so he could re-enter his body under her spell in the past and kill the man. I thought there was going to be the creation of a time paradox, but it was never to be. Having said that, the introduction to the Oracle was expertly handled and they nailed the disturbing, almost mechanical nature of his voice dead on. The contrast between (what I view as) the most disturbing moment of the game, and the lightness of the basketball game between Tyler and Jeffrey straightafterwards (in the order that I played it) contrasted really well against each other.

As for the final sections... I know this goes against popular opinion, but I really liked the game up until the ending at the base. I had nothing against the revelation of the AI, but I feel Farenheit really needed another hour or so after the Subway to nail down the revelations and create more continuity towards the end. There should have also been a greater spectacle for the final battle, as to be truthful, it felt as though the game had run out of steam by that point.

Having said that, I think it's unfair on what Farenheit offers overall to dwell on its ending too much, because the majority of the experience points to a level of design that holds a hell of a lot of potential in delivering cinematic narrative in a different way to the 'watch and play' (MGS) or 'in-game trigger' (Half-Life) formats.

[spagmasterswift]

->Open Spoiler<-

I liked the way the drunken bum outside the restaurant talked about seeing the Devil coming out the back door. I had made a break for it out of the front door and was beginning to wonder about the quality of execution here (especially as I had made a point of leaving with the murder weapon only to find it stashed in the toilet), but later I discovered that the hooded figure I had sat with left through that door.

I liked even more that my flat mate couldn't get any information out of him on his play through

The control method has really been playing on my mind though, having dreams were I have to push up in order to do any basic activities >_< Killer7 haunted me in a similar way.

Really interesting watching my mate play and the responses he had for the girlfriends (he broke from a long relationship reasonably recently). The ability to infuse each character with your own personality is very impressive - whether you are aware you are doing it or not

[Wozza]

The speed you are forced to make choices and decide upon conversations is also very impressive. Games like Broken Sword don't offer you the same urgency and allow you far more time to think what you want to ask characters and what response you'd like to give, with the outcomes very black and white. This game offers a lot more shades of grey.