I would be telling you a perfectly sadistic lie if I were to recommend Indigo Prophecy on the merits of its nature as a "game." Further, I'd have to be rather intent on misleading you if I were to recommend it on the basis of its development as a story. Although, as a product that would like to invoke the impression as a video game that beneficially aligns with the idioms of cinema, it is an undeniable novelty, if not for its narrative direction (or more appropriately its directions) then as its interest as a stepping stone between the two mediums.
Although this is a video game, I would have to intuit that its alleged cinematic elements are what have you reading this review. Let me confirm this to you: this is one of the most incoherent and indecisive directions for a plot that I have ever witnessed appended to any entry of any medium. Because so much of this game is influenced by movies, it is probably most reasonable to relate its narrative to those found of other films and styles utilized by eminent directors. Initially, the game sets a tone obviously in the vein of a David Fincher film, namely one like in Fight Club or Se7en. The first couple of hours are genuinely engaging, mystifying, and well-kept; it is immediately after the exegesis and prologue that the story becomes to resemble an incredibly misguided supernatural thriller. I suppose the middle portions can be related to something from a post-The-Matrix Wachowski Brothers film, with direct visual allusions to the techniques used in those movies. (I found that these allusions grew very tiresome around the turn of the century and that they had lost all of their edge by the time of this game's release.) I was intensely considering quitting this experience before the final act, but I had an unflagging curiosity and will to see their attempt to steer the quickly disintegrating narrative away from sure catastrophe. Indeed, the episodes that followed could be described as catastrophic, but I am glad to say I continued playing Indigo Prophecy. The last stretch of the game is a breathtaking sequence of back-peddling, deus ex machina contrivances, ghastly osculations, uprisals of hitherto incidental factions, and unfathomable, illogical conclusions. A particular thought became to envelope all others during these moments: I began to imagine this as watching Nicolas Cage play all of the lead roles of every John Carpenter film put together into a singly, profoundly absurd denouement. The conclusion of the game is a mesmerizing collapse of inanity that is equally risible as it is admirable. If that sounds interesting to you, I recommend that you play this game to see it, even if it means having to participate in the activity of "playing" this game.
I remember when point-and-click adventure games came to criticized as becoming less and less in the resemblance of a video game. Let it be known that Indigo Prophecy is far less of a game than those others. The method of navigating through its various screens at best is mundane and unintuitive, and at worst it is baffling and nauseating. However, there is a variety in the ways the world can be interacted with and traversed. It is temporarily reinvigorating to see the creative ways to control our characters, but again they are hampered by control issues and we are again stultified by the way the game actually plays. Nothing about my time playing made me feel able to accurately control what was on the screen, which at the same time bolstered the oddity of this stiltedly crafted experience. In this way, it is a perverse serendipity.
Quantic Dream's intrepid task of combining the mechanisms of "game play" with a cinematic gusto is at once lame, ludicrous, frustrating, pretentious, irresponsible, impossible, and utterly, beautifully staggering. It is a confused creature that I love for all the things that it does not know that it does.