No miento cuando digo que Fahrenheit es uno de los peores «juegos» que haya probado. Y no porque sea más bien una peli con algo de interacción (The Walking Dead S1 es genial) - su mediocridad se extiende a varios niveles, pero los principales son:

Jugabilidad

El punto más bajo y flojo. Básicamente se juega como un juego clásico de aventura, lo que no está mal - hasta se puede intercambiar el uso de personajes en algunas escenas, lo que permite diferentes perspectivas y formas de interactuar con el entorno. Pero ahí termina lo bueno. Fahrenheit depende mucho de quick-action events, esos en los que tenés que apretar botones como loco en el momento justo para avanzar la secuencia. Aunque funciona en juegos como Resident Evil 4 (ya que es realmente algo ocasional y bastante simple), aquí es básicamente un juego de baile. No, literalmente hay que tocar los botones en la secuencia exacta tipo Dance Dance Revolution, pero sin fallarle apenas - hasta incluso el HUD son 4 flechas de colores.

En escenas en las que hay que lograr que el personaje esquive ataques o se mueva con sigilo, es divertido. Para el que mira nomás. Desde una perspectiva de diseño, ésto es una atrocidad. ¿Cuál es la relación con el juego o la trama? ¿Acaso los personajes tienen que bailar para salvar sus vidas o procrear? Nop. Cero relación con el resto del juego. Y pasar por éstos quick-time events es obligatorio para ganar el «juego».

Trama

Bueno, uno pensaría que un título en el que lo que importa es la historia, al menos tendría una decente, bien escrita, y medianamente original, ¿no? Iré al grano: ésta historia es una porquería de clase B que ni siquiera es de esas «tan malas que son buenas». Clichés como profecías sin sentido y elegidos, un prota que termina tirandose a la chica, un enemigo encapuchado y «malévolo», un negro bastante trillado, salvar al mundo, visiones, etc. Personajes vacíos y predecibles, carentes de personalidad. Una trama que *sorpresa* tiene un final feliz (al menos uno de los finales) de los obvios. Muy pobre representación de temas como el bien y el mal. Etc etc.

Fahrenheit es un juego pretencioso y realmente muy mal diseñado. Ya los dos aspectos que mencioné son argumento suficiente para que no pierdas tu tiempo en ésto. No perderé tiempo analizando otros apartados flojos, cómo el gráfico - ya sé que es del 2005 y blah blah blah, pero hay muchos juegos de esa época e incluso antes (Silent Hill 3) que se ven mucho mejor en cuanto a modelado, iluminación, animación, etc. Pero bueno, supongo que Indigo Prophecy fue más un experimento que otra cosa - incluso aparece David Cage explicándonos algunos aspectos del «juego» - lástima que falla como tal, y ni siquiera funciona como pelicúla interactiva.

Previously, I played the original Fahrenheit that I bought on DVD over a decade ago. It may not have been ground-breaking even back then, but it puts the "interactive movie" genre in a new light thanks to the technological advancements that add to the immersion value. Since I got the remastered release as part of a Humble Bundle pack, I figured I would revisit and digest it with prior experience in mind.

The story takes focus on mainly 3 characters in an increasingly cold winter season in New York City; one having been possessed to murder a stranger while two others are detectives on the investigation of the crime. Playing through the segments in each character's perspective, there are 2 prime features that'll decide how you carry out the events. The first one is the dialogue choices that occur during the conversation with other characters. Having them timed can be a double-edged sword in a plot-driven adventure game; it may play up to the real-time factor of an interactive movie. But, unless you have a good simultance capacity, considering between the dialogue options while trying to keep up with the occuring dialogues have a chance to make you miss out on plot details or make the wrong choice too soon.

The second prime feature is the QuickTime Events, affecting the outcome of current scene you play in. You have 8 buttons, that are like made for controller layout, as well as button mashing moments. Such execution made here is quite experimental but having played the demos on Quantic Dream's later games, they would learn to revamp and improve QTE formula, which here is barely intuitive in comparison. The third prime feature is the wider freedom of approach in your environmental and object interaction, some are crucial for succeeding while others are open choices for attaining your goal and some can lead you to death/failure.

It all sounds good on paper and has something interesting going on from the start, only until the plot drops the mystery factor for ludicrous, super-power plot devices two-thirds in. Even the pacing picks up to a rushed degree, which may have killed the potential satisfaction in the conclusion(s) of the story.

In my younger years, I have found Fahrenheit to be a refreshing and exciting output from the storytelling niche of video games (I was crazy about Matrix). But from the points mentioned above, it is hard to recommend this when there are more refined and worthy games that Quantic Dream has brought out later. Fahrenheit hasn't aged well, despite the remaster, but might be worth looking into at a sale.

SPOILER

So I finished this game exactly at 12 am and I intended to finish it yesterday (so like 11 minutes ago). So close.

Anyway, the only reason I'm writing this in English is so I can use the term lazy writing as I please.

Because Fahrenheit truly is Lazy Writing: The Videogame. Guess that makes it two Fahrenheits I don't like. Though this was far more fun that 451 so it has that going for it at least.

Anyway so basically the game starts pretty strong, and from one point in the middle it just goes completely nuts. In a bad way.

The protagonist conveniently has superhuman powers exactly when the police are gonna catch him. Alright.

But why did he have to see exactly the person he needed to see on TV exactly at that moment? What are the fucking odds? Were you really not able to come up with anything better than a Mayan expert showing up on TV exactly after mayans being mentioned? Really, David Cage?

The concept of the story is mighty interesting, don't get me wrong, it's just badly executed. If you took the first half of the game for a remake, this could make an incredible movie. Because the concept is just so good.

But it's not as good as to outweigh the poorly written way it's executed in. What a shame.

Anyway, don't get me started on the gameplay. Really. I had to change the difficulty from hard to normal and then to easy, and the only thing I regret is not doing it sooner.

It's a pain in the ass. I don't know if it was like this on consoles and PC but on the Android version, which is what I played, it was extremely hard. You're asking for a kind of precision impossible to have on a fucking touch screen.

I mean the colored arrows, of course. The worst thing is that they get even stupider as the game goes on because at the start they do make some kind of sense, since if, for example, you're running from a monster and you have to turn left, then you swipe left.

But at the end of the game you got these cutscenes (because they are cutscenes) in which these fucking things make absolutely no goddamn sense because it doesn't matter. The moves the guy makes have nothing to do with what you're doing on the QTEs. At this point just let me watch the damn thing.

Like, there were some action scenes. And I guess they were cool. I say I guess because HOW COULD I KNOW IF I HAD TO DO THE MOTHERFUCKING QUICK TIME EVENTS WHILE THEY WERE HAPPENING. Fuck these QTEs, for real. Never seen them done worse in a videogame.

And well the whole thing about moving your characters around close environments with the shitty camera... That's something David Cage just will never learn. It's been a while since I've played Detroit, and I know it fixes a lot of the problems this one and Heavy Rain have, but I don't know if this is one of them.

It should, anyway, because like I read on Grouvee, Quantic Dream is the proof that if you keep making the same game over and over one of these days you'll end up making a good one.

Sadly this still had a long way before that. Heavy Rain too had some of these problems (its plotholes were outrageous), but it was far nicer to play.

Oh, did I mention the stupid way Lucas and Carla get together at the end? "I love you"? What? You just met the fucking guy. And then they have sex. Really gratioutious.

Oh and I love Tyler. Love the way he's so useless for the game that the way it has to get rid of him is to have his girlfriend (that appears two times before this) ask him to leave with her for Florida. Seriously, his existence was dispensable.

This is one of the few games that are a lot better if you just watch it on Youtube.

And that's how this review ends. I'll never know why I played this because as far as the world is concerned, this is just a shit game.