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Why Everyone Hates It: Indigo Prophecy (or Fahrenheit in the UK) is a strange experimental game, attempting to come off more like watching a movie than playing a game. That in and of itself is going to turn off a lot of people. It's also rather obscure, and comprised almost entirely of dialog choices and QTEs.
Legitimate Issues With the Game: While the more experimental aspects of Indigo Prophecy are actually pulled off quite well, the more game-like aspects leave something to be desired, and some aspects of the movie emulation aren't exactly admirable.
Why I Like It Anyway: Indigo Prophecy is part of a very easily ignorable trend. Every few years, someone (frequently the developer of this game in fact, David Cage) will attempt to create a game that "creates a cinematic experience." In one way or another, someone attempts to make a game that captures what they consider the best aspects of watching a movie. While this usually results in sad, embarrassing drivel, here it actually works surprisingly well.
The first thing that Indigo Prophecy throws in the player's face is the verisimilitude of the interface. Any action oriented aspects of the gameplay are handled in one of three ways. Exhaustive activities require the player to rapidly hit shoulder buttons until their fingers are legitimately getting tired. Interacting with objects (climbing over a fences, opening doors, things like that) involve moving joysticks in related patterns, and the associated character animation plays in sync with the motion, so you can, for instance, very slowly open a door half way, then pull it closed, if the mood should strike you. Finally, the really intense actiony bits are handled with QTEs. Specifically, with fully joystick-based QTEs, with the Simon styled cue images appearing on screen with enough lead time that you can't really be caught off guard by them. This avoids the all-too-common problem of more or less putting one's controller down while two characters talk, then suddenly have a big flashing "B" jump out of nowhere, while also removing the potential problem of forgetting which button is which in a moment of panic.
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Most of the game is spent shifting back and forth between the main character, who starts things off by being mind-controlled into ritualistically murdering someone in the bathroom of a diner, and the cops trying to hunt him down. Eventually the two plotlines converge in a way that gives everyone a common goal, but for the bulk of the game, this leads to some interesting conflicts. For instance, as the game starts, we have our involuntary murderer standing in a crime scene. You have a very limited amount of time to hide as much evidence as you can manage and get away from the scene before someone notices. Then you immediately switch perspective to the cops, searching the scene later that day for any possible clues. There's a fair number of incriminating things you're likely to discover that you hadn't thought of earlier, and thanks to a brief cutaway that served to remind you to hurry earlier, there's a rather important clue you won't know where to look for.
Apart from time frequently being a factor, pressure is applied to what otherwise would be rather relaxed and dull scenes thanks to the game keeping track of various people's stress levels. If the main character has too much anxiety to deal with being on the run from the law and the other strange things he's constantly forced to deal with (including literal giant space fleas from nowhere at one point), he'll be overwhelmed and kill himself, game over. If the cops get too discouraged from their lack of progress, they'll give up on the case, also ending the game. This sort of thing can also apply to NPCs. A witness at the murder scene for instance will potentially clam up if the questioning proves too much for her.
The bulk of the gameplay, thanks to these mechanics, ends up being comprised of dialog trees, and puttering around apartments looking for ways to relax and clear your head. In any other game, this would be boring filler, but here, it's honestly incredibly engaging. The conversations in particular almost always have some limitation keeping you from finding out everything a person has to share, making it important to concentrate on what you really need to know.
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There are, however, a few places where the game does fall on its face. First off, the plot is largely modeled after a specific genre of movie (police procedural thrillers, like Silence of the Lambs, Fallen, etc.), and fully embraces the concept, with tacked on romantic subplots, and a fairly slow pace at times. There's also a few questionable calls in there, like the fact that one of the cops is arbitrarily an astounding throwback to the 1970s, with his extremely over the top apartment and personal theme music. Although personally I find it too amusing to question it. On the other hand, in addition to the main plot of convoluted aztec prophecy related mystical murders, there is a completely unrelated secondary plot that throws around unrelated sci-fi concepts that really don't feel like a good fit with the rest of the game.
The real problem though is that, while it isn't very frequent, every so often Indigo Prophecy will become a bit self-conscious and decide it needs to do something properly videogame-y. There's a rather tacked-on bit of exploration in the police archives at one point which makes for something of a lull, and two mandatory stealth sequences so frustrating that a fair percentage of people give up on the game upon hitting them. It doesn't help that failure yields a game over during a flashback in both instances.
Beyond those rough patches, the game is surprisingly successful at meeting its goals. Liberal use of 24 style split screens make a nice compromise between a game's need to keep constant focus on your character, and the cinematic approach's reliance on constantly cutting away for the sake of pacing. The balancing act between everyone's mental state and the information they're acquiring keeps things interesting, and the developer managed to find a way to handle constant QTE scenes that's significantly less frustrating than most. There's quite a bit to be said for the novelty of it all too.
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