MaximumPC 2005 11

F

or those not in the know, MotoGP is the highest level of motor-

cycle racing in the world. It’s akin to F1 for cars, in that it’s

run with nothing but hand-made, multimillion-dollar prototype

machines that are driven by the top racing talent. In MotoGP 3,

you get to pretend you’re part of the MotoGP circus, and if all that

fancy bike racing isn’t your thing, the game also includes Isle of

Man-style street racing, making it two games in one.

The MotoGP part of the game can be approached in several

ways. There’s always the Quick Race option if you’re looking

for some racing action without all the hassles a race weekend

entails. There are time trials as well, if you just want to ride the

tracks without any pressure. The meat of the MotoGP experience,

however, is the career track, where you start the season on one

of the crappier bikes (Yamaha M1, Harris, or Proton), and as you finish in better

positions you unlock faster, more lustworthy bikes and riders, including the world-

conquering Honda RC211V and multi-time world champion Valentino Rossi.

With the completion of every race you get “ability points” you can add

to your bike, making it turn better, stop faster, and so forth. You also get

money you can use to upgrade your bike with a better fuel-injection map,

higher-lift cams, and the like. The street-racing portion of the game functions

similarly, and is actually—in our opinion—more fun than the MotoGP seg-

ment, because the bikes are smaller and easier to handle, and the courses

more interesting.

You must have a gamepad to play MotoGP 3—don’t even bother with

a keyboard and mouse because the bikes are too hard to control. Also don’t

bother listening to the soundtrack—it’s mixed terribly and the songs are annoy-

ing. The graphics are superb, however.

While we think it’s bunk that three-quarters of the game is

“locked” and inaccessible in the

early stages of the game, there’s

still a lot of racing fun to be had.

—JOSH NOREM

MotoGP 3

Killer knee-down action on both street and track

Indigo Prophecy

Lights! Camera! Traction!

S

hot in the face. Drowned in icy water. Bounced off the hood

of a car. Charged with murder and thrown in jail for the

rest of your sorry life. That’s just a sampling of the catalog of

misfortunes that assail you in Indigo Prophecy, an adventure

game that slyly skirts every stale convention that’s held back

the genre for years.

While under the influence of a sinister remote force,

Lucas Kane murders a complete stranger in the bathroom of

a New York diner. He becomes your first playable character,

and unless you think the cop just outside the door is going

to be sympathetic to your story, you better act fast. Choosing

to scram out the back door, however, will certainly raise a

few eyebrows among witnesses, while trying to clean up the

evidence of your misdeed takes precious time. Dilemmas like this that require

snap decisions will haunt you throughout the entire game. Even dialog becomes

a nerve-wracking experience when you’re given only a second or two to choose

a topic which may or may not be the one that helps you navigate closer toward

the story’s apocalyptic conclusion.

Indigo Prophecy passes on traditional puzzle-solving in favor of action

sequences that require you to hammer keys (or buttons on your gamepad) that

correspond to colors on the screen. It sounds silly, but it injects a tremendous

amount of adrenaline into a genre that rarely delivers this kind of experience.

When the game goes into split-screen mode it’s especially thrilling, as you can

see a threat coming down the hallway in one screen while you’re scrambling

around looking for cover in the other screen.

Even with the graphics throttled to max, Indigo Prophecy’s drab tex-

tures and chunky environments won’t give your videocard a workout. And

while the game’s branching nature suggests multiple paths to multiple

narratives, your decisions actually have very little influence on the story,

which is disappointing. Nonetheless, Indigo Prophecy comes

closer to being an interactive

movie than any other game in

recent memory.

—LOGAN DECKER

8 MA XIMUMPC NOVEMBER 2005

reviewsTESTED. REVIEWED. VERDICTIZED

You can view replays of any bike’s performance, so you’re not lim-

ited to footage of yourself repeatedly riding into the kitty litter.

Lucas Kane appears to have a severe impulse-control problem.

8

INDIGO PROPHECY

$30, http://www.indigoprophecy.com,

ESRB: M

9

MOTOGP 3

$40, http://www.thq.com,

ESRB: E