Fahrenheit

Also known as Indigo Prophecy, this game surprised me as having one of the most interesting and intruiging storylines of any game I've played all year, in addition to some interesting and innovative gameplay.
Lucas Kane is a fugitive on the run for commiting a murder in the men's room of a local diner. The thing is, Kane had no control over himself during the crime, and since then, he's been having nightmares. So now Kane is on a search for the truth of what happened (and what is happening) to him. Clara Valenti and Tyler Miles are the detectives on the case hunting down Kane, but Detective Valenti will find out more than she bargains for as things progress. And the whole city is seemingly freezing up to due a severe winter storm.
The game plays out like an interactive movie, and you play as all three of these main characters, with the decisions you make for one character influencing the storyline for the others!
The game also features an innovative and interesting control scheme. You use the left analog stick to move the characters around, and when you interact with something, you use the right analog stick to make your choices of what you want to do or what you want to say during conversations. Remember that what you do and what you say effects the main story of the game, so if your investigating the crime scene and you miss a piece of evidence, you might lose out on some of the story.
And if you think the game is just a standard whodunit murder mystery game, than your sadly mistaken, as the storyline takes a big twist later in the game and turns into more of a Matrix type storyline, with some awesome action sequences and hand-to-hand combat scenes. This here again brings in another gameplay innovation as you play out the action sequences by tapping the analog sticks in the directions shown on the screen, much like those rhythm dancing games you see in the arcades! The downside to this of course is that your more likely to miss the action on screen cause you'll be concentrating on hitting the right button directions, but it still brings up the level of excitement of the game.
And the only other small control problem I have is the camera angles, which you can control thankfully, but sudden camera cuts can cause your movement controls to get screwed up, which is something you don't need when your trying to beat the clock on some of your objectives.
On the graphics side, the game looks great. The characters were all motion captured to add realism to their movements, and their facial expressions are nicely detailed.
The audio is excellent as well, with some of the best voice acting I've heard all year, and a great soundtrack with music from rock group Theory of a Dead Man, as well as some groovy tunes and techno bits, all used well to match the story of the game.
Overall, this is a GREAT game. A great story that keeps you hooked, innovative game play that keeps you on your toes, interesting puzzles that aren't too complicated to solve, and even a bit of nudity and a love scene! I definately rate this as one of the most original games of the year, and highly recommend checking it out!

Game Ratings:
Graphics - 8
Sound - 8
Gameplay - 8
Lifespan - 7
Overall - 8