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Fahrenheit |
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"This is not a drill! The air is thick with smoke and the temperature is nearing 1000 degrees. Three digitized full-motion scenarios face you from a flaming hotel to a booby-trapped university building. Chainsaw doors down, search hidden passages and brave the blaze in your hunt for survivors. But watch out, one wrong turn and you're toast!" |
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Oh no, not another FMV game.
Hang on, this one's actually quite good. Each level has one or
more main objectives (usually rescue anyone trapped inside) and
secondary objectives such as removing flammable items or (and I'm
not kidding here) rescuing the family cat. Although you're
playing the new recruit you're actually autonomous, choosing which
direction to head in and, on occasion, responding "Yes", "No" or
"Maybe" to questions from the rest of the team. Fail to make a
decision or pick a direction within the time limit and a colleague
will make the choice for you and the game continues with you back in
charge. Your air supply acts as a timer for the levels, adding
a sense of urgency to proceedings and you always have to remember to
leave enough to get back out. Like all FMV games it does boil
down to pressing the right buttons in the right order, and learning
the sequence can be a harsh experience as pitfalls such as a
backdraft from chopping down the wrong door can end the level
immediately. The Mega-CD does a good job of running the
footage given its limited colour palette and the video is full
screen and quick enough to react to your decisions, albeit with a
second or too of filler footage whilst the next bit is found.
Happily the manual contains maps for each building and the pause
screen tells you exactly where you are to prevent you getting lost
in the inferno. There's nothing more than the scenarios so once
you've finished those there's nothing to bring you back. The
difficulty levels alters the rate at which your air supply runs out
on the first two levels, but enlarges the map on level 3 (the
university) to add some extra challenge. While it lasts the
game is tense and atmospheric, and must be the pick of the
"interactive film" titles the Mega-CD was often derided for.
As with all later releases Fahrenheit is quite hard to hunt down but
doesn't fetch astronomical prices. On my copy (above) the Mega-CD logo appears on both spines but the game title on only one, on the "wrong" side, meaning that it has to sit on my shelf backwards for the name to be seen. It would appear that all copies are like this, though this was fixed on the French back cover. A note to those emulating Fahrenheit with Kega Fusion - the game will ask for a disc 2 that doesn't exist. This is because Kega emulates having a 32X plugged in. Should Fahrenheit detect a 32X it seems to default to the US version, which came packed with the 32X version on a second CD. Thinking you'll want to play the prettier 32X version, the game halts and asks you to insert disc 2 - this happens even with only a European BIOS configured in Kega. Disable the 32X in the options menu to play the game. |
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| A French language version was also released. A 32X CD version was only released in the US. | ||