I remember when this game came out. I played the demo shortly before and it was such a great demo. I bought the full game (imported from the UK since the US version was censored) and dove straight in.

The game was everything I hoped it was. I enjoyed it throughout, even through the infamous "twist/ending."

I didn't get why sooooooooo many people hated it. Sure, it could be a bit jarring, but the entire game was setting it up, it wasn't like it was a realistic thriller, throughotu the entir egame you had other wordly things happening and then that, and people suddenly hated it for some reason.

I thought the ending was great. How it basically ended with the main character becoming a "god" of his own world, where he could create things as he wished. No other game (to my knowledge) has an ending quite like that.

What are your thoughts ont he twist/ending aspects?

I don't remember the story in detail, but didn't a purple cyborg just appear out of nowhere, just to make the end fight last longer?
Also there was just so little to care about in the characters. You barely got to know Lucas, and Carlas main purpose seemed to be randomly falling in love with him. The story in this game has to be the worst one I've ever experienced in a video game with any kind of story telling ambitions.

The demo is what hooked me as well. I figured the game would be a multifaceted murder mystery with some light supernatural\shamanistic aspects, but I was rather unprepared for how zany and insane the story ended up. Your zombified protagonist saves the chosen child from being kidnapped by the Mayans and the internet creature from Planet Go-Bot? Zombie Lucas falls in love with the hard-nosed officer trying to catch him?

I love this game like crazy despite the story. I highly recommend everybody play this game, but I always give a warning that the story is incoherent and all over the place.

Fahrenheit came so close to being the game I would wholeheartedly recommend as proof that video games are becoming a mature medium with respect for adults. It falls a little bit short of that but it comes closer than most other games (I'd sooner choose Civilization or Half Life to make that argument).

It's a wonderful, brilliantly fun game with incredible immersion, mostly likeable characters, great dialogue and conversations, and it's just plain fun in all the right ways. The story, however, was atrocious in my opinion.

I thought the ending was good. All four of them, more or less.

I hated the twist/ending. It felt just very strange to me, especially considering the game started rather realistically. I also thought the game would turn out to be more like a thriller/murder hunting game (though there are some parts where you get chased by the police but they don't feel very tense because you're busy dealing with the QTEs).

What I really liked about the game was how extremly different the course of the game can be depending on the actions you choose. I remember that on my second playthrough I managed to make up with Lucas' girlfriend (I guess Tiffany was her name) and later on hiding in her house as well as Tyler escaping the city with his girlfriend, whereas on my first playthrough I didn't achieve neither of these. Fahrenheit is really one of those few games where your actions actually matter; if it had had only an appealing ending, it would have been one of the most awesome games ever made.

For me, the main problem with the ending wasn't the supernatural elements in it, I was fine with those. What made me cringe was how the initial mystery-thriller atmosphere was dropped completely by the end, and instead, we got an epic endgame with way-over-the-top fighting sequences. Kind of like how the sequels of the Matrix spoiled the original movie for me.

It also didn't help that the conclusion of the game's story revolved around themes that were very heavily used in all sorts of fictional media at the time. Instead of coming up with an original and timeless story, the game's writers seem to have favored using popular cliches like world-domination conspiracy groups and ancient Mayan prophecies. I cannot respect that.

Don't get me wrong though. I have enjoyed Fahrenheit for the most part and I think it's a great game, but it also has numerous faults.

It felt like every sci-fi cliche got tossed in: alien artifacts, psychic powers, ancient Mayan mysticism, sentient artificial intelligence, etc.

What I disliked most though, is how the opening chapters led me to believe that the protagonist was an everyday Joe, and then later it's revealed that he has this whole supernatural back-story.

I think that the sentient internet ruins a perfectly good murder mystery.

I just finished the game and ... Christ ... this game could have been perfect. With realist and likable characters, well told story, excellent dialog, remarkable music, everything... but at the end all start to crumble! Too much elements are introduced too fast out of nowhere, old chosen one cliche, ridiculous kung fu fights, don't take me wrong, I love kung fu movies but I didn't buy a fighting game I bought a investigation/thriller adventure with a few occultism elements.

The story was so good and suddenly it seems an Uwe Boll movie (Alone in the Dark comes to my mind) This was what pissed me off:

-- The Invisible, a homeless people secret society.
-- The artificial intelligence world domination clan.
-- The Illuminati (orange clan) acting behind the curtains to control the world.
-- The unnecessary and inexplicable romance between Carla and Lucas.
-- The Dragonball/Matrix fighting sequences.
-- The implicit alien conspiracy.
-- The undead frozen Lucas havin sex (and consequently a child) with Carla (For God sake the man was dead!)
-- Lucas trusting in a bunch of crazy homeless with AKs and shotguns, and giving Jade to them without questioning if he could trust them.
-- The teletubies happy ending scenery, I almost saw the chubby-baby-sun.
-- How Agatha, being an artificial intelligence,could manipulate Lucas' mind. Of course they had an super advanced technology that they've been developing since the 80's, without anyone suspecting. Man how I hate this purple clan crap, 50% of my rage are caused directly by this IA bullshit.
-- I won't complain about the Maian bizarre plot because its well tied in the story, but I should.

The fact is, I really loved this game, and that's why I am so upset, this game made me love it but gave me a slap in the face at the end, several actually. My advice for everyone in doubt about this game is: Buy it, its awesome, if you really like games you should experience this game, but don't fall in love, because its gonna break your heart at the end, in the bad sense.

The game is great for 2/3.

I think I remember reading that the game was planning to be more than 1 game, but they pulled the plug on that; that's why the ending is such a rushed, incoherent mess.

This is what pissed me off to no end. I loved the game. I took in and accepted all the crazy out-of-nowhere plot points, I grew to like the characters, but god almighty, what the hell happened to Carla?! She jumps in bed with this zombie god? It's extremely cold everywhere and she decides that her last night on earth she is going to spend with a COLD dead person? It's juvenile male wish fulfillment. Her character is completely ruined in order to show the 'awesome' of the protagonist. And she's gonna catch a cold. Bah! But there was lots of male gaze. All the main female characters have naked models. The game was everything but mature.

I was lucky to send Tyler away before the terrible ending. This was really uplifting. I saved him from making some dumb decisions. That's something that still makes me smile.

I just finished it for the first time few days ago.
I really enjoyed it, the beginning of the game was amazing, the atmosphere, the mystery. Then it get a little bit weird, but I didn't mind it that much.

But One thing really angered me. Carla and Lucas, WTF? She is chasing him 2/3 of the game, then they met at the cemetery, he convinces her that he is innocent. So she is helping him, she takes him home, then they go in her car for Jade. He is making matrix kung fu thingy with the Oracle, then with the AI, then they escapes through underground tunnels and homeless guys are helping them.

So they are in a wagon in an abandoned tunnel, with homeless invisible organization and Carla kisses the guy which she chased for a murder. She thinks for her self "his lips are cold like ice", so she better fucks him.

WTF? I really don't understand why they did this.

Body heat i guess, Carla's just eager to help. :)

I loved it altogether. Separately neither the plot (although it had much promise at the beginning) nor the gameplay are that special, but hand-in-hand they work surprisingly well. The suspense is there from start to finish and it only lightens up for so long that we can care for the individual characters. I didn't mind the rushed ending and the added supernatural elements either, because for me they just emphasized how lost Lucas really was: it was as strange and new for him as it was for us, the players. He didn't choose that fate, the whole world -- as he knew it -- was crumbling down on his head. The particular scene in which I started to feel that way was the conversation with the prof in the museum. From that point onwards I felt more like the protagonist instead of an omniscient observer and I was completely immersed in the story, being as nonsensical as it was. Things started to happen a lot faster, plot devices to be thrown in by the dozens and it was over before I could notice. The Matrix-metaphor is appropriate, because just like Neo, Lucas was slowly becoming something god-like and it caught me totally unexpected. That's why I loved it! (Whereas I can clearly see why it was a huge letdown for some people.)

The other things I thoroughly enjoyed were the QTE-sections: they gave us the sight one could expect from a movie, but at the same time some degree of interactivity which made those parts all the more suspenseful. They were sometimes pretty hard, too. That, and the fact that our decisions really mattered, made this game a favorite of mine. (Oh, and the music. Don't forget that either!)

It's a flawed attempt, but at least they tried out something different, something original. Still really enjoyable with all of its quirkiness.