David Cage rants about quick-time events

Quantic Dream's David Cage pleaded with journalists earlier today to help him shake off the stigma of quick-time events and get the message across that Heavy Rain is properly interactive.

"From what you've seen, you're in control second to second, so please help with me this because some people on the internet just make me crazy," he said at the end of a demonstration in a hotel in Cologne.

"No! We don't make Dragon's Lair! This is not Dragon's Lair - do you think I'm crazy? I'm not stupid. Do you think I develop on PlayStation 3 to do Dragon's Lair again? It would be absurd. Of course it's not.

"So we work on this thing, it's fully controllable, you do what you want. When there is an action sequence, yes we integrate this QTE sequences. We've done it really in a new way, we really started from a blank page again to try to take the best out of this type of interface and find the thrill and excitement and make you feel at the heart of the action.

"Out of four scenes, this is one third of one, so that's the kind of balance we have in the game."

The scene Cage gathered journalists to witness was the first glimpse of Ethan Mars, a single father who blames himself for the death of one of his sons, Jason. In the scene, Mars picks up his other son, Shaun, from his ex-wife, and then looks after him for the evening. This involves getting him something to eat, helping him with his homework and then putting him to bed.

It's fully interactive throughout, as Cage said, with opportunities to behave like a responsible dad or to be severe or to just do nothing, really. After seeing it play out one way Cage showed a video of other possible outcomes. It was all rather poignant.

Although the bit with Mars juggling fruit looked a bit like a QTE. Just saying.