Heavy Rain Comments by Oli Welsh

I can see how this may not be everyone, but it is being added to my 'buy a PS3 play list' shame the list still doesn't justify the cost of the console in my opinion.

Looking forward to the full reviews.

@Petulant_Radish

All I mean is innovation and ambition should be welcomed, right?

Its not like there aren't shedloads of sequels and rehashes to keep traditionalists happy also!

OMG something different. Run!

Well maybe I am just becoming too cynical, though quick time events are my least liked of all game play aspects, they tend to distract me from the game in hand, though this appears to be a more cinematic experience than your usual QTE fest, but I personally would rather go to the cinema for that, though I am not narrow-minded as to see that others may have differing opinions. Peace out.

Oh and yes, innovation and ambition should be welcomed, I am all for that, I shall wait until this is released to see whether those have been achieved, should it be so than I shall embrace it with open arms and take it home to meet my mother.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/play...

Looks quite nice in this video, but QTE-tastic

Yeah but do your analyzing when the game is finished and on shelves then perhaps?

When a developer deliberately draws attention to themselves and their game by calling a press conference they become fair game for any and all speculation anyone wants to throw at them.

At least they actually had something to show this time - a definate step in the right direction.

I am rather sceptical about this myself, but generally I am all for encouraging designers who try to explore alternative gameplay paths and new methods of interactivity. For the same reason I can't really understand all the negativity steered at this.

Because, quite frankly, we've seen this dozens of times before, and every time those alternatives and new methods are exactly the same as other games, only with "You can play as a female character too!" or "There's five endings!" tacked on. I think when you've been duped by pre-hype that often, it's healthy to take a more cynical look at further claims of wonder.

""holding down an awkward layout of buttons to emulate discomfort"

Why not just throw in a 360 controller?

I wish I could press X not to die in real life when falling off the roof of a high building.

@Rodchenko

The word pretentious come from "having pretensions". One definition of that is "making an exaggerated outward show; ostentatious".

I guess the critism is often levelled at a work that believes itself to be something that observers believe it is not. I think the suggestion is that Heavy Rain thinks (or DG thinks, at any rate) that it is more complex or evolutionary than observers believe it to be. Hence the suggestion it is an exagerated or ostentatious display.


As we aren't looking at a finished product, it might well be a little early for any of us to call it pretentious. To some degree it is a result of the talk coming from Quantic Dreams, but I suspect it is also a result of the default setting of "deep cynisism" most of us have (and I myself am tryingt o be objective here, because Fahrenheir and DG rubbed me up all sorts of the wrong way... and I did consider Fahrenheit to be highly pretentious).

""holding down an awkward layout of buttons to emulate discomfort"

This comment is all sorts of wrong. Deliberately making a bad control scheme to emulate doing something difficult is plain stupid and it a worrying insight into how the developer is thinking.

looks like an incredibly boring game. Would be funny as interactive movie though (though one might argue what the point would be of realtime 3D in that..

"All I mean is innovation and ambition should be welcomed, right? "

Sure, but there's a difference between a searing singular vision of how a game should be and some frustrated would-be-movie director shitting out a barely interactive Parrapa the Rappa clone. And the "controls should be uncomfortable" should scare the crap out of anyone who's played Lair, another "innovative ambitious" title.

I think Heavy Rain is looking really interesting.

I can understand the concern that it will be little more than a fancy interactive movie with an over reliance on QTE, but Quantic Dream's seem to be confident that it its much more than that. And until I've actually played it myself, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

If it does turn out just to be an interactive, multipathed move, there's still potential for it to be an interesting and engaging experience. I spent a lot of time playing Linger in Shadows, and the degree of interaction in that was minimal (to say the least).

@ Penhalion
'Fromk everything I've seen and experienced of this game. The one thing you don't feel is in control.'

Out of interest - have you played it?

@Zuluhero re: "In any game, if i don't press the right buttons at the right moment in time. I'm going to die..."

Even in Space Invaders the player has a choice of 3 buttons to press any time they please. Even in this, one of the most basic video game ever, it's the player, not the game, that chooses what the right button is and what the right time is. Player volition ftw.

"I can understand the concern that it will be little more than a fancy interactive movie with an over reliance on QTE, but Quantic Dream's seem to be confident that it its much more than that. And until I've actually played it myself, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. "

That seems a fair approach. Personally I am less willing, only because I've played Fahrenheit and witnessed their confidence over that.

Fahrenheit was entertaining, and I did complete it, but it was a one of those titles that interests and frustrates you in equal measure (for me, anyway).

Other such titles might be Asassin's Creed and GTA:SA, execpt the highs of Fahrenheit were simply not as high as those of the other two examples. At no point did FH amaze me, it either entertained "enough", or drove me nuts (or made me raise an eyebrow, and view it with derision).

That said, the DG interview seems to suggest lessons have been learned from FH, so I am still very much interested in this. I like story driven adventures, so if the QTE sections don't piss me off too much I shall probably enjoy playing HR.

@squarejawhero:

I remember back in the day you criticized Fahrenheit for its over-reliance on motion capture. It saddens me to see that Cage obviously hasn't changed his mind on the matter. Some animations seem extremely weird, like when the main character is balancing on top of the car being crushed. It's a lot like Fahrenheit in that regard, I don't see much of a progress.

As far as the graphics go, well, they certainly don't have that wow factor anymore, but the game still looks good. Judging by screenshots I've seen, some of the locations look rather poor, including this car dump, but some - especially interiors - look amazing. Here's hoping that this location is one of the rare unfortunate exceptions.

The writing... Yeah, doesn't really sound promising, but this is just a tiny snippet of the script so I won't condemn it yet.

What's up with those funky glasses, though? Is such a sci-fi element really necessary in a game that wants to distance itself from Fahrenheit's supernatural absurdities?

Dragon's Lair with extra hype. No thanks. IMO.

Boyz I played Farenheight and it was one of the greatest games I ever played.

Now, in gaming sites, sometimes you tell people a game will be "ground braking" and they whine because it isn't the second coming. Well wake up fellas. The second coming won't be a game.

But Farenheight made me feel closer to a genuine adventure experience than any game ever before (I played it in one go, no loading over and over except in some particularly hard scenes). The whole game play mechanics were spot on. Acting, scenario and MUSIC all enhanced the experience. I just hope the effect will be the same with this one.

360 owner in peace here PS3 fans (!)

This looks great, wish it was coming out on Xbox.

I have no idea how this will turn out but I applaud the people making it who are willing to take chances. It might turn out crappy, but at least they did something differently and will learn from it, and for that I'm grateful. This is exactly what the gaming biz needs right now.

Just saw the new gameplay, what has happened, graphics have taken a tumble, big time. No way the demo from last year was running on a PS3, because it now looks about half as good, also the acting is borderline rubbish and the gameplay even worse. Last year this game tempted me to get a PS3, but this year its clear to me that Sony once again have tried to pull the wool over everyones eyes, by showing something last year that is beyond the PS3's power. E3 is coming and we can all trust MSoft to tell the truth when it comes to its games, because Sony are the biggest bullshitters of all time.

This game will clearly live or die on the depth of the interactions, how meaningful they are, how interesting the story is, and whether the player can really make a difference to how it plays out. Clearly if it's just a serious of messy QTEs, and a pointless, dirivative murder investigation then nobody will give a damn and it will get laughed at a lot. A bad game is forgiveable, an over-hyped bad game with pretensions less so.

I don't think people are wrong to point out the so-called pretentions when its release is being so elaborately (and rather obnoxiously) stage-managed. It's almost as if there's only one way this can go, because brilliant games are rare, and it would take a brilliant storytelling exercise to justify the way this whole game is being designed and marketed.

If they'd just shut up and release the game and let us judge it for ourselves it would without doubt receive a better critical reception.

@ Negotiator

C'mon get a grip man! The game is around half a year from release, and as such is a work in progress.

As for the gameplay being changed? It looks the same as the 'Taxidermist' demo except for the prompts being placed within the scene rather than in front.

"E3 is coming and we can all trust MSoft to tell the truth when it comes to its games, because Sony are the biggest bullshitters of all time."

A touch melodramatic. We can trust that Microsoft will no doubt money hat some third party title or DLC as a timed exclusive, A shame as I'd rather see them using that money to commission something new and interesting or potentially groundbreaking.

@Negotiator

"E3 is coming and we can all trust MSoft to tell the truth"

Tell me something Negotiator, how do you breathe with your face so far up MSoft's ass?

I think I'll have to accept Heavy Rain for what it's probably going to be: an interactive film. Then again, that's probably what I was expecting after playing Fahrenheit.

kangarootoo +1

It's not that I'm completely utterly turned off by an interactive kind of narrative experience like this (games working in other mediums have been sucessful using such a technique, ie Interactive Fiction), but that taking away control from the player to such a degree behooves them to make a really spellbinding game that justifies an essentially auteurist approach.

I do have a problem with games slipping into the territory occupied by films, because I don't think that does us any favours - and because films have been there done that and probably delivered a much better end product on the same themes.

A lot of Heavy Rain reminds me of Max Payne (I can't get away from thinking the title is a deliberate poetic echo) in a sense of it being incredibly authorly, an overt storytelling experience. Remedy came up with the goods, and although they were at risk of being dirivative there, they managed to tread a fine line between homage and parody which made Max Payne an original work in its own right. Is Heavy Rain a retreading of ground covered by Max Payne?

It's interesting alright.

I'm not going to touch this with a 10 foot pole. Not after Fahrenheit. No way.

I follow this games progression with a Keen eye. Roll on E3.

""holding down an awkward layout of buttons to emulate discomfort"

"This comment is all sorts of wrong. Deliberately making a bad control scheme to emulate doing something difficult is plain stupid and it a worrying insight into how the developer is thinking."

I respectfully disagree - I think that sounds great. Good, 'thinking outside the box' way to make things immersive. But then, I love this sort of thing.. When released, Heavy Rain and Trico are gonna put a PS3 shaped dint in my wallet. : ) (Definitely Trico - I'll be waiting for a HR review before buying a new system).

So it will just be QTE slam fest just like Fahrenheit / Inidigo Prophecy with a halfway decent / interesting story...

...I'm interested but far from convinced.

This looks just like Fahrenheit. That game already did a lot of what Cage is hyping up here, the major difference being that characters can permanently die while the story continues.

The preview is very positive, actually perhaps a bit too much. But it does the job well: creating interest in a game. However, I don't think the review will be nearly as kind.

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After dual-Simon-Says-ing myself through an entire apartment inventory and witnessing how "Fahrenheit" - a game which took a really, really great start - quickly spiraled down into a ludicrous "The Matrix" and "Little Rascals" worshipping pastiche, please forgive me if I remain exceedingly sceptical about the possible "gaming fun" this new title, "Heavy Rain", may offer. As far as "purchasing" is concerned, this may occur after the point where I've read at least a hundred in-depth reviews about "Heavy Rain"'s a-ok control system and extensively played (a) possible demo(s) assuring me of said a-ok-ness of said control system.

It's interesting that a poster brought up interactive fiction. As someone who has a real interest in interactive story-telling, Heavy Rain does seem to hit the spot. I'm especially interested in how conversation is structured. Conversation in IF is an especially interesting topic for me. Even if it's a glorified movie with QTEs, it's a worthy attempt at something different.

Goodfella, you never change mate. Still on the defensive after all these years...

The voice-over in this sounds like a localized version. The writing sounds like it was translated from Ukranian. They should have just made it take place in France instead of getting a bunch of expatriates and Englishmen putting on bad American accents.