Heavy Rain is "interactive drama" - Sony Comments by Robert Purchese

Well, that was pretty clear from the preview already I think.
Still this does seem a bit unncessary to point out.
Didn't expect it to rival Gears or something.

heavy hype

QTE's and long semi-interactive movies. They sure know their target audience! ;)

So it's going to be Dragon's Lair as directed by Sam Mendes? Hmmmm. Intrigued, though not optimistic.

You know what, I've not played an adventure game since the classic Lucasarts ones really, never got round to having a go at the Broken Sword series. Hopefully this will fill that gap.

Trying to be everything, to everyone + QTEs.

6 or 7/10 written all over it.

or 5 or 8 or 4 or 9

This now sounds a bit hmmmmmmm.

On the other hand, I want a new, good, Monkey Island. One that plays on a 286 as well. Maybe. Put it on PSN and XBL with Mouse support. Brilliant.

Twatattack!

Don't be silly, it'll be nothing like Dragon's Lair.
More like Night Trap.

But seriously, a game like this could work if enough thought was put into it and the plot was really decent.
However, I get the feeling it'll be a bunch of tech demos tenously tacked together.

I'd love to be proved wrong though.

Good to see this sort of thing being boasted about by big companies like Sony.

Hopefully we'll see more of Heavy Rain/Fahrenheit's ilk in the future. Games need more grown-up, story and character-led content and less Gears of War/Halo.

"interactive drama", oh dear.

"jealous"

Of what? Another game that has to be watched instead of played?

Not bloody likely! XD

If i'm correct you do use the pad in the "game"? You don't just sit there watching it.

Either way i'm looking forward to this one. Looks very promising!

well if it is a true interactive drama, ie. it has branching narrative paths and decisions change the nature of the story, rather than if you press the wrong button you die, it could be interesting

Certainly sounds a lot like Shenmue. Which bored the tits off me a lot of the the time, despite having some nice moments.

Why does everyone assume 'mature' means 'less interactive'? It IS possible to do good, mature stories without lancing the gameplay out and making a QTE-driven movie.

But whatever floats their boat.

"Hopefully we'll see more of Heavy Rain/Fahrenheit's ilk in the future. Games need more grown-up, story and character-led content and less Gears of War/Halo. "

Quite the opposite IMHO. games need more gameplay and procedural generated content and less QTs and pre-defined nonsense.

If I want amazing stories I will read a book. Gameplay is king.

talk is cheap

I am interested in this, it may well be added to my 'games to buy a PS3 for' list.

But I can see how many may not like it.

Oh god this is going to flop. No, not because it will be crap, but because most of the people will say "If I want to read a book or watch a movie I'll do that."

Was Fahrenheit a flop? I bought it and enjoyed it, except for the ridiculous endgame.

Games that want to be movies will fail always as both

Fahrenheit was annoying. Too many qte's that required retries and a stroy you could only see the best of if you did everthying right the only way of knowing how to do that being to read a guide.

Wasn't the same said about "D" when it arrived on 3DO & Saturn?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_(video_ga...

It was slated on release but I actually quite enjoyed it..

Heavy Rain is "interactive drama"

so it's another mgs game then?

May get a PS3 for this, looked very good on its last showing. I just feel it could end up being a let down.

"Interactive dramas" weren't that great back in the 90s (with games like Voyeur and its ilk hanging around on the CD-ROM Multimedia Entertainment scene), why would you want to bring that shit back?

Variety is the spice of life. I don't understand the hate. At the end of the day if it is an old style interactive movie then it isn't made to the detriment of any other games. You have the choice not to play it. Surely we want more variety and less crap and not a laser focus on FPS.

Sounds like early damage control to me.

Hopefully we'll see more of Heavy Rain/Fahrenheit ilk in the future. Games need more grown-up, story and character-led content and less Gears of War/Halo.

I agree, especially if games are to become more emotionally engaging and mature as an art form.

@TipTop

No-one mentioned FPS.

It's easy enough to make a story-based game which you actually play without resorting to such cheap and pointless mechanics as QTE's, and endless cutscenes.

What they are making is an adventure game, but they refuse to call it an adventure game for one simple reason: Adventure games dont sell well. They are instead selling the idea that Heavy Rain is new and innovative when it blatantly isnt, it's just an adventure game with dumbed-down controls and QTE's.

And for the record, 'old style' does not automatically equate to 'good'. An 'old style' interactive movie is as shite as a 'new style' interactive movie.

"Surely we want more variety and less crap and not a laser focus on FPS. "

Newsflash - not liking interactive movies doesn't mean an obsession with FPS's. Why do people think that?

Gaming is a very broad church, but the key linchpin really is interactivity. Anything that pairs down the interactivity is less of a game, IMHO. I've gamed for approaching 30 years now and have played a lot of genres, I'm definitely not an FPS nut (although I play them on occasion), but I can't stand games that rely on QTEs. I don't want to watch a movie interspersed with the occasional button press or joystick waggle, no matter how 'emotionally involving' it is. Gaming is all about control, whether that's first-person, jumping a little guy around, driving, directing troops, whatever. I just don't think reducing the range of expressions a player has in favour of driving up the movie qualities enhances the core experience I come to games for. YMMV.

If I want amazing stories I will read a book.

Yep. And pioneers of the movies, such as Murnau, de Mille, Eisenstein, John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock, had also better told us to read books instead of trying to define the story-telling potential of their new media. As we all know, that endeavour was an incredible waste of time and led to nothing.

Gameplay is king
So 'gameplay' and 'story' are mutually exclusive then?

Seriously. I like the idea that someone is trying to create an emotional connection to the game characters. Whether they use QTEs or 'procedural generated content' is irrelevant, as long as they succeed.

IMHO

It's easy enough to make a story-based game which you actually play without resorting to such cheap and pointless mechanics as QTE's, and endless cutscenes.

You don't own the console. You don't need to buy it. Nobody is forcing you to play it. End of story.

"End of story."

Gosh, I've really been put in my place now haven't I? *rollseyes*

Here's my beef: Games are rapidly getting dumbed down. PoP removed the need for any kind of skill and also removed dying, this destroyed the game. The Wii has reduced it's sole control method to waggle, and is destroying gaming in general. QTE's are becoming commonplace and are a worthless and lazy game mechanic.

I dont want my games to be dumbed down, thus I choose to protest against 'interactive movies'. I would rather have to think and act than play a game of simon says or watch half an hour of bad screenwriting and ham acting.

Sounds like early damage control to me.

Seconded.

If this game is really so awesome, why can't it shine on its own merits? All I keep hearing is about how the game is going to be revolutionary, and redefine everything, but they're just setting themselves up for a fall. It's like Sony and the people close to them have learned nothing from the fate of LBP. That was also a great game hyped up to a point it could no longer sustain, and inevitably disappoints, which in turn attaches a negative perspective that shouldn't be there.

That's my two-penneth (not adjusted for 15% VAT) worth, anyway. :)

Farticus you have actually got some good points sometimes but people won't listen to them if you carry on being really flippant and cocky with them.

Don't really believe in strong story telling within games because the graphics, animation, AI, controls and glitches will always scream that you're just playing a game and detract from the immersion. I do like the idea of context sensitive controls though, as controls are the biggest limitation on gaming and any new ways are to be encouraged, whether they're successful or not. At the least they'll contribute to the evolution of better control mechanisms.

"Hopefully we'll see more of Heavy Rain/Fahrenheit's ilk in the future. Games need more grown-up, story and character-led content and less Gears of War/Halo."

"I agree, especially if games are to become more emotionally engaging and mature as an art form. "

Fahrenheit was lots of things, but grown up? I'm not so sure. And by the end of it I was about as emotionally disengaged as I've ever been from anything. I mean "an artificial intelligence that became self-aware on the 'net back in the '80s" as a last minute plot 'twist'? Pull the other one. Grown up? Emotionally engaging?

Oh dear...

I think I hear expectations being shattered!

The game could very well end up being good, but why already with the "never-been-done" label? It's not a particularly good one to put on a game, as it creates unrealistic expectations. Sony loves to do this and I think when it doesn't pan out how everyone envisioned, it ends up just pissing people off.

It's been done...just talk about how you're going to do it.

This now sounds rubbish .. which is a shame. If it's now a 'drama' then it's going to need some really good writing to make it work and I can't remember the last game I played that had proper, mature dialogue and writing (anyone?). Even something good like Fallout still suffers from a clunky script and very average voice work.

And even if it managed those things anything labelled 'interactive' is crap. Thus:



http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_lN6UQWN_Hk

Eternal Darkness had some excellent writing. Wonderful plot to that game. More stuff like that please.
Oh and Soul Reaver 2, heavy on dialogue but quality all the way through to the dramatic finale.
If I want to have a "just pure gameplay" game, I'll slap on Warhawk or Wipeout, otherwise woohoo for variety and not churning out the same bollocks over and over.

French developer Quantic Dream is making Heavy Rain exclusively for the PlayStation 3.

And this is were it will fail the most imo. not developing a 360 version, is quite stupid these days.
They do want to make money on this right?

I just want the first few scenes of Fahrenheit over and over again.

Games should require a modicum of actual skill to complete, whether the skill is learning the nuances of the control scheme and game mechanics, or an iquisitive mind able to solve puzzles and sniff out secret areas or even just good hand eye coordination, it's what makes games fun!

This simple idea seems to be being ignored by developers in favour of catering to the 'casual' gamer making games easier and easier until there is no incentive for the player to even try to beat the game, it just becomes trial and error or a grind to get to the end.

QTEs are the very epitomy of what I hate about this type of lazy game development.

I look forward to a game that manages to do both skill and casual gameplay if that's possible.

... and it was just made clear that the game won't have any Quick Time Events.

You walk your character around in realtime 3D and then onscreen icons will make your character interact with variables/objects in a context sensitive manner in realtime.

Given the situation parameters at hand - combat or otherwise - the actual, action - might differ.

The final game might be a lot less 'scripted' than some people think, given their allergy to see onscreen icons and assuming them to be Quick Time Events in the classic sense they know & hate them.

GET READY!

FIGHT !

...


RING OUT !