Hollywood director praises Heavy Rain

By Robert Purchese Published 9 March, 2010

LaBute wants "sophistication" to continue.

Hollywood film director Neil LaBute has sung Heavy Rain's praises, and said he hopes other games will continue down this more "sophisticated" path.

"The tag line for Heavy Rain is, 'How far would you go to save someone you love?' Just by having that message, your final destination is asking yourself how much I'll give for someone else, how much am I willing to give up and able to do to save someone. You ultimately say to yourself that you love this kid [Ethan Mars' son] more than you love yourself," LaBute told PlayStation.com.

"That's not something I see much of in other games, especially ones which essentially work on repeated actions, beating the clock and stimulating various parts of your senses in a refreshing way, which is why you go back to it.

"I like the idea you can also go into a game and actually throw these sort of sophisticated questions to people and find interest in a game which plays with all the aspects that makes them fun and actually has some moral responsibility to them - and also the sense that you're always doing it for someone else," he added. "I hope that games keep going in that direction."

LaBute was inspired by Heavy Rain to make a short film called How Far Would You Go For Love? In it, talking heads from around the movie industry blabber on about about the titular topic. Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming census is that these people would rather explore love than run around blasting zombie brains all over the pavement. Samuel L Jackson's been roped in somehow.

"It's incredibly hard to get kids around the age of my son, who's 18, to watch a black and white film," LaBute went on to say. "He can't really understand it, he wonders why you'd ever make that choice to watch or make that.

"Same with games, I'm not sure people sometimes want anything more than an escape from emotional reality - and that's where games and films cross paths, because sometimes people just want to watch a movie and not think about it.

"I think people will be drawn to Heavy Rain for an interesting experience. I hope that it will be a huge hit because for me that is a fantastic element of it," he said.

Heavy Rain was released at the end of February and may be the most interesting videogame this year. The Eurogamer Heavy Rain review delves deep.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • matrim83 #1 2 years ago

    Ermm who the hell is this guy?

  • MiniAmin #2 2 years ago

    He's completely right.

    I think Heavy Rain's biggest achievement is that it debuted at Number 1 in the charts, which is exceptional. It's introduced an entire new story-driven type of game to many gamers who've grown completely accustomed to only play shooters/racers/sport sims this gen.

  • altitude2k #3 2 years ago

    LaWho? IMDB, here I come......

  • davisorle #4 2 years ago

    All good but, has he actually played the game..? lol

  • AJGB #5 2 years ago

    How far would Robert Purchese go for love?

  • HermitArcader #6 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 09:17:39 22-12-2011

  • Monkey_Puncher #7 2 years ago

    This is the same guy that directed the remake of The Wickerman, only one of the stupidest films I've ever seen.

  • afray #8 2 years ago

    The only thing LaBute was "inspired" by was the marketing cheque he received from Sony. He's made an advert that everyone has convinced themselves is somehow a documentary.

    The worst thing is, as Vertical Stand says, the non-gaming press have repeatedly referred to Heavy Rain as a great game *because* it's cinematic, not a great game that just *happens* to be cinematic.

  • J_C_X #9 2 years ago

    I can appreciate what Heavy Rain is trying to do but it still lags behind film and (sadly) television for writing.

  • kangarootoo #10 2 years ago

    "LaBute was inspired by Heavy Rain to make..."

    Inspired? Not, you know, paid?

  • Spekingur #11 2 years ago

    Heavy Rain's storyline is better than much of what comes out of Hollywood in any case ;p

  • Spekingur #12 2 years ago

    All the way?

  • Widge #13 2 years ago

    Streaks ahead of film and television for interaction and thereby heightens emotional involvement though.

  • andromeda #14 2 years ago

    not sure how to take this praise - from the director of of the most laughably shite film in recent years...

  • J_C_X #15 2 years ago

    Streaks ahead of film and television for interaction and thereby heightens emotional involvement though.

    Lets be honest it's hardly interactive at some points I think the game just wants me to watch as I would ruin the scene by having fun. It's story is also a bit cliched and a tad unoriginal as well, it has "borrowed" several plot elements from Sin City, Seven and any of the spate of thrillers featuring Morgan Freeman from the 90's.

    I'll hold my hand up it's a brave game to tackle some issues the games have advoided taking on which Hollywood and television hav done.

  • J_C_X #16 2 years ago

    Streaks ahead of film and television for interaction and thereby heightens emotional involvement though.

    Lets be honest it's hardly interactive at some points. I think the game just wants me to watch as I would ruin the scene by having fun. It's story is also a bit cliched and a tad unoriginal as well, it has "borrowed" several plot elements from Sin City, Seven and any of the spate of thrillers featuring Morgan Freeman from the 90's.

    I'll hold my hand up it's a brave game to tackle some issues the games have advoided taking on which Hollywood and television hav done.

  • Diogo_Ribeiro #17 2 years ago

    Yeah, great. Hollywood clamoring games who try to ape Hollywood. Kinda like BAFTA started giving a damn to videogames when "interactive movie" started to gain momentum in gamer lexicon. Screw these people. Music never tried to gain legitimacy and acceptance by going "this music is quite like a novel, or a film, or a game". The videogame industry is still the only one to gladly reject its roots and cower in fear of other established artforms. Heavy Rain isn't a movie, Flower isn't a poem, or what have you. If you don't feel comfortable about making games, to the point where you surrender years of your work to people who don't get games and can only speak of your game by comparing it to cinema, just leave the industry. You'll be doing us a favor.

  • TheJuriel #18 2 years ago

    I'd rather get games with game value.

  • chukcyQ #19 2 years ago

    The only thing in Heavy Rain I want to see in other games as well is totally nude chick having sex.

  • chukcyQ #20 2 years ago

    Yeah keep games and movies separate. I want a game when I buy a game, not a disc full of full motion video clips. That's so 90's.

  • AJGB #21 2 years ago

    Speaking of which, I only recently discovered that Dana Plato is dead. I guess I just didn't think about her a lot.

  • Daymare #22 2 years ago

    Heh, Neil LaBute.

    Obligatory Nicolas Cage in Wicker man clip.


  • Pastici #23 2 years ago

    "It's incredibly hard to get kids around the age of my son, who's 18, to watch a black and white film," LaBute went on to say. "He can't really understand it, he wonders why you'd ever make that choice to watch or make that.

    Sounbs like his son is culturally redundant, I has no problem watching black and white movies. Hell, one of my favorite films is in black and white.

  • M_of_the_sys #24 2 years ago

    It's quite amusing how some people say it's not quite good enough to be a film while others say it's too cinematic to be a game. Some say it's just an interactive film while others say it's not interactive enough to be a game. There appears to be a lot of mixed opinions which is a good thing really. Obviously people are going to have differing opinions and, fanboys aside, I think this has shown Heavy Rain is something different even if it does follow a familiar(ish) design.

  • Widge #25 2 years ago

    Its not sandboxy enough and no physics.

  • PierrePressure #26 2 years ago

    Heavy Rain is a great game and I like the fact that it's generally received positive responses but the script and voice acting in areas could definitely have been improved upon. I guess Cage sees it as "his baby" but perhaps next time someone could help to improve this area of the game.
    I love games with a strong storyline and just feel with some small improvements this could have been elevated to an all-time classic.

  • metalnut #27 2 years ago

    It's great that Heavy Rain is introducing some motivations other than 'shoot the bad guys' into gaming. What's not so great is that Cage thinks games have to become more like films to achieve that, boiling interaction down to its most simplistic.

    What I really hate about game designers who have Hollywood envy is that they think the only way for games to become a more mature medium is to emulate film & TV. Cage and Kojima are both in this camp. Unfortunately Heavy Rain may well be held up as an example to reinforce this argument, which I fundamentally and vehemently disagree with. What we need to be exploring more is how to add depth to games without making them less of what being a game actually means. Valve have explored this to a degree already with storytelling embedded in the game experience, but there is so much left unexplored here and so few others seem to be even trying to do it, falling back on the old crutch of loading the game up with cutscenes or non-interactive portions where you watch rather than play. Games aren't just films with a few choices tossed in to make them 'interactive', even though that's how Hollywood would like to see them. It's really not a good thing to try to become a pale 'interactive' shadow of the film industry. We need to make our own way.
    Edited by 1 at 09/03/10 @ 16:56

  • ronuds #28 2 years ago

    I don't see Heavy Rain as something that's for me.

    So no thank you.

  • Dizzy #29 2 years ago

    I remember people saying that when Dragon's Lair came out.

  • EvilBob_leeds #30 2 years ago

    LaBute is responsible for a shite remake of the wicker man, but also the very cynical (and pretty damn good) "Your friends and neighbours". Plus he made Nurse Betty, which wasn't incredible but did have a redneck getting scalped.

    Thank you everyone who doesn't have a PS3 for pointing out their oh-so-fascinating disdain for a game they're never going to be able to get!
    Edited by 1 at 09/03/10 @ 21:33

  • darth_paul #31 2 years ago

    HR's story is really nothing to be excited about. Come on. If it had appeared in a movie, it would have been a failure. maybe we should check out which studio produces Neil La-Something's movies...sony maybe?