Hollywood director praises Heavy Rain

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.