Heavy Rain: New Screenshots and development footage*

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That was a mixed bag. In principle it's novel. The visuals can look spectacular and the atmosphere and emotion is in part there. But there's also a heavy dose of Uncanny Valley. The motion is robotic outside of the mocapped sequences. The lip-syncing remained useless and destroyed any illusion that the character on screen was actually saying the words. The UI was unobtrusive in a very good way, but also the game felt like a more advanced but principally unchanged Dragon Quest. I guess a lot there depends on the freedom.

I think this is a valuable experiment in the 'games as art/movies' genre, but I'm skeptical how entertaining it'll be. There's lots of potential for both good and bad things IMO.
 
Public presentation of Heavy Rain: http://www.gamekyo.com/videoen13496_heavy-rain-public-presentation-video.html ( Micromania Games Show 2008 in Paris )

It's 30 minutes. You might want to have lunch, mow the lawn, take a nap while waiting for the video to download. I only watched part of it so far. It's worth the wait though ^_^

EDIT: I'm still at 50% after 2 hours. Someone in GAF rehosted it here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=V06NA2E3 (downloaded in 10 minutes max)

OH MY GOD ! :oops: Just watched it and I am so so so buying this game!!!!!!!

This is a whole new take on games, the atmosphere and mood inside the house was amazing amazing ! This is so cool. The devs really have their heads on their shoulders for this one ! I never knew adventure games could really reach such a level. The last adventure game I played was Syberia 2 , and man , I had loved the mood, atmosphere in it , but this will change my way of looking at an adventure game completely.
With this kind of immersion, yes, I feel very positive that they will be able to evoke emotions in a player!
Anybody who says this is average and not so good is just denying reality and being a snob.Cmon guys, this does not even feel like a game, this is a mature story being told here. Yes, the girl's face moves awkwardly, but have you seen such polished emotive storytelling before ?!?!
Technology will advance at its own pace, but the vision and the clarity of mind required to pull such a thing off is what makes it so special ! Hats off Quantic Dream :cool: ! You have a believer here !
 
Can't believe there is this sort of dev-walkthrough available and Sony has not already funnelled it to all newssites across the globe. They're not exactly bleeding media attention at the moment, with many of their high class games going by unnoticed AGAIN, such as Pacific Rift.

What are you talking about?

Motorstorm 2 Pacific Rift is getting massive tv commercial showings on tv in the USA, I was watching CSI Miami and the Lunatics Unite with the vehicles dropping out of the plane in parachuttes makes everyone I know who is not a gamer talk about the PS3 and wanting to get this game so media presence is there.

This is just a developer demonstration of the game and afaik this game does not have a set release date other than the tentative "Fall 2009" announcement. I believe that the developer, QD still has alot to do before they can finally start showing something that Sony can use to advertise, the gaming media however will be a different story.
 
Whoever did the voice for Madison did a great job with her little screams when Madison got chased around by Leland White.
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Im a bit unsure this game will deliver on all accounts. Its nice that you have a ton of different options to solve a situation, but the real question is: will it make a significant difference later on?

If it doesnt (ala Fahrenheit - Indigo Prohecy) then you might only have a few variations in dialogs/riddles along the same path. Fahrenheit was especially bad in that regard as you just needed to replay the very last sequence to get each and every ending. (and TBH the only effects I noticed from solving lucas scenes was slightly different options in the interrogation-scenes, and afterwards there were only some small and immediate effects on your choices - if you had any that is ).

If it archives the unthinkable of having alot of branches through the whole story (close to the extreme of having 2 totally different adventures for each branch), then I dont think they can put their attention to detail everywhere and provide a sufficient long adventure. The amount of work would just rise exponentially. Even thought I dont care if a game is short, I would expect a story-driven game to be long enough to really dive into it (6-8h).
Nevermind (some of) the press would be ranting about how short is it, neglecting that you could play a good game as often and long as it interests you.
 
According to a past interview, the story will continue even if the protagonist died. I don't know if you call that significant ending/difference or not (Your call).
 
According to a past interview, the story will continue even if the protagonist died. I don't know if you call that significant ending/difference.
Well, apparently theres no "the" protagonist in that case. Did you play Fahrenheit? You can at one point choose if one of the 3 playable characters stays in the city or bails with his girlfriend. Without knowing more I would think this is just as significant, problem is that there is no further reference of him in the remaining game whatever you choose.. only a couple lines of dialog when you made the decision. So the decision appeared significant, but it had no effect at all

As said, I dont know how Heavy Rain will deal with this, but as I said Im doubtfull you can pull it off satisfying in either case (realistically speaking as in development costs of having multiple fully developed branches in the game).

Just for the record, as my posts might indicate otherwise: I like Fahrenheit, but I cant help but feel cheated after realising how linear it is.
 
I have not played Fahrenheit. There was an interview where David Cage went into more details about game length and branching. Will find it when I have time (Probably not this week :()
 
I saw the pictures on another forum but I honestly thought that kitchen was in their studio or something. Looks amazing!
 
I find this part something of particular interest :

Although the art is directed in Paris, a lot of the grunt work is outsourced to Asia, where artists follow a painstakingly assembled "outsourcing bible" to construct each location from a level architect's "blueprints".

Sounds good to me !
 
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