Heavy Rain - nice virtual actor teaser shots

[RenegadeRocks]

Sony playstation day came and went ?!?!? Where's HEAVY RAIN????!!

 

[ShaidarHaran]

Sony playstation day came and went ?!?!? Where's HEAVY RAIN????!!

Good question. Apparently not as far along as many of us would like

 

[patsu]

Heavy Rain was shown behind closed door in E3:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=12026528&postcount=1

Heavy Rain wowed the crowd. Hate to be a tease, but we can't say more other than if you liked Indigo Prophecy, you'll *love* this.

While most of us in North America don't read the Dutch magazine Chief, one of our readers abroad pointed out that they'd run a major exclusive on upcoming Quantic Dream/Sony title Heavy Rain. (You know Quantic Dream as the company behind Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy, and you know Heavy Rain from my fanboy obsession).

Reader Saimon was kind enough to translate some of the more enticing statements about the title made by Quantic Dream's founder David Cage. And we were kind enough to copy and paste the translations after the jump.

On Locations:
"I don't want to do a big free-roaming city like GTA, because the flow of the story will then be hard to control. Nevertheless, I do want to incorporate big sets, with a crowd, heavy populated areas like a mall and a subway are going to be in there. Of course, the gameplay has got to make use of that aspect too."

On Graphics:
"People will be surprised. Internal (Sony's) feedback on graphics has been great. This is going to be a truly next-gen game. But still, we want to do something unique with the graphics, going beyond just making the most photorealistic world we can."

On Gameplay:
"With the release of Fahrenheit, we gave the adventure genre a new grammar. We brought new ways into the genre, new words if you want to see it like that, a new vocabulaire. With Heavy Rain, where going to expand on that same grammar."

On Story:
"Heavy Rain is about normal people that have landed in extraordinary situations. I wanted a much more personal story. The first thing that came to my mind, as a father of two little boys, was that the main theme should simply be a father's love for his son. This is not a game about saving the princess or the world. Its purely about a father's love."

"The main story will revolve around 4 different characters, and we're putting the spotlight on their perceptions. The question 'what is good and what is evil' is the key here, that will be just a matter of viewpoint...I believe heavily in moral choices, I'm going to use them A LOT. They're not about being good or bad, but about finding the right balance."

 

[RenegadeRocks]

This is a very old article patsu. came long back.

 

[FirewalkR]

That article is from around February and was posted in Kotaku. One of their readers translated it from Chief magazine. N'Gai Croal's did that comment yesterday on twitter, though. Can't wait to see it, word around GAF is it will be shown next month at GC.

 

[patsu]

7-page interview with Quantic Dream founder:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3744/dreaming_of_a_new_day_heavy_.php

Some interesting comments he has...

EDIT:

The first and most obvious thing that I want to talk about is emotion in games. One thing that comes to mind for me is that you're going very far into realism, and quite often, the more realistic you get, the more difficult it can be for players to identify with the characters, given the Uncanny Valley situation. So why do you want to push toward realism?

DC: I agree and disagree with your statement. You don't have to be realistic to create emotion. Of course it's not required. There are many, many examples of that in the game industry. What I'm interested in with realism is that I want to learn, basically, what it means to perform for an actor, and what it requires to translate this performance from a technical and creative point of view. Basically, I want to learn, and we really learned a lot working on the casting demo, for example, not only from what worked but also from what didn't work.

I think the uncanny valley is something that people talk a lot about, but I think we'll start to see the end of it. We're not out of the Uncanny Valley yet, but we can start to see how to limit it. Once we have learned how to create really realistic characters, then they will be contrasted to nonrealistic characters, and we will apply what we've discovered to different types of rendering and characters.

 

[the ignoramus]

Extremely excited to see what where Quantic Dream and David Cage are taking us with this game.
I felt that the first half of Indigo Prophecy was exceptional stuff, really great storytelling.

 

[Kittonwy]

Instead of talking about it they need to show it, show some gameplay, ultimately a game is about gameplay, story has to be good but gameplay is king.

 

[tirminyl]

Instead of talking about it they need to show it, show some gameplay, ultimately a game is about gameplay, story has to be good but gameplay is king.

I agree, so hopefully something appears at Leipzig

 

[Arwin]

Yeah. The press have had some recent hands on's, so there should be something to show. Most impressions seem to state something along the lines of if you liked Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy, you'll love this ...

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Well, was really hoping something would come out of E3, too bad its under wraps !

 

[obonicus]

Yeah. The press have had some recent hands on's, so there should be something to show. Most impressions seem to state something along the lines of if you liked Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy, you'll love this ...

Of course, my love of Fahrenheit isn't even throughout. Which half do they mean? Murder mystery with supernatural overtones or Matrix Revolutions?

 

[Npl]

Of course, my love of Fahrenheit isn't even throughout. Which half do they mean? Murder mystery with supernatural overtones or Matrix Revolutions?

You forgot the part about a tacked one sex-scene between a girl and a "cold wiener".

The biggest letdown with Fahrenheit was that the first scenes hinted at a adventure game thats far deeper and open than anything else on the market, then it deterioated to a linear game with sidequest and after that you were just playing action-sequences.