Ploddish
Hyper Poster
Pierre, the closest game to Heavy Rain was Quantic Dream's last game - Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy. It had the same idea of multiple characters and gestures for dialogue options. It had quicktime events (which made a lot less sense), and had a few endings.
The story couldn't deviate quite as much as it does in Heavy Rain, but it was built on the same mocap system that Heavy Rain works on.
I recommend the game for the first 2/3rds, but don't play it after that
I finished one play through of Heavy Rain myself over Friday night (from about 5pm till about 2.30am with a few long breaks in between for food and vitamin D supplements), and I truly loved the experience. Fahrenheit was a breath of fresh air when it came out, but had some serious problems. This had fixed them all, and more. I think it makes more sense contextually to be on a console rather than the PC, especially with the Sixense stuff. It's far more satisfying to beat a door down rather than use mouse gestures to click it open.
The story itself was much improved - no silly paranormal copout explanations! I was actually impressed with the acting technology, but do think the smoothness of some of the facial animation systems could perhaps be improved a tad? I'm assuming due to the mocap data they had, they couldn't risk dynamic simulations for clothing and such, and you could certainly tell when clothes were hand-animated. Some of the character models clipped scenery and each other, occasionally, but this is my only genuine problem with how the game looked. The rest was utterly stunning (oh, well, some of the rain looked a littl-- nah, it was all fine).
Very impressed with the music, but I was with Fahrenheit too (but with Angelo Badalamenti, what more could you expect?). Whilst not quite as famous this time, the composer does really well, especially considering the constraints of the system (being unable to tell when the music will end, and needing certain sections to be tense for quite a long time).
I think I was most impressed with the way the story moulded itself around your decisions, within the framework given to you. There are some horrifically grey decisions you have to make within split seconds that *really* don't make you feel great afterwards that I absolutely adored. I loved that you had to deal with it when someone died - and when they do it really sucks.
What I'm most looking forward to is what on earth the AAA development community are going to do with this. Of course, it's going to depend on whether it's a commercial success or not, but it certainly is critically, and that has to account for something. I suppose the system being used currently is more difficult to replicate; Quantic Dream have their own mocap facility, and they spent a very long time capturing and choreographing the sequences. Could someone but them use the same system?
Eh, who cares. It was a cool game, and I appear to have written an essay on it. Whoops.
The story couldn't deviate quite as much as it does in Heavy Rain, but it was built on the same mocap system that Heavy Rain works on.
I recommend the game for the first 2/3rds, but don't play it after that
I finished one play through of Heavy Rain myself over Friday night (from about 5pm till about 2.30am with a few long breaks in between for food and vitamin D supplements), and I truly loved the experience. Fahrenheit was a breath of fresh air when it came out, but had some serious problems. This had fixed them all, and more. I think it makes more sense contextually to be on a console rather than the PC, especially with the Sixense stuff. It's far more satisfying to beat a door down rather than use mouse gestures to click it open.
The story itself was much improved - no silly paranormal copout explanations! I was actually impressed with the acting technology, but do think the smoothness of some of the facial animation systems could perhaps be improved a tad? I'm assuming due to the mocap data they had, they couldn't risk dynamic simulations for clothing and such, and you could certainly tell when clothes were hand-animated. Some of the character models clipped scenery and each other, occasionally, but this is my only genuine problem with how the game looked. The rest was utterly stunning (oh, well, some of the rain looked a littl-- nah, it was all fine
).Very impressed with the music, but I was with Fahrenheit too (but with Angelo Badalamenti, what more could you expect?). Whilst not quite as famous this time, the composer does really well, especially considering the constraints of the system (being unable to tell when the music will end, and needing certain sections to be tense for quite a long time).
I think I was most impressed with the way the story moulded itself around your decisions, within the framework given to you. There are some horrifically grey decisions you have to make within split seconds that *really* don't make you feel great afterwards that I absolutely adored. I loved that you had to deal with it when someone died - and when they do it really sucks.
What I'm most looking forward to is what on earth the AAA development community are going to do with this. Of course, it's going to depend on whether it's a commercial success or not, but it certainly is critically, and that has to account for something. I suppose the system being used currently is more difficult to replicate; Quantic Dream have their own mocap facility, and they spent a very long time capturing and choreographing the sequences. Could someone but them use the same system?
Eh, who cares. It was a cool game, and I appear to have written an essay on it. Whoops.
