Heavy Rain Catch All

It'll get crazy Tanstaaf, and there are some frustrating parts. Basically, what'll make it most enjoyable is going in understanding that it's a B title, at best, but (in my opinion) a very charming one.

Anyone else surprisingly entertained by the tech demo video on GT?

muttonchop wrote:

Exactly how heavy is this rain? Heavier than normal rain?

It is, as they say down south, a frog strangler.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/12/14/he...

Looks like there's going to be DLC.

Too bad, I was looking forward to this game.

And DLC precludes the core game from what exactly?

demonbox wrote:

And DLC precludes the core game from what exactly?

I think Lard, like many people, think any DLC is a slippery slope to intentionally shipping incomplete games to put buyers on the hook for an indeterminate amount of money to get the "complete" experience.

I don't agree, but I'm still hoping more game studios see the wisdom of free (or negligibly-priced) DLC simply to combat used sales.

Lard wrote:

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/12/14/he...

Looks like there's going to be DLC.

Too bad, I was looking forward to this game.

It's not for me to moderate people's opinions, but it's going to get awful tedious if you throw this bone of contention out into every game thread. Especially given that nearly every game has DLC now. If you REALLY want to explore it, start a thread dedicated to the topic rather than derail a bunch of others.

I'll rerail and say this is the game I most look forward to between now and FFXIII, and I'll be picking it up no matter how it turns out, if only to support something so daringly unusual.

Yeah, no matter how it turns out, it's bound to be interesting. Day one purchase for me.

I saw this demoed at the Eurogamer Expo. A friend I was there with was really looking forward to it. We both walked away with a look of vague disgust. Everyone playing the demos was laughing at the hackneyed dialogue and groaning at the QTEs.

While this is definitely not for me, I'm genuinely interested to learn what kind of gaming background makes a person champ at the bit for this game. What's the appeal?

Reading up on Indigo Prophesy now - I guess it's a story thing?

Maq wrote:

I saw this demoed at the Eurogamer Expo. A friend I was there with was really looking forward to it. We both walked away with a look of vague disgust. Everyone playing the demos was laughing at the hackneyed dialogue and groaning at the QTEs.

While this is definitely not for me, I'm genuinely interested to learn what kind of gaming background makes a person champ at the bit for this game. What's the appeal?

Reading up on Indigo Prophesy now - I guess it's a story thing?

You probably wouldn't be interested in Indigo Prophecy (called Fahrenheit over there I think) if this doesn't look good. Like Heavy Rain, it's less a game and more an interactive story, although it is trying harder than Heavy Rain to be a "game."

To me, despite its flaws (a lackluster stealth portion and a messy conclusion to the story), Indigo Prophecy aka Fahrenheit was an interesting textbook for interactive linear storytelling. You followed a fairly straight story, but how you got through it could be very different. For example,

Spoiler:

you start the game in a diner bathroom having apparently just committed a murder. You could clean up the scene or not, wash your hands or not, before a cop strolled back into the bathroom. Once you got out, if you were covered in blood, people freaked out and you had to run for it; if you washed up, you could play it cool and pay your check before leaving. Once out of the diner, you could run for the subway, or catch a cab. The end result is the same (despite some slight future repercussions, like how easy it is for the cops-- who you also play!-- to track you) but the story plays very differently. Action-oriented sequences are "QTEs" and the overuse of those might have made this too much of a game to be properly contextualized.

Heavy Rain seems set to be very similar, but possibly with more emphasis on being perceived as a story than a game. The writing and dialogue are going to be crucial in that case, so I hope those get better than what you saw.

I do think that mainstream games are learning some lessons from this. Bioware in particular are doing a good job of giving you wiggle room in a story, but are more focused on entertainment than high art. Which is not a value judgment.

So I figure the "kind of gaming background makes a person champ at the bit for this"-- someone who is as (or more) interested in story than a mechanical game. The kind of person who enjoys the conversations in Dragon Age and Mass Effect as much (or more) than the battles.

If it wasn't for my limited budget and desire to buy a house by April, this would probably be the game that tipped me over the edge into buying a PS3.

beeporama wrote:

So I figure the "kind of gaming background makes a person champ at the bit for this"-- someone who is as (or more) interested in story than a mechanical game. The kind of person who enjoys the conversations in Dragon Age and Mass Effect as much (or more) than the battles.

Yeah, basically. Someone who doesn't care that a game runs at 60 FPS, but instead likes competitive control point modes where your control points spew the propaganda of your team. I prefer story, mood, atmosphere, idea, and character in my games. Each of my Dragon Age character has had a distinct personality (within the limits of the dialogue choices), and my favorite game this year has been Uncharted, because Nate is such a complete personality--the game takes time to show not only that he's smart, but kind of a prick who's annoyed with those not as smart as he, and gives 2 little dialogue exchanges to his need for validation. Essentially, I latch onto minutiae, and like to think I have rarefied tastes.

Echoing all the people who said more or less "I don't know if this will be good, but it will certainly be a shot at the moon, and I'll plunk down my money for that." Indigo Prophecy wasn't polished, and it was far from perfect, but there were little touches that I loved and I felt I got my money's worth out of it. One of the screenshots I've seen for Heavy Rain shows a tense shouting match between several men holding guns at each other. Over one of the guns is a small R2 icon. I take this to mean that, at any time during this conversation, you can pull your trigger if you think it's a better option. If this is accurate, this is the sort of "little touch" I love. Not to mention the sort of mechanic I was hoping Mass Effect would have when they were pitching the conversation system.

So yeah, Day 1 for me. And if it isn't great, I'm OK with that.

edit: Some talks with developers have also indicated that failing a story sequence - or, presumably, a QTE sequence - will kill your character (there are several different characters from what I gather) but not give you a game over. So if the story can handle characters dying and still give you a path to follow, that's pretty rad.

I find it interesting that they're delaying trophy notifications to between chapter breaks. That speaks to me of how much the developer cares about maintaining the atmosphere, and I applaud it. Nothing breaks my immersion in a game more than having a notice pop up telling me that I've just unlocked something - *cough* Assassin's Creed *cough*.

Day 1. One of my Most Wanted for next year, if only to experience something so different and risky (by AAA console standards, at least).

beeporama wrote:

So I figure the "kind of gaming background makes a person champ at the bit for this"-- someone who is as (or more) interested in story than a mechanical game. The kind of person who enjoys the conversations in Dragon Age and Mass Effect as much (or more) than the battles.

Roger that. I guess my pathalogical hatred of QTEs is just overwhelming.

gbuchold wrote:

Echoing all the people who said more or less "I don't know if this will be good, but it will certainly be a shot at the moon, and I'll plunk down my money for that." Indigo Prophecy wasn't polished, and it was far from perfect, but there were little touches that I loved and I felt I got my money's worth out of it....

Some talks with developers have also indicated that failing a story sequence - or, presumably, a QTE sequence - will kill your character (there are several different characters from what I gather) but not give you a game over. So if the story can handle characters dying and still give you a path to follow, that's pretty rad.

Ostensibly, all of the controllable characters can die, and it is just "a different ending" rather than "winning" or "losing". There is a very nice interview with him in Play magazine that explains his ambitions: http://playmagazine.com/index.php?fu...

He was saying similar things about Indigo Prophecy too, though; even the "rubber band" analogy used before. David Cage is not Peter Molyneux but I think we have to keep expectations reasonable. I do expect a novel experience that takes a lot of risks; but when you take risks, some will succeed and some will fail. I want to support risks.

beeporama wrote:
demonbox wrote:

And DLC precludes the core game from what exactly?

I think Lard, like many people, think any DLC is a slippery slope to intentionally shipping incomplete games to put buyers on the hook for an indeterminate amount of money to get the "complete" experience.

I don't agree, but I'm still hoping more game studios see the wisdom of free (or negligibly-priced) DLC simply to combat used sales.

It does seem to be true in many cases, though, or just releasing it so soon just to use the hype to get the people who got the game to buy it while the gameplay is still fresh to them. I miss the days of Expansion Packs where the developer would release something 6-12 months after the game has been shipped with a whole bunch of content worth paying for.

On the topic of HR, though, this is the only game that has made me seriously think about getting a console because of just one game. I loved Fahrenheit so much and this could be even better. Still not getting a PS3 but I'm looking forward to this game. These types of games if become more popular could revive the puzzle/adventure genre.

Between this and The Last Guardian, I'm sold on the PS3. It's just going to be awhile before I can afford one.

liquid wrote:
beeporama wrote:
demonbox wrote:

And DLC precludes the core game from what exactly?

I think Lard, like many people, think any DLC is a slippery slope to intentionally shipping incomplete games to put buyers on the hook for an indeterminate amount of money to get the "complete" experience.

I don't agree, but I'm still hoping more game studios see the wisdom of free (or negligibly-priced) DLC simply to combat used sales.

It does seem to be true in many cases, though, or just releasing it so soon just to use the hype to get the people who got the game to buy it while the gameplay is still fresh to them. I miss the days of Expansion Packs where the developer would release something 6-12 months after the game has been shipped with a whole bunch of content worth paying for.

Part of it is: I like owning things on disc. That's the way I am and I can't and won't change that.

Part of it is: If I'm paying $70 damn dollars for a new game (as games often are in Canada), then the thought of having to go out and buy DLC on top of that is *incredibly* irksome.

Combine the two and ....this gen sucks.

adam.greenbrier wrote:

Between this and The Last Guardian, I'm sold on the PS3. It's just going to be awhile before I can afford one.

These are (unsurprisingly) my thoughts to the letter. In fact, I think i even posted as much in another thread. Get out of my head!

Minarchist wrote:
adam.greenbrier wrote:

Between this and The Last Guardian, I'm sold on the PS3. It's just going to be awhile before I can afford one.

These are (unsurprisingly) my thoughts to the letter. In fact, I think i even posted as much in another thread. Get out of my head!

I propose a solution: give me the money you've been saving, and I'll put it with my money, and I'll buy myself a PS3. Since we're so similar, it'd be just like buying yourself a PS3.

adam.greenbrier wrote:
Minarchist wrote:
adam.greenbrier wrote:

Between this and The Last Guardian, I'm sold on the PS3. It's just going to be awhile before I can afford one.

These are (unsurprisingly) my thoughts to the letter. In fact, I think i even posted as much in another thread. Get out of my head!

I propose a solution: give me the money you've been saving, and I'll put it with my money, and I'll buy myself a PS3. Since we're so similar, it'd be just like buying yourself a PS3.

Okay, but only if I get to keep the games.

I have no problem with renting. It's a go.

NM

Lard wrote:

Part of it is: I like owning things on disc. That's the way I am and I can't and won't change that.

Part of it is: If I'm paying $70 damn dollars for a new game (as games often are in Canada), then the thought of having to go out and buy DLC on top of that is *incredibly* irksome.

I definitely agree with the first part. As I say over in the Assassin's Creed 2 thread:

beeporama wrote:

I will admit that I don't like DLC much on principal because it is so ephemeral. I only have a 20GB drive in my 360, and I can't count on that DLC still being on the servers in ten years if I get the itch for some retro gaming in 2019. For example, I have Skies Of Arcadia (Dreamcast) DLC on a VMU that I could never get again. I know there's a superior GameCube port now, but I can see this becoming a common problem in a decade.

As for the second part, I think the villain is price; DLC is the messenger you're shooting. Studios need to find a way to better monetize their AAA titles to justify their high costs, when Pokemon and Wii Resort and Peggle are drowning in money at minimal development cost.

Personally I'm a fan of more ancillary merchandise (books, comics, action figures, etc.) and fancy "special editions." This enables those of us with the money and the willingness to pour more money into your IP, while those with less money aren't left out of the core experience. I also believe DLC can be done right when it is inconsequental and inexpensive: more out-of-storyline "Templar Lairs" for Assassin's Creed, or some character skins, or maybe a well-balanced extra weapon or power (see the inFamous "Gigawatt Blades").

I do (like you) fear that in this generation, the "Ada Missions" in the Resident Evil 4 PS2 port would have been instead made DLC; and I'd hate to not have them on disc. On the other hand, it sure would have been nice for early adopters on the GameCube to have been able to get them without re-buying the game on a new platform.

Thread derail!

I'm really psyched after checking these out:

Developer Q & A (insightful!)
New Gameplay Vids (watch the first 5 - very minor spoilers but worth watching) Language NSFW.

There was quite a bit of talk lately about the North American version being censored because of nudity, sex, and suggested rape but the ESRB opted to leave the game intact so those fears were put to rest. The dev comments on that in the Q&A and I'm sure his thoughts are echoed by most other devs. Their work needs to be presented in his original state just like any other form of art.

I was on the fence about whether I liked the premise and mechanics of the game but after reading the hands-on previews, listening to the devs, and seeing it in action, I'm 100% on board for a release day purchase. This is undoubtedly going to be the start of an entirely new game genre and I'm excited to see how quickly other devs accept this new form of gameplay.

It will all depend on how well they manage to flesh out the myriad of choices you might have to get through the game. The videos look impressive in the choices that you have, but of course they're gonna put their best foot forward. I hope they have the resources to put the needed time in. The worst part of Indigo Prophecy was how so obviously rushed the last third of the game was. That, and the plot just went off the rails.

93_confirmed wrote:

There was quite a bit of talk lately about the North American version being censored because of nudity, sex, and suggested rape but the ESRB opted to leave the game intact

The ESRB doesn't cut a game. They give you a rating, and maybe tell you what to cut to get a different rating, but it isn't their decision to leave something intact.

Unless this is just shorthand for "the ESRB opted to let the nudity, sex, and suggested rape carry an M rating instead of an AO rating, the latter of which would doom it to not be carried by most outlets and assuring financial ruin for Quantic Dreams."

Have Quantic Dreams suddenly become Bioware?

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/...