Cage: Heavy Rain is not meant “for tabloids”

Heavy Rain is NOT a lot of things. But Mr.Cage doesn’t seem inclined to make it quite clear what it IS.

I cut him some slack…The guy obviously feels insecure how much the game will appeal to gamers rather than the game itself

“Nothing is gratuitous, and I think that everything supports the narrative and the emotional immersion of the player,”

Such as making your CGI figurehead woman perform a stripping scene and having her appear in Playboy.

Also, those opening 9 mins is the most gratuitously boring intro to a game I have ever witnessed.

“Such as making your CGI figurehead woman perform a stripping scene and having her appear in Playboy.”

While I agree on the Playboy remark (that was just tasteless), I don’t agree on the stripping scene.

For one, you don’t actually *have* to get naked. You can attempt to attack the guy watching you at any point in the sequence. The whole point is to put your character in an uncomfortable position, one that is morally ambiguous… and the fact that you find issue with it means that it has at least partially succeeded in its job.

“Also, those opening 9 mins is the most gratuitously boring intro to a game I have ever witnessed.”

I’m not going to share any spoilers, but there’s a *reason* why the beginning is “boring” and monotonous. Think of your average thriller, where everything is all nice and sweet at the beginning, and you can probably guess where it’s going.

It says more for the attention span of the average gamer than it does for the quality of the games when a person can’t handle 10 minutes of sombre experiences.

“I’m not going to share any spoilers, but there’s a *reason* why the beginning is “boring” and monotonous. Think of your average thriller, where everything is all nice and sweet at the beginning, and you can probably guess where it’s going.

It says more for the attention span of the average gamer than it does for the quality of the games when a person can’t handle 10 minutes of sombre experiences.”

Fair enough if you think that actually qualifies as entertaining gameplay. It’s no so much 10 minutes of ‘sombre experiences’ though, is it? It’s 10 minutes of ordinary routine. At least The Sims has the decency to automate such fluff.

I am hugely biased here – I hated Fahrenheit and see all of its worst mistakes being repeated and intensified with Heavy Rain.

“It says more for the attention span of the average gamer than it does for the quality of the games when a person can’t handle 10 minutes of sombre experiences.”

True enough, but when you create a game as expensive as this, it needs to appeal to the ‘average gamer’, or Mr Cage is going to be funding his next game with his own money.

Never stopped Team Ico.

“It’s no so much 10 minutes of ’sombre experiences’ though, is it? It’s 10 minutes of ordinary routine.”

The very beginning is supposed to put you in the comfort zone of “ordinary routine” intentionally, because its that ordinary routine” that gets blown out of the window about five minutes later.

“I am hugely biased here – I hated Fahrenheit and see all of its worst mistakes being repeated and intensified with Heavy Rain.”

I was a fan of Fahrenheit (though I won’t deny its problems) so that probably explains that.

“The very beginning is supposed to put you in the comfort zone of “ordinary routine” intentionally, because its that ordinary routine” that gets blown out of the window about five minutes later.”

There are better ways of doing this than a interactive-in-a-minimalist-sense showcase of how dull a life is – ‘even Rocky had a montage’, to quote Team America. E.G. The opening section of Guild Wars managed to convey a pre-apocalypse feeling of normality perfectly, whilst keeping the player deep in the action.

You can emphasise normality without boring the player rigid by clever use of the technology and techniques at your disposal – but for a man who wants to make interactive movies, this section (and Fahrenheit in general) seemed to miss all those well-known filmmakers’ tricks.

This is deffently a love or hate it type of game. Personialy I would rather watch a movie then play a video game that tries to recreate the movie experience.

I am sure it doesn’t fit everyone, but for me books and movies > video games for steller story telling.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t want good stories in some of my games, but the games i enjoy the most – I would play em with or with out a story. I think alot of people are like that. Be it DarkSiders, CoD, or an EA Sports game, I think any sense of story is just frosting on the cake of gameplay. And with a game like HR, its all story. I think it has fail written all over it. I just don’t think enough of the so called “average gamer” is going to care.

So if a gamer doesn’t care to sit past 10 min he feels is boring, I think that does indeed speak of the game, and what the game is trying to do. Do I think gamers tend to have short attention spans? Yes, but not just gamers, how many times do we hear the expersion, I will wait for the movie to come out, instead of reading the book?

Samething. People live busy, hectic, amd fast paced lives. Gamers buy a game, put the game in their system and want the fun to start happening. I don’t think that is unreasonable. Not when games cost so much cash.

No doubt that many will enjoy HR, but no doubt that many more will not.