Heavy Rain

Gee more Quick Time Event gameplay. This looks like Indigo Prophecy: The next Generation. And that's not a good thing in my book.

Hmm. Just getting a big white square, no movie.

Came up instantly that time.

EDIT: Looks good to me. I don't know why so many gamers brag about their skills in twitch-based games, then complain about QTEs. I like QTEs, they give a game engine a chance to really shine and provide cinematic moments you couldn't get otherwise.

And I loved Indigo Prophecy.

Video works fine for me.

My problem is, the QT events were the worst aspect of Farenheit. The first two thirds - were some of the best i've experienced in a modern adventure game - and thankfully the shitty QT events stopped me from experiencing the final third. Almost.

It's been said on one particular site I frequent for PS3 news that the problem is that people are hyping the graphics. It doesn't look flawless or photoreal, it never will, so people should stop hyping it for that, for fear of disappointment - and worse still there's every possibility this game will completely disengage the person playing it and QT events are only engaging the first time you have to accomplish them.

Even then, they're fucking awful.

But those first two thirds of Farenheit earned them the right to annoy the shit out of me with further QTs and take my money while I cry over my bleeding and broken fingers.

That looks like the craziest episode of L&O: SVU I've ever seen.

I am looking forward to trying out the demo.

The visuals look amazing. Just amazing. Could the Xbox handle those graphics?

Is the game all QTE? or is there different styles of gameplay?

There's GOTTA be more to it than QTEs, I'd imagine. Unless this is the 21st century version of Dragon's Lair.

I wouldn't be surprised if what we saw was merely the equivilant of one of Farenheit's cutscenes. The actual game itself is almost certainly going to involve roaming about - unless the QT's themselves branch off depending on your reaction. Which it doesn't look like it'll be doing according to that video...

I like how the QTE buttons are shown on the items you can use. This game will rock. And I loved Indigo, warts and all.

Agreed. And since the QTE buttons are on the items, it might add some replay value beyond simply hitting the same buttons every time you play.

As much as I loved Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) pretty graphics and interactive cutscenes don't seem all that fun. Still I suppose it'd be nice to have another decent game on the PS3.

The game looks great so far. I loved Indigo Prophecy despite its twist, so this certainly interests me.

Watch the trailer again. Notice how as she moves around the table different icons appear at different times.. Now I don't know if the player is controlling the character at this point, what it does indicate though is that there are multiple ways of going through that QTE. In other words, the player is more in control of how the events play out. For example, if she had pressed the square when it was over the bottle I imagine she would have thrown the bottle, but she didn't. Instead she pressed another button that flipped over the table. Each time events would have played out differently.

That is FAR different than what we saw in Indigo Prophecy where you had to press a bunch of buttons to get through a set scripted sequence. Here the player is more in control of how the sequence plays out.

Joystiq has a preview up of it, and it talks about how there are different branching outcomes depending on how you handle different situations.

Some of what is said below could be considered spoilers for a part of the game (but is pretty interesting) to read:

From the same article, on the gameplay:

Are you thinking of joining the PS3 crew now Alex?

Game looks nice in motion. I didn't know that this was from the same guys who did Indigo so my interest for this game just went up.

Indigo Prophecy was one of the best purchases I ever made on Live, so I am pretty pumped for this game.

I feel the same way. Sure, it got a bit wacky toward the end, but I love that game!

Heavy Rain is my most anticipated Sony exclusive next year.

The use of QTEs does not concern me at all. However, the innovative control control scheme does freak me out abit - just sounds very, very different. That said, I'll give Cage benefit of the doubt!

I love gripping, deeply personal and intense stories. That potential has me very excited.

If anyone cares, I've been referring to this game as Chubby Rain.

Man I used to love Omnikron back on the Dreamcast, nothing like David Bowie harassing you to possess some dude whilst you're in a poorly rendered strip club.

Hehe, you and me both. At this point, both Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy would probably happily take a paycheck to appear in this.

After watching it again, you're right. fuck - it's branching.

I think my only issue with this could be that it'll mean the pace is constant, unrelenting.

Indigo prophecy had pretty good pacing; some of my funnest moments with it was when it was lighthearted....hopefully, that'll remain true with Heavy Rain

Oh boy, that trailer is great. I was one of the guys who loved Indigo Prophecy even when it did get stupid at the end. I really like that the QTE options are blended better into the scene rather than a giant triangle popping up in the middle of the screen.

Ditto here Alex...although if i get that job position I got interviewed for last friday, I know what I will start saving money up for! (A PS3 and Heavy Rain, of course).
Also, Am I the only one whose utter amazed by how much the facial animation seems to have advance from their first tech demo? Seriously, the whole thing looks almost good enough to challenge the "Uncanny Valley" issue, at least in my opinion.

EDIT: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/39066.html there, an interview with the developers at GT.com.

I think the eyes look amazing. It's the mouth that looks weird. Guess that's the next tech hurdle! As for the game itself, I enjoyed Indigo Prophecy until the bullshit ending bullshit. I like the idea of an adventureish game where being quick and not just calmly clicking stuff is important.

Eurogamer has some more info on Heavy Rain with a preview and some numbers.

An interesting quote from the preview:

And the stats:

Anyway, I'm excited to see more of this game but it'll be a long wait until Fall/Winter '09 before it's released.

Other than God of War 3, this is the game I'm most looking forward to on my new PS3. Even though Indigo Prophecy's entire last act left a seriously bad taste in my mouth.

Even the guy who directed the game acknowledged the last act was terrible.

If you had told me two hours into Indigo Prophecy that I would literally be dropping my controller in disgust and giving up on the game, I would have called you crazy. It went from awesome to complete suck in what seemed like ten minutes.

I totally agree. There's literally a point in the apartment where the game seems to change writers and direction in the blink of an eye.

But I can't ignore how good the first half was.

I almost bought Indigo Prophecy on XBox Classics the other day, and then I remembered how incredibly pissed off I got halfway through and ended up buying Black.

Hooboy.

Game Videos has a new video, looks interesting. Non-stop QTE it would seem.

And G4 has a hands-on, it appears they concur.

I was so excited. Now....I'm not.

MCP article. Looks so, so awful.

I think it could be interesting if there is actually significant branching that really makes each play through unique. I haven't really played a QTE heavy game in a while so maybe I'll be able to deal with it.

I'm really more worried about the other controls, the description sounds kind of ridiculous.

Have we seen the "other controls" yet? There's been mention of a trigger-based control scheme, but I don't think we've seen it in any videos yet.

I'm basically praying for this to be as hilariously bad as I think it will be.

The invokation of Night Trap made that point pretty well.

You... you think it looks good?

I don't know. if you watch the GTTV stuff, you can clearly see large parts of the game are not QTE, but Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy style "look for the clue, have a conversation" style gameplay. I guess the amount of that versus the amount of QTE will be the dealbreaker. However, what is obvious from the GTTV interviews is that the game is nowhere near finished. I was kind of thinking it would make an appearance on the PS3 at the end of the year, but now it looks more like end of 2010. ouch. Also, the whole "using the R1 button to walk" thing sounds just like Fahrenheit. It had that whole tutorial thing at the start to make you understand the complicated controls, which I'm guessing we'll be getting here too. Hmm, maybe Badalamenti will do the score for this one as well.

I don't know, I'm not happy about the massive amount of QTEs (or indeed, the shitty dialogue shown in most of the footage), but I'm still interested. At least the producer confirmed they are really pushing the M rating. Now let's hope the story is actually good even if the dialogue on display here is, uh, not so great.

The actual rendering of that investigator was really horrible. I appreciate this thing's in development but I saw no sign of this emotion that was in the early pre-viz video that hit the net to demonstrate the technology.

I was under the impression the QTEs had multiple choices on button presses, making it in part, like one of those "go to page 104 if you do X" novels - making it more interactive instead of simply just reactive.

I fucking hate QTEs. I fucking loved Farenheit, even with the horrible second half, there's no way they've made a game filled with QTEs - in fact, i'm pretty sure the Farenheit trailers themselves were mostly filled with just the QTEs and cinematics, because they look more action-packed than simply walking around exploring.

My expectations are no less than when we saw that odd video of the girl breaking into the house - this is going to be unique.

Haha impressive - my thoughts exactly.

You're certainly right about me having a vendetta about QTEs, but it's not like that vendetta comes out of left field. QTEs are - to me, at least - the single laziest gameplay widget ever devised. I won't rehash old arguments (unless pressed to do so), but this looks like a flu dump. I could barely make it through the footage without muttering swears.

Making things worse - the "detective visiting the chop shop" scene is nearly unbearable. Maybe it's poking fun at noir tropes, but I seriously doubt it's that smart. An awful noir movie set to QTEs - way to merge two of my worst nightmares, fellas!