Heavy Rain [PS3]

[ezee ryder]

WOW! That is an outrageous character model.

[JP]

Eurogamer have a few new things up today for this.

One of the fascinating things about Heavy Rain - previewed on Eurogamer today - is its reliance on development studio head David Cage, who wrote the massive script single-handedly, and motion capture. On a recent excursion to see the game in development, we noted down a few of the more interesting stats in its creator's presentation. We thought you might enjoy them, so here they are:
The script

• 2,000 pages long
• 60 scenes, each about 15-20 minutes long, most, but not all of which you see on any play-through
• 40,000 words of non-linear dialogue
• Based on 6,000 pages of notes and references
• 15 months in development

The art design

• Two weeks scouting for locations on the East Coast of the USA
• 15 months of design by ten people
• Photos, topographical gameplay maps, sketches of every item, paintings of every scene

The outsourcing to Asia

• Over 100 people involved outside Quantic Dream
• 480 man-months of work
• Based on an "outsourcing bible" and "level architect blueprints"

The motion capture

• All done on-site at Quantic Dream in Paris
• 170 days of shooting across nine months
• Over 70 actors and stuntmen involved
• Casting sessions in Paris and London
• 30,000 unique animations recorded

[Brad]

Meh



Just kidding. Super excited for this. Fahrenheit was great until it become not great. As long as he doesn't make the same mistake this time it should rock.

[hudson]

Well I hope all those words, pages, days, scenes, actors, men, months, minutes, animations and weeks are worth it. I remember when another developer under Sony was waxing about hair strands or seomthing and it ended up being what seems like a forgotten tale of plop.

It certainly looks good, though. Hope they deliver a spiffing game.

[Phar]

It's a Quantic Dream game so I'm expecting it to be borderline genius at times while also being flawed, not like it really matters though as I loved Omikron and Fahrenheit despite this.

[Hohum]

I'd imagine this game will play very similar to Fahrenheit? Although I enjoyed that title (despite the story fizzling out towards the end), there will need to be plenty of replayability if that's the case. Sure, the choices/actions you take will cause some stuff to change over the course of the game, but if it's just minor little details that play out differently with the vast majority of the storyline remaining the same...

I guess I'm a little sceptical. A similar hype machine existed with Crysis - there was plenty of coverage of the game prior to release, but practically all of it just covered the graphics, physics etc. This was with good reason, as when the game was released and you got to actually play it you soon realised that the gameplay itself was pretty average. The coverage for Heavy Rain thus far has pretty much only covered the graphics, storyline, and general atmosphere (from what I can tell... somebody show me otherwise if it's not the case), so it's a little concerning. Anyway, just my thoughts.

[BeyondJumpFish]

Yeah i know what you meen Hohum. Its gotta play good, thats the main point of it being a game, otherwise it may as well be another Final Fantasy style movie. Still, its damn good looking!

[Shoju]

Hopefully they'll actually implement some proper controls instead of being lazy and unimaginative and relying on QTE for almost everything.

[Family Fry]

It begins, 1up coverage all this week with new video to come!

http://www.1up.com/do/minisite?cId=3174272

Cast teaser image is up.


So SO looking forward to this

[fallenangle]

I just can't work up any enthusiasm. Hated Fahrenheit, as I probably said in this thread months ago, but I really enjoyed Omikron The Nomad Soul which I played for the first time less than year ago. The latter is an intelligently concieved idea with a decent story and coventional, well executed gameplay. Fahrenheit was a very well conceived idea but with a story that went off big time halfway through and gameplay that eventually bored me death.

If Heavy Rain follows the sequence it will be a brilliantly conceived idea that promises much but will deliver little.

But I hope I'm wrong.

[Neon Ignition]

This is in my Top 5 most wanted for the releases coming late this year. I'm thinking of revisiting Fahrenheit again. I agree with the sentiments that it should avoid the mistake that game made in it's latter part but so far I'm loving everything I've seen of this one.

[Brad]

Cage acknowledges the balls up at the end of Fahrenheit. I don't see him making the same mistake again.

[SuperBeatBoy]

Just hope it doesn't have stupid qtes that look like they came from the matrix that last for over 10mins a time.

What a dissapointment Fahrenhiet was compared to what the demo was to the final product.

[EvilBoris]

I'm looking forward to this I remember the Demo for Fahrenheit on the Pc having a little David Cage in in game graphics popping up and introducing the game. He made it sound really cool with it's multiple choices and your choices affecting the plot.
The demo had a bit of this and I ultimately felt dissapointed by the games linearity after that point that featured in the demo.

He clearly had a vision of this 'create your own adventure' style game, but didn't deliver, Heavy Rain is shaping up to be just like I was expecting Fahrenheit to be.

As for QTEs , I forgive him for that, he clearly wants a very cinematic choreographed sequence of actions and short of creating something that noone has thought of yet there is nothing that would of served the purpose better. Less trigger bashing though in any heavy rain QTEs

[fallenangle]

It was all those seemingly endless QTE's and rythm action sequences that sucked my will to play the game. There was one place where this made the simple act of a kid climbing a fence into a pointlessly elaborate control puzzle. Another one had you waggling the contriol sticks in time with your character's heartbeat during a conversation.

Like a lot of games with QTEs much of the time it felt that the gameplay was simply a cheap and easy add on just to give you somethig to do during a long story sequence. It was almost as if they'd thought out the story and dialogue as if it was a film and then remembered at some later point it was actually a game.

The obvious effort and time being put into the filmic elements of Heavy Rain augre well for the presentation, the story and, of course, the look. But what about the gameplay? That's what broke Fahrenheit for me not the mistakes in the direction the story took.