Did Heavy Rain impress you before? What about now?

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Quantic Dream's David Cage on differences between Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain, the much-debated button-pressing minigames, possible online features, and other projects in the works.

At E3 in 2006, Quantic Dream president and CEO (and Heavy Rain writer and director) David Cage showed a tech demo of an actress auditioning for a role with quick dramatic emotional shifts. It wasn't from any particular game, according to Cage, but designed to show how an in-game character could look and act -- and many associated it with the title "Heavy Rain," in part because E3 kiosks labeled it as such.

But it wasn't. So fans of Quantic Dream's previous adventure game, Indigo Prophecy, had to wait to see what the developer had in the works. Fast-forward to this year's Leipzig Games Convention: Cage ran through press meetings to formally unveil the title. Sort of, anyway. He showed a live gameplay sequence that revealed many of Heavy Rain's planned features, but did so using a just-for-tradeshows scenario and story -- which, by dictionary rules, makes it tech demo No. 2.

Between those two showings, he created extremely positive buzz for the game -- in my Games Convention preview, I found myself "as excited for the game as I have been for any in recent memory" -- and did so without actually showing the game itself. Is Cage a genius, and the media a bunch of suckers? (He does have four job titles, after all.) Perhaps it'd be more accurate to say that his ideas have generated a ton of excitement -- but to date, they've been demonstrated in highly controlled circumstances.

Which, of course, makes me want to know more.

1UP: I heard you mention at Games Convention that Heavy Rain is "everything we learned and did right on [indigo Prophecy] done 10 times better, less everything we've done wrong." What are some examples of things you did wrong in Indigo Prophecy that you're staying away from this time?

David Cage: After [indigo Prophecy], we spent a lot of time reading reviews and players' feedback on forums. We also had our own ideas about what worked and what didn't. First and foremost, I think we have a much stronger script in Heavy Rain. Although it was more complex to write, I think the characters have real substance, and the story should be emotionally involving. I also tried to evoke themes rarely used in games, which should be one of the challenges of the game, but also one of its more interesting aspects. It's an important test for me to see if we can tell more subtle stories and trigger more complex emotions in a game or not -- something we already started to experiment with in [our] The Casting demo.

We also continued to develop our concept of "bending stories," allowing players' actions to have consequences on the story. We pushed this idea further, in a more constant, fluid, and effective way. We also entirely redesigned the way action scenes work, something that was one of the weak aspects of [indigo Prophecy].

We also spent a lot of time and energy in developing a solid engine, graphics tools, and pipelines. I think gamers can already judge the graphic quality from the first playable demo we presented. Many people seemed to think that this pre-teaser was prerendered and not interactive, but it's entirely real time and fully playable.

We really improved the experience at all levels, with more interactivity, new gameplay mechanics and interfaces, high-quality sets and virtual actors, a new technology of facial motion capture, better animations, and many, many other surprises I cannot reveal now. But, believe me, what we've shown so far is nothing compared to what we're currently working on for the full game.

1UP: You also mentioned at Games Convention that the taxidermist scene you showed won't be part of the game's main story. Will it still appear in the game, and if so, in the exact same way we saw it? Or perhaps with changes, such as how Konami showed Metal Gear Solid 2 scenes in their marketing with Snake as the main character -- even though he never appeared in those scenes in the real game -- to avoid spoilers?

DC: Not showing a part of the game was really important to us. We believe story is a key component of the experience, and we didn't want to spoil it. We haven't decided yet how this first playable will be used. Maybe as a bonus scene that players will unlock in the game, or maybe as extra downloadable content.

1UP: You warned against reading too much into the taxidermist scene, but does that scene suggest Heavy Rain's themes might be more rooted in reality than Indigo Prophecy's?

DC: Definitely. We tend to believe in our industry that we need to tell simplistic or spectacular stories, where the hero saves the world, destroys evil, or has supernatural powers. This is because the videogame, as a medium, has been too immature to tell complex and subtle stories. I made this mistake myself at the end of [indigo Prophecy], where I felt my story needed something spectacular because all I had so far was normal people leading a normal life. I realized that the "normal" part was the one that worked the best, and that it wasn't necessary to save the world to tell something exciting anymore. Heavy Rain will be about normal people in real life, and I believe it'll be much more emotionally involving, as gamers will easily relate to the situations and characters. This is a new approach. In Heavy Rain, you won't be a superhero or a gangster. You'll just be someone real.

1UP: How have the button-pressing minigames in Heavy Rain evolved from those in Indigo Prophecy?

DC: Of course, we were not satisfied with the way PAR (this is what we call these sequences) were implemented in [indigo Prophecy]. We bet on the peripheral vision of the player, and it didn't really work. Having said that, we didn't want to throw away everything just because we did it wrong. There are some very interesting aspects to PAR: There's no limit to the types of actions, animations, and cameras you can offer, which makes every single action and scene unique. These scenes are very spectacular, fully contextual, and easy to understand and play. They're also more and more common, as they've been used in games like Shenmue, Tomb Raider, and God of War.

So I started again from a blank page and tried to keep what I liked about PAR while getting rid of what I didn't like. I think we found an interesting new solution by integrating symbols in 3D in the set and in animating them with the character or object they relate to. It's much less disruptive for the visuals, better integrated -- and, if well tuned, can be interesting to play. We also changed the pacing of the action, asking for fewer symbols but on a fast pace. PAR segments are just used in certain sequences for certain actions, of course; they don't constitute the main component of the experience.

I know there's always a strong reluctance from some hardcore gamers for this type of sequence, but we hope to convince them by the way we're going to implement them and by how we'll make these sequences really enjoyable and spectacular.

SCREENS: One of Heavy Rain's biggest mysteries is how the game handles death. Cage has said that it's possible for the game to continue after you die, but he's stopped short of saying how that works. In our interview, he more or less confirmed part of one theory, however. When asked if there would be multiple playable characters in the game, he said, "I cannot answer this question at this stage...but if you know a little bit about my previous games, you can probably guess."

1UP: How do you determine which actions players will perform with the right analog stick and which they'll perform with physical controller movements?

DC: We use the Sixaxis motion controller for violent actions requiring you to push, hit, or kick in general. Our approach to interface is really based on emulating the character's moves on the controller. We want to make the player feel the same way as his character onscreen.

1UP: Will players use the PS3 controller's face buttons for anything?

DC: We don't use them for the moment, apart from action sequences. We don't feel we need them for the moment.

1UP: In a recent interview with Develop magazine, Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida said, "One focus that has been, and will be, key is how we use the online technology and PlayStation Network to involve more consumers in participating.... That's the major common theme that we are trying to enforce with all our projects." Might we see any online features in Heavy Rain?

DC: Heavy Rain's an experience about interactive narrative and emotion, and we really wanted to focus on making these core elements right. The game will support the Trophy system and may offer some kind of extra content online, but Heavy Rain is a single-player experience.

1UP: What's the biggest development challenge you're currently facing?

DC: The biggest challenge is probably about the overall level of detail and quality we need to reach in all areas of the game. Any detail may break the illusion and stop the suspension of disbelief. In most action games, the player can accept that dead bodies disappear after a while; this kind of thing would break the experience in Heavy Rain. All characters have to move and behave right, all elements in the environment that the player may want to interact with must be interactive, and the story must behave in a logical way, always offering the player possibilities that they'd reasonably expect. Maintaining this level of quality and consistency through the full game is definitely a challenge, especially because each scene is unique, and most of the time offers a specific [type of] gameplay.

1UP: Is Heavy Rain the only project in development at Quantic Dream, or is the company a multiple-game studio at the moment?

DC: Quantic Dream's been a single-project company for years. We put a lot of energy and attention in our projects, and we never wanted to compromise the quality. The company has now reached another stage where we're ready to have two and soon three projects at the same time, with the same desire of ambition and originality. We want to continue to pioneer emotion and narrative in games in the future, but also apply what we've learned to different formats and different genres. Online is definitely going to be one of our next steps. This industry changes quickly, and online is going to be a key component of not only gameplay, but also of distribution in the near future. What gets me excited is to work on new ideas and new challenges, and I think we have some very unique concepts in the pipeline.

Source: http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?pager.of...=3171575&p= via http://www.psu.com/Did-Heavy-Rain-impress-...a0005562-p0.php

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

I thought you meant the film... Which was crap!

[Pupik]

And now, I can't see anything. Everything is so dark in the screenshots.

[AbandonedTrolley]

Certainly is a winner in the looks department. Here's hoping controls and storyline work well too.

[NEREVAR117]

Is that first picture in-game? Wow!

[James123]

Don't like the look of the 1st picture, the next 3 make up for it though :p. Will definitely pick this up if they don't screw up the gameplay/controls.

[FiB3R]

And now, I can't see anything. Everything is so dark in the screenshots.

I think you might need to adjust your screen.

[HawkMan]

The only one of those screenshots wih show qinatifiable grpahics quality without obsucirng details by cheap ad easy graphical efets that hid render defects and makes stuff prettie, is the ambulance one, and it's highly unimpresive, lighting is very bad, and it doesn't appear to use reflections other than for the floor in the one interior shot. the night shot witht he amblance and the morcycle shot hould both show very nic nice reflections, but this seems to have ben acrificed.

as for using sixaxis... yeah... that'll be entertainign and fun... for 5 minutes at least

Using theanalog stick for actons works for Skate, but I'm not seeing it in this type of game.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Damn HawkMan you've become the new negative nancy around this section the past few days/week :p

If you think this game looks bad I urge you to go watch the fully played out (it was demoed in real time by David Cage) 20 minute video that's on the internet.

Argubaly the most realistic looking console game about right now, behind KZ2 based on me talking about real life graphics (KZ2 while it looks fantastic is on another planet/using foreign scenery).

The animation is great also.

The 1UP link also has about another 10-15 screens.

Anyone who thinks this game looks bad is off their rockers - You may dislike the art direction, but the game looks fantastic.

And FTR for anyone commenting that has not been following HR, in the last screenshot the two women in the background are dead - They've been stuffed by the taxidermist who occupies that house. The 20 minute demo involves you breaking in and exploring his house.

[mail]

Spellcheck please :p.

The game looks alright the lighting looks very average.

[shakey_snake]

I thought the first screen was a photo, until I saw the second.

[Dance.]

Certainly is a winner in the looks department. Here's hoping controls and storyline work well too.

Agreed :yes:.

[afusion]

This is perhaps the only game I'm really pumped about on the Sony platform.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

For those wanting more

20 minute demonstration from a few months back - http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2008/11/02/watch-...-of-heavy-rain/

Screens

[HawkMan]

It still doesn't impress much, the water just don't look good enough.

and for a game where rain is so prevasive, their rain sure isn't very good.

Maybe it's because I dabble in 3D graphics and rendering, but... rain without reflections on wet roads... just don't work, heck they don't even reflect the car/motorbike lights. and that's like THE element to rain and wet roads. if you have that then everythign else an pretty much look like crap and it'll still look good.

[Si_]

God some of those screens look awful.... it's like they put all the effort into the main character(s), the rest look like badly modeled play dough. Average, hopefully the gameplay/story will be good and not another Lair...

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

It still doesn't impress much, the water just don't look good enough.

and for a game where rain is so prevasive, their rain sure isn't very good.

Maybe it's because I dabble in 3D graphics and rendering, but... rain without reflections on wet roads... just don't work, heck they don't even reflect the car/motorbike lights. and that's like THE element to rain and wet roads. if you have that then everythign else an pretty much look like crap and it'll still look good.

if you have that then everythign else an pretty much look like crap and it'll still look good.

Wet road reflections are the most important thing, and if we have them the rest of the game can look like crap, but still look good?

Damn this section gets crazier every day.

I hope you hold every single game up to these seemingly godlike requirements you have :p

God some of those screens look awful.... it's like they put all the effort into the main character(s), the rest look like badly modeled play dough. Average, hopefully the gameplay/story will be good and not another Lair...

What does this have to do with Lair?

And if you think those screens look awful, I'd love to see what an "average" looking game is in your opinion.

You understand the definition of "awful", yeah?

And Si, the two women in the bottom picture, I've already explained they are dead stuffed bodies.

You'd know if you watch the 20 min demonstration, but I seriously doubt you will.

Edited December 2, 2008 by Audioboxer

[afusion]

Yeah I thought those stuffed girls looked like something from Harley Quinn's show room rofl (Batman Vengeance reference)

[FiB3R]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=V06NA2E3

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=V06NA2E3

You can just stream it here - http://www.gamekyo.com/videoen13496_heavy-...tion-video.html

Starts at around 3 minutes, Cage speaks in french for 3 mins before playing :(

After watching that, please come back and tell me it's an awful looking game, so I can laugh my ass off :laugh:

Here's the public presentation of Heavy Rain for the PlayStation 3 made by its Producer at Micromania Games Show 2008 in Paris.

- In this demo, the player takes the role of a young journalist who is investigating on several girls' disappearances, she goes to a house of a taxidermist who is suspected of killing these women. In this presentation, the Producer of the game shows 2 different ways to finish this demo, there are lots of different ways to get through the story.

- Multiple view camera system, not always behind the girl.

- The demo is fully playable, no cut-scenes, the player can control the girl at any time.

- The Sixaxis motion sensor is used in the game to make different moves (open a window, raise or hit on an object, etc.).

- It is possible to hear what is happening in the mind of the character, so the player knows the different choices that are available.

- No loadings in the game!

- Backgrounds are fully interactive (all objects can be used, all doors can be opened, etc.).

- Very interesting Split Screen System to keep an eye on the murderer, control the character at the same time.

- The player has to maintain several buttons to stay hidden, uncomfortable situation for the player to reproduce the same stress in the game.

- Quick time events for some action scenes.

Quick reminder for everyone, if you read the first post, you'll know the demo above isn't taken from the actual game, but was made for demoing purposes and may be included as an extra. Cage said they didn't want to waste story from the real game, but the dark/creepy story elements above (guy killing and stuffing women), carries over into the actual game.

Edited December 2, 2008 by Audioboxer

[+Neyht Subscriber²]

rain without reflections on wet roads...

In which screen shot should I see the reflections?

...well the vehicles in screen shot two stand out because they look so clean.

The expression in the eyes are okay but the mouth movement isn't right, at least in the videos I've seen.

Edited December 2, 2008 by Ned

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

In which screen shot should I see the reflections?

...well the vehicles in screen shot two stand out because they look so clean.

Are there any videos of this game yet?

Both posts above mate.

You can get the video on megaupload, or stream it here - http://www.gamekyo.com/videoen13496_heavy-...tion-video.html

Starts 3 mins in, and lasts roughly 20 minutes.

Unfortunately cage speaks in French for the presentation though.

[FiB3R]

You can just stream it here - http://www.gamekyo.com/videoen13496_heavy-...tion-video.html

You can just download it here http://www.megaupload.com/?d=V06NA2E3

[Sethos]

Some scenes are a hit and miss graphics wise. Sometimes it looks absolutely stunning, the next it looks pretty bland and uninspiring.

But I really loved Fahrenheit ( Indigo Prophecy for the Americanos ) so I am looking forward to this.

[Si_]

What does this have to do with Lair?

And if you think those screens look awful, I'd love to see what an "average" looking game is in your opinion.

You understand the definition of "awful", yeah?

And Si, the two women in the bottom picture, I've already explained they are dead stuffed bodies.

You'd know if you watch the 20 min demonstration, but I seriously doubt you will.

Stop trying to go all high and mighty, yet again. Of course i'm wrong, i'm dissing a PS3 game....

Get a grip. The close ups of the woman etc look good as in the video, but all the other characters look like dodgy play dough people. The art direction is poor, they've gone the whole 'throw in some dark colours to hide the poor textures and pull attention to one part of the screen' angle. That shot of the ambulance looks particularly poor. If you want an example of a game I think looks good, or better than those screens/vid, GOW2.

What I meant by another lair, a game with OK graphics, looks good in principle and was hyped to be the 'mega console seller', but plays like a box of crap with pi** poor gameplay and even worse controls. It will be really interesting to see a demo in action, I have the feeling the efforts they're putting into some of the models will be undone by the complete lack of AA (e.g mirror's edge), but it's early days yet.

Farenheit was excellent though, so I have faith they'll do a good job on this, gameplay wise.

Edited December 2, 2008 by Si_