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Without Wanting To Get Too Soppy; Even The Concept Art Gives Us The Shivers.

I remember the first time I played Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy. I was writing for a multiplatform games website and it popped through my letterbox. So used to receiving dodgy Playstation 2 titles I’d heard little about at the time, I plopped it into my console not knowing what to expect. The first hour I spent with that game will live with me forever; much like the impacts made by Shenmue and Ocarina Of Time – it was radically familiar yet so outrageously different, and I can replay that first cut-scene in my mind over and over; even though I refuse to play through the game for a second time. It will probably stay with me until I die. In an entertainment medium where so much of what we play is based around becoming sensitized – be it the number of head-shots you make in a standard Call Of Duty match or; the number of necromorphs you are forced to encounter in Dead Space – few games can make an impact quite like the opening of Fahrenheit simply because video games as a concept work with the ideal of repetition. Quantic Dream, apparently, beg to differ.

Which is exactly why Heavy Rain is so tantalising. In some ways, part of me wants David Cage to open up the doors on Heavy Rain; show me gameplay, show me cutscenes, show me trailers and concept art, give me plot details. The other half of me wants Heavy Rain to be shrouded in secrecy right up until release. I’m already resigned to the fact that it’s going to be a commercial failure: how can a Playstation 3 exclusive as obviously ambitious as Quantic Dream intend Heavy Rain to be sell well? I don’t think it will. However, if LittleBigPlanet moved the industry forward with its community driven innovations last year; I expect Heavy Rain to do the same this year for narrative and plot.

David Cage has described Heavy Rain as a “dark film noire thriller” and it strikes me that no one else has tried to tackle to concept of the thriller in video games. In fact so ambitious is Heavy Rain that it’s been touted that the game does not end when the player dies, and also that the story can be completed no matter what your actions. Something so ambitious has to have its limitation somewhere – but in all that ambition we come to the point of my writing this article: Heavy Rain is going to be something very different.

Variation is what makes life interesting – but in video games variation is rare. Particularly truly “outside the box” variation that Quantic Dream as a studio seem so willing to take advantage of. In a year where the recession will undoubtedly hold back the gaming industry it’s my belief that Heavy Rain will be a game that will stand-out like a sore thumb. It will be the game that will rip-out every pre-conceived “expectation” of a video game and throw them out of the window. And for that, it may hinder it’s own success. But for those of us expect something new, something different, something that pushes the industry forward – we don’t see how it can lose.

Low sales are probably expected across the board for Heavy Rain; but I know having spoken with the editorial staff on this particular site – Heavy Rain is definitely our most anticipated. I can’t wait.

“Twiggy” is an anonymous PushSquare columnist who has been spotted in three major cities across the globe. It’s rumoured he’s on the run from the British monarchy who accused him of treason.

Previous entries in the “Twiggy” range:

• Here’s What I’d Request In The PSP Go! If I Had A Job At Sony & A Say In Such Things
• Does The Playstation 3 Need Motion-Control & How Will Sony Apply It?
• Why Did Guerilla’s Killzone 2 Force Me To Kill The More Interesting Good Guys? I Hate The ISA!
• Sony’s E3 2009 Press Conference Could Be The Biggest In History & A Turning Point In Software Perception
• A Playstation 3 Pricecut Could Cripple Sony So Stop Asking For It