A broodingly immersive release brimming with creativity and little in the way of cliche. Whilst the game took a turn for the worse in later chapters, it was in its attention grabbing opening that many hearts were won.
Heavy Rain: The Origami Killer is brimming with the potential of achieving all the promises Indigo Prophecy hinted at.
The plot promises to be "dark, complex and mature". Apparently, so ambitious is the game that you could kill every main character and still complete the game as someone else. This provides an enormous scale of replayability and sounds delightfully ambitious, however we're not sure how it could actually work. The proposed scope for this game is so radical that we're finding it hard to establish exactly how a development team in Paris, with real deadlines, could actually achieve it. Which is why we simply can't wait for Quantic Dream to give us some more information on the games brooding plot, and how it will all tie together.
Gameplay wise, the "dark film noire" themes are said to influence the way you play. From a 20-minute press reveal of the game we can assume that the game takes form from a third-person perspective with set camera angles, similar to that of old Resident Evil games. Naturally, set camera angles can give a game an extremely cinematic feel but also can limit your control and view of the action. However, it seems Heavy Rain is going to be rather slow paced in terms of its gameplay, with much consisting of exploration and reacting to the artificial world around you.
Controlling like a vehicle, trigger buttons will assume the role of accelerating the protagonist with the left stick moving the characters head. It sounds a rather clumsy control scheme on paper but Quantic Dream suggest it's "an essential part in playing Heavy Rain". Like Fahrenheit, the game will also use QTE sequences to fuel the more pacey elements of the game.
What worries us is that Heavy Rain almost sounds too ambitious. Stylistically we're already convinced and we've no doubt Quantic Dream can deliver a fantastic plot driven adventure. But a seemingly endless amount of plot paths and unconventional gameplay could become the games downfall. Surely there are only so many different storyline branches the developers can write, limited by time and resources. Even the amazingly ambitious Fallout 3 is evidently constrained by time and hardware.
We get the impression Quantic Dream are wary of giving anything away regarding Heavy Rain. After all, the footage we've seen so far is merely a tech-demo running off the engine and gameplay structure — Quantic Dream already confirmed the reveal has nothing to do with the actual games plot, fearing giving anything away.
With the average video game follower thinking Heavy Rain is just an interactive movie, we fear for its commercial value. Even if Heavy Rain does achieve all its aims and becomes a critic's darling, something so obviously far from the normal could become a background interest behind the latest iteration in the Call Of Duty and Guitar Hero franchise.
Having said that, as great champions for something that breaks the mould, we certainly are waiting with grinding teeth for the next snippet of information regarding Heavy Rain. Certainly, E3 cannot come soon enough.
This is our most anticipated on PS3.
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