Heavy Rain

[n0wak]

Did you make the cop guy spaz out into a frenetic teleporting fit when he was handcuffed to the steering wheel at the end? I thought that was pretty funny.

No. I watched the junkyard demo played a couple of times through, but I went through the shop demo myself. I was mostly curious to see how little interaction I could actually do so I placed the controller on the top of my bag and didn't hold it.

1) you have to press up to open the door to start the sequence, otherwise it just focuses on the door indefinitely. A long boring cut scene follows.

2) you have to press R to move. It's a weird control scheme, kinda like Killer7, where you hold R to move and use the stick to make you character look in a direction which, if they can, he will move to.

At this point I tried to see if I could leave the store. I couldn't. I held the R button and went around in a circle. There was a back staff door that had one of the quicktime event markers on it. So I tried that, to see if I could leave the store, but he just fiddled with the door knob. It was closed. So there was an entire interactive element there for, well, nothing. But none of these interactions are necessary. All you needed to do was to hold R until you got to the back of the store and:

3) press up to pick up an asthma inhaler. This triggers a cut scene as an armed burglar walks in. Nothing happens until you make yourself known, so:

4) press and hold R to get out from the back of the store. At this point, the burglar points the gun at you and demands that you put your hands up. Little L1 and R1 icons show up.

I did nothing. He demands again. I did nothing. He demands a third time, this time serious. I did nothing. He shoots and runs off.

Then you stand up. The bullet only hit your shoulder, guy "can't even use a gun", you'll be alright. Then a long cut-scene happens where the shopkeeper reveals some completely fucking random information and this is the exact same sequence you'd get even if you did unarm the burgler, or negotiate/deal with him (as I saw through other playthroughs) so there's absolutely no consequence to your actions. Or in my case, non-actions.

So the entire shopkeeper demo can be played through using only four button presses, and the end result is exactly the same if you used twenty or more.

[syntheticgerbil]

So let me know about the part when someone forces that woman in the club to give a blowjob.

All my bets are on that there's always something in the game from blocking you going that far, sort of how your description of the sequence you played panned out. I would imagine almost all of the choices are streamlined and mostly all point to the same outcome.

So far, I have seen it shows tits, which seems to be having the 13 year old boys at the Gamespot message boards raving. I would say currently my impression is the same as n0wak's was/is.

[Nachimir]

I took a look at other people playing it and thought "Quick time events, yay :shifty:"

It's very cinematic, and I did feel a twinge watching the guy chained up and heading for the car crusher, but as a game it looked so I didn't even feel the urge to play it.

[Thyroid]

This hands-on preview from Eurogamer - two hours of gameplay - is interesting. I still can't make-up my mind on this game. This could go in any direction.

[Irishjohn]

This hands-on preview from Eurogamer - two hours of gameplay - is interesting. I still can't make-up my mind on this game. This could go in any direction.

I'm a little concerned about the control scheme, but overall I'm ok with quicktime events and button pressing if the story is really good.

REALLY good.

Still, I am excited about this game.

[Nappi]

She's back!

I wish they showed us something other than quicktime event sequences all the time. I might even get excited about this game.

I also wonder if the final outcome had been significantly (or at all) different if he had actually won the fight.

[elmuerte]

wow... that looks terrible.

also.. wtf is up with the music in that segment, is it part of the game? in the end that music is just as appropriate as if it would as background music for dancing marek.

[Thyroid]

I'm still on the fence. On the one hand, the gameplay I've seen does look bad; on the other, I'm in love with trying to do something different in a game. David Cage's enthusiasm for the whole thing makes it worse.

I'll decide when the reviews start pouring in, I guess.

[syntheticgerbil]

The part at the end with the talking corpse is hilarious. I can't wait until the Youtube compilations of awkwardness.

David Cage's enthusiasm for the whole thing makes it worse.

Haha, would you feel better if he acted like he didn't care about that game? Not that that is at all possible for his pretentious ass.

[Nachimir]

BREAKING NEWS:

Video game makes David Cage cry:

http://twitter.com/davidcage/status/7667011671

[syntheticgerbil]

It must be from the overwhelming tragedy of that wounded origami.

[Nachimir]

It seems to be positioned so as to make the heroine look like she has an absurdly thin waist.

[elmuerte]

that's one ugly box cover, I think it would have been much better without the characters in the background

[Thyroid]

Question: why do so many on Idle Thumbs consider David Cage to be such a joke? I'm not being defensive: I've never played any of his games (though I finally bought Indigo Prophecy during the Steam sale), and I'm completely unaware of any antics/ego. The only thing that comes to mind was his comment from a while ago, that the "Uncanny Valley no longer exists". But he's not like American McGee, who'll proudly rub his dick on anything.

That boxart is terrible, by the way. I could make a better one in 5 minutes a broken copy of Photoshop, and I suck at Photoshop.

[elmuerte]

Question: why do so many on Idle Thumbs consider David Cage to be such a joke? I'm not being defensive: I've never played any of his games (though I finally bought Indigo Prophecy during the Steam sale)

Play the game, and finish it. The first third of the game is what cage was constantly claiming the game to be. Yet, there's still 66% of game after that.

Also, as far as I know people here don't consider him to be a joke. It's just that he's quite full of himself, you know Molyneux-style. But without the snazzy haircut.

ps, one of these is not Jake

[Thyroid]

Ohhh, I think I might've been mixing up between Cage and Molyneux.

I always thought Jake looked a little like Krist Novoselic, especially ten or so years ago.

[syntheticgerbil]

Also, as far as I know people here don't consider him to be a joke. It's just that he's quite full of himself, you know Molyneux-style. But without the snazzy haircut.

This is pretty much how I feel. After AdventureGamers feeding his ego with his own private Q&A forum years ago and him talking nonstop about how revolutionary and real his games are (as well as inserting himself directly in that demo), only to see about what exactly Indigo Prophecy amounted to (Templars? Come on, we've got Charles Cecil screwing around already) that he's sort of just become a running joke to me once the uncanny valley boasting started.

On one hand, it sucks, because I feel personally people with such an overinflated sense of self shouldn't be encouraged and that maybe a more idealistic yet humble game designer should garner some attention based on merit instead of artificial hype. But I know better.

So yeah, Cage's hype machine is just out of control and it's hilarious, especially when I see people defend how mature Heavy Rain is supposed to be when all of the game videos I've seen so far seem like pressing buttons over the movie True Lies or something.

I was actually under the impression a lot of people here liked David Cage and that there will probably be some backlash soon. The IdleThumbs podcast itself made it seem like the three guys were looking forward to playing Heavy Rain.

[syntheticgerbil]

Also, as far as I know people here don't consider him to be a joke. It's just that he's quite full of himself, you know Molyneux-style. But without the snazzy haircut.

This is pretty much how I feel. After AdventureGamers.com feeding his ego with his own private Q&A forum years ago and him talking nonstop about how revolutionary and real his games are (as well as inserting himself directly in that demo), only to see about what exactly Indigo Prophecy amounted to (Secret societies and supernatural elements? Come on, we've got Charles Cecil screwing around already) that he's sort of just become a running joke to me once the uncanny valley boasting started.

On one hand, it sucks, because I feel personally people with such an overinflated sense of self shouldn't be encouraged and that maybe a more idealistic yet humble game designer can garner some attention based on merit instead of artificial hype.

I suppose a lot of this comes with being a name brand game designer, but it seems like the guy forced himself to become one before Indigo Prophecy was released and after Omikron, which I don't remember many people talking about.

So yeah, Cage's hype machine is just out of control and it's hilarious, especially when I see people defend how mature Heavy Rain is supposed to be when all of the game videos I've seen so far seem like pressing buttons over the movie True Lies or something.

[MrHoatzin]

On one hand, it sucks, because I feel personally people with such an overinflated sense of self shouldn't be encouraged and that maybe a more idealistic yet humble game designer should garner some attention based on merit instead of artificial hype. But I know better.

With that in mind, I move we turn this thread into the official Brendan Ferguson appreciation thread.

Woohoo, Brendan Ferguson rocks! :tup:

[syntheticgerbil]

Brendan Q. Ferguson

Designer

Not much is known about Brendan Q. Ferguson. We do know that he was born in 1976 at the age of zero, causing a great public outcry. It is believed that he spent the next several years training in an elite paramilitary organization known as the California public school system. Eyewitness testimony places him at U.C. Berkeley in the mid to late nineties, apparently posing as a Computer Science instructor for part of that time.

Brendan returned to the public eye in 2000, when he decided to throw his life away by joining the games industry. According to MobyGames (which is apparently quite authoritative on these matters), Brendan was credited as a programmer on such games as Obi-Wan and Gladius by LucasArts. Unidentified sources, who spoke only under the condition of complete anonymity, indicated that Brendan also worked on the yet to be released Sam & Max: Freelance Police, as a programmer, designer, and writer.

Today, Brendan works in the broom closet on the first floor of Telltale's offices. He is currently working on a largely apocryphal but generally tasteful autobiography.

This is his resting place:

[elmuerte]

this cover is much better

[MrHoatzin]

this cover is much better

Not enough corpses.

In other news, Brendan Q. Ferguson can kick David De Gruttola's* ass any day.

__________________

* Holy god, that is David Cage's real name according to this helpful wiki page. I like it better than David Cage.

[Thrik]

That cover is really nice. I hope that is genuinely the European version.

Bit weird how the US seems to get these random shitty covers and retitles. I mean, what the fuck are 'Indigo Prophecy' and 'Circle of Blood'?

[Moelman]

That cover is really nice. I hope that is genuinely the European version.

Bit weird how the US seems to get these random shitty covers and retitles. I mean, what the fuck are 'Indigo Prophecy' and 'Circle of Blood'?

I never got the Indigo Prophecy retitle (though I have only played the first few minutes of the game), since the US uses Fahrenheit and all.

I don't think the US cover is as bad as some of you do, but I definitely think the European cover is much better.

[miffy495]

The Euro cover looks like it could be a book cover. The US looks like it could be any other game. Not horrible, but very .

I'll admit I'm interested in the game itself. Personally I only ever played the first third of Indigo Prophecy, so I quite enjoyed it. I'm not about to jump to Cage's defense though, as I remain sceptical of the game's quality.