It really does have some wonky ass animation though I have to say. It doesn't really affect how excited I am about it as an experience, but if I allow myself to consider that they literally spent all their time and resources making this look like a movie, and with canned animations to boot, it almost gets me riled up.

In the scene that Madison is being strangled on the counter of her kitchen, her mechanical facial animation makes it look like one of those virtual sex games that I've never tried personally but have a friend that has a friend who's described to me.

Still decidedly excited. I got over the whole robot puppets thing quite some time ago when they showed in game footage and it was abundantly obvious that the 2006 tech demo was a fantasy, but yeah. An actual demonstration of how convincing characters can be in a game, this certainly is not.

This game is INSANELY INTENSE. When it revs up the suspense it almost makes me throw up!

I dunno what it is about it. I think the fact that you can fail a little without failing 100% helps a lot though. You can sorta feel things going south without going to hell completely, but that's also what makes it SICKENINGLY NERVOUSNESS INDUCING when you DO feel things slipping. Jesus, the sequence I just played had me literally catching my breath after.

And when it's not intense to the point of organ failure it's really intimate instead. I don't always agree with its interaction/interface. I was gonna take out some plates and set the table for my wife early on in the game and ended up playing with a remote controlled car instead because it wasn't clear what the indicator would have me do before I pressed it. That's not really a biggie per se, but the relative vagueness of some of those things has you wasting time on nonsense instead of doing what you meant to sometimes.

But yeah, doesn't really hold the game back on the whole. I have to say the characters are all superb too. The eyes do look funky, they never looked good and they still don't. I can't tell you what it is about them that is off, but they all look blind to me. That said, the overall behaviour and character animation is overall very, very convincing. Some characters certainly outperform others, simply by having more distinctive mannerisms, but across the board, everyone is very clearly defined and.. amazingly likeable. Each of the playable characters have wildly different characteristics, but in each of their respective categories I really really enjoy them, and I think Heavy Rain is gonna DOMINATE the CreamWatch REWIND character categories in jan 2011. :)

It is emotionally and almost physically exhausting though, so I'm taking a little break from it now. Will prolly pick it up again in an hour or so though because contrary to my narrative woes, it's definitely an interesting, intense and engrossing story. While the impression you got from the trailer was probably and justifiably a mishmash of every crime/suspense drama plot you've seen - and to an extent it is that - it mixes in influences from movies and stories you wouldn't expect that actually makes it far more suitable to its different gameplay elements and as a game in general.

I wanna talk more about how I feel about Heavy Rain as an experience in relation to gaming on a whole, but I think I need to digest some and type it up in a coherent manner. 2010 Simon is gonna try not to have people read things he's typing AS HE'S FIGURING OUT WHAT TO TYPE.

Damnit, I allready loved the demo, now I gotta get the full game as well I've got 0 time and 10 games waiting on me (and 10 more coming)... This is not fair

This game is great. Really intense so far, and the concepts in both storytelling and interaction are really forward despite the simplistic gameplay connotations. I'm really liking the emotional impact of decisions in this.

On the tech side, I'm impressed by the graphics in some scenes and underwhelmed in others. Some performances are better than others, but I'm convinced that the game is taxing my PS3 harder than it should. During the patch I got a lot of artifacting at installation and hard to restart the process, and then it crashed during one of the scenes causing me to have to replay it. 60gig US launch unit here with probably 17gig left on the HDD.

I'm still really astounded by the experience so far. I can't believe I wrote this game off at first. Would have been a shame.

I just finished this. Ran into a huge glitch for some reason where I couldn't continue from the latest chapter so I had to go a few back. Pissed me off, but I fixed some mistakes I had made. Not ideal, but eh. There's a few story element things they really let air in the breeze towards the end that I won't begin to mention here, but there are reports that they'll be offered as DLC later on so I'm not keen on chucking this one off yet. Solid game overall, I would however lean it towards more of a one-shot deal. Unlike other games after completion, the gameplay can draw you back to it. In this, the main draw for me at least was story and immersion. I don't think I could feel that again a second time. If I had to suggest this to someone I would say rent it, not buy it. There's no guarantee it'll gel with you, especially if you really can't stand QTEs. I for one think that any future game I play I'll be a master at its QTEs, just from this game's 9hr training course. I definitely would play a sequel if one did come out. Who knows if sales will warrant that though.

Also the music in this game is fantastic. OST please.

And ZOMG, where's teh multiplayer patch?!

Well, not if they follow your recommendation! :)



Anyway, also finished it yesterday but didn't hop in to comment because my above impressions are valid throughout. A bit clunky on the interaction side, getting around is sometimes pretty wonky, but it's a non-issue on the whole. Excellent story that upon reflection can change character an insane lot depending on what manage you do. It's incredibly effective in how it pushes on even when you screw up, and makes that screwup a totally convincing part of the narrative. Even the things that had me go NOOOO ultimately had its own narrative merit and informed other parts of the story. Extremely impressed with how the story told is completely valid, whereas in other games it'd only feel like you "didn't get the right ending" or whatever.

I will play this again for sure, probably even over and over, but more at the frequency of watching a movie or reading a book again than the way you power through games for achievements. I can see myself putting this in every autumn or so to go with the rain outside, and have the story play out differently every time without mechanically "deciding how I play it". You genuinely make mistakes in important QTE's regardless, it's not like the game pauses and waits for you to choose your path.

I'm so grateful that this exists, and I hope that people do buy it and validate this way of creating an interactive experience.

Because you genuinely make a difference. :)