Heavy Rain Gameplay Explained

David Cage, writer and director of Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain, has released a lengthy video of an entire level from the game, along with detailed commentary about how the game works. He demonstrates how to operate the UI, showing how contextual menus let you control actions, dialog, and even your character's thoughts, while also showcasing how the game's investigatory system works and even a few fighting-related quick-time events. 1Up recently spoke with Cage about his time in the games industry, including his previous work on Indigo Prophecy. They also did a Heavy Rain preview of their own, and spoke briefly about post-launch plans. The game is due out next year for the PS3.

Re:ps3 exclusive

[oneirophrenos]

Would someone please enlighten me - what is the rationale behind making platform-exclusive games? Isn't it logical to think that they'd make more money did they release the game for multiple platforms? Or do they just expect that everyone has every console out there plus a PC?

Re:Just a thought...

[tygerstripes]

I agree, the graphics are amazing. They did raise a question for me, though.

Should games-graphics attempt to simulate reality, or cinematography? Most seriously graphics-heavy developers seem to have a slightly schizophrenic approach to graphical effects - most especially lighting effects - in that they appear to be striving for reality while simulating cinematography.

A lot of lighting effects seem to be inspired by films - lens-flare, for example - which is great for dazzling entertainment, but drops a layer of abstraction into the immersive simulation by reminding you that you're not there. There's an interesting fuzziness around bright reflections & light-sources in the screenshots here which, while impressive and pretty, look more like something from the silver-screen than the real world. It serves to remind you that it isn't real, which seems at odds with the extraordinary lengths they've gone to in attempting to accurately reproduce realistic environments and facial-modelling.

Again, I think it's gorgeous, but I'll reiterate my question: given the continuous advances in games graphics, what should developers be aiming for? Reality, or cinematography?

Re:ps3 exclusive

[Anonymous Coward]

Working with Company X on an exclusive title will net you buddy-buddy status. This will open up an entire level of programming & financial support you have no hope of seeing while working on a cross-plat. Additionally, the lessons learned from this support (read: training seminar) can further be carried into other projects that will eventually become cross-platform. Your devs are all the better for it.

Re:ps3 exclusive

[mikael]

The idea is that a platform exclusive game would be sold together with a console system and controllers as part of a discount deal, or even as a launch title. In return for the developer make the title exclusive to the system, they would get additional technical support in order to demonstrate the advanced features of that system. The idea is that shoppers would see TV adverts, walk past a game store, see a large box with the colorful screenshots of the game and want to buy the game. (Examples are like Combat/Air Sea Battle with the Atari 2600), Sonic the Hedgehog with the Sega system, and Super Mario 64 with the Ultra 64.

If a developer aims to target for a large number of different systems, the time spent on cross-development will usually take away time spent on code optimisation and adding extra detail and features.

Re:ps3 exclusive

[TikiTDO]

Each system has its own set of quirks and capabilities. Few will argue if I say that the PS3 has more horsepower under the hood; if you were to create a game that took full advantage of that, it would not likely run all that well on a 360, forcing you to rewrite a good bit of the game. Conversely, the 360 has an significantly different programming environment, which you could take advantage of to do some amazing stuff. So, in a similar vein, porting from native 360 to PS3 would take a very significant time investment.

Beyond that, I would wager that quite a few people really do own both a 360 and a PS3, especially now that they are starting to come down in price. If that is true, they would not lose all that much money. Even if it is not, I imagine Sony would really love to get some exclusives out to move more units, so I wouldn't be too surprised if they offered a good incentive here or there.