Heavy Rain – Passes 3 Million Sold

[PH3AR]

Those pics look great, I just hope it will be released in 2010!

[THE_JUDGE]

interested in this game but Idk how many people are going to get behind it. It's the most dramatic game I have ever seen and it would be a shame if people just wrote it off and ignored it because it doesnt play like a regular game. I think this game would really appeal to anyone who likes silent hill.

[Shin-Ra]

Haha, I thought he punched him in the neck at first. I wonder if you can drive a shopping cart down the aisle to knock him out.

[Shin-Ra]

Japanese site opens (trailer already translated!)

[Cplhicks]

Man, after seeing the latest trailer and hearing those were in game graphics-- holy crap. Looks great. I'm really looking forward to this. I'd love to play a more mature game that isn't just running and shooting (not that I don't enjoy those occasionally too).

[Shin-Ra]

Gamescom Virtual Booth Tour: Heavy Rain
Posted by Chris Morell // Senior Specialist, Social Media

Meet Detective Shelby, a brand new Heavy Rain character revealed and demoed at Gamescom Cologne. On day one, we scored some time with writer/director and Founder/CEO of developer Quantic Dream: David Cage, who was kind enough to take you on a tour of the playable Gamescom demo.

As Detective Shelby enters a convenience store to meet with the father of one of the Origami Killer’s victims…well, you should just watch for yourself. And we didn’t forget about your questions! Head on back next week as Mr. Cage answers some of your questions about Heavy Rain.

[Toxa]

Gamescom Heavy Rain Virtual Booth Tour


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NhIDcfz8hA

[dk3dknight]

Im looking foward to heavy rain its one of those games that just have to be made.

[PS3-Playb3yond]

Originally Posted by Shin-Ra

Japanese site opens (trailer already translated!)

It's still Japanese....or Chinese.

[Shin-Ra]

Yeah, it's already translated into Japanese. The Uncharted 2 trailers for example have lagged behind their English debut by a month or two.

Originally Posted by Toxa

Gamescom Heavy Rain Virtual Booth Tour


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NhIDcfz8hA

I like when he shakes the controller and nearly takes the PS3 with it.

USB related disasters.

GC 09: Developer Walkthrough Pt. 1 HD

GC 09: Developer Walkthrough Pt. 2 HD

GC 09: Developer Walkthrough Pt. 3 HD

Shows more possible outcomes in the Scott Shelby store scene.

[Shin-Ra]

The other just-revealed character now (no video apart from the trailers yet, maybe at TGS)

IGN @ GC 2009: Heavy Rain: Living as Ethan Mars
Two years after tragedy.

US, August 21, 2009 - One of the most brilliant things about Heavy Rain is the game's insistence that you live out the lives of its characters. This is not an intense, dramatic game at every passing moment -- Quantic Dream's breath-taking project is much more than that. Heavy Rain puts you in the shoes of its cast and let's you live every moment of it... even the moments in-between.

Here at Gamescom 2009, located in the heart of Cologne, writer and director of Heavy Rain, David Cage, revealed the final two characters in the main cast of four: Detective Scott Shelby and Ethan Mars. I wrote about my introduction to Detective Shelby earlier in the show, but I knew little about Ethan besides what Cage mentioned during Sony's press conference. I had the opportunity to sit down with Cage as he walked me through the opening moments of the game, which feature Ethan Mars, two years after a terrible tragedy strikes his family.

You see, Ethan Mars was a successful architect. With a beautiful wife and two healthy children, you could say that Ethan had a perfect life -- or as close to perfect as our lives can get. But one day, while out at the mall with his wife and kids, Ethan's older son Jason gets away from the group and runs onto a nearby road. Before Ethan can dive forward and push Jason out of the way, a car strikes the boy and he's killed. This horrifying scenario was born out of Cage's own frightening experience with his wife and son (where his son was lost in a mall), though fortunately Cage's family didn't have to suffer through the same fate.

The next scene in Heavy Rain takes place two years after Jason's death. Ethan is now a single parent, wearily supporting his surviving son Shaun in a broken-down house. This scene is a perfect example of something that would never normally be playable in a traditional videogame. It starts with Ethan standing outside a dreary school, rain pelting his shoulders as the now scruffy, dark-eyed father waits for Shaun to finish his classes. This scene struck me with its heart-wrenching cinematography and painstaking attention to detail. Seeing Ethan's face in the rain is one of the more powerful images I can remember from my experiences with videogames and for good reason -- Quantic Dream knows how it's done.

After Ethan drives Shaun home, the player is given complete control of the father and is free to do whatever he or she wants. You can move Ethan around the house, interact with a good number of the objects in the extremely realistic home, and choose to either take care of your son or ignore him. There is no set path to take and players can decide (to an extent) how to develop Ethan and Shaun's relationship. During the demonstration, Ethan asked Shaun about school, did the laundry, tossed a ball around in the backyard (in the rain) and then prepared his son's after-school snack and dinner. Yet another fantastic touch is that, when heating up Shaun's pizza in the microwave, Ethan must wait in real-time for the microwave to finish heating the food. All the while, time is steadily passing and the house sinks into a depressing darkness.

The entire scene is filled with an almost agonizing amount of tension and depression; players are immediately plunged into the aftermath of Ethan's life-changing experience and it's really quite profound. My absolute favorite moment of the demonstration was when Ethan makes his way upstairs into his bedroom and away from the nostalgic sound of Shaun's cartoons. While in his bedroom, players can choose to sit down at the edge of the bed, alone, and watch as Ethan folds his hands and remains motionless. You can almost see the sorrow hidden behind his face. The scene is complemented by melancholic music that plays gently in the background, which really drives home the emotional nail.

Yes, interactions in Heavy Rain are mainly simply directional queues and button presses, but players are given control of how they want to approach the scene and everything in the game is done to propel the narrative forward while delivering a nearly unprecedented amount of emotion. For a few moments, I felt like Ethan Mars.

And it hurt.

[Shin-Ra]

Heavy Rain Video Interview
Garnett speaks with director David Cage at Gamescom about tons of cool stuff in the PS3 exclusive.

Games for adults, 3D interface and creating a context sensitive input language. Well worth watching.

[Sagacious Koreo]

I decided to play Indigo Prophecy again. Watching all of these recent videos had me wanting to play it again. It's just as fun as I remember. The level of storytelling is so unlike anything else I've ever played. I'm sure Heavy Rain will amplify this play style 10 times over. Great stuff.

[AranhaHunter]

I watched the latest trailer they put up on PSN and apparently SCEE bought the IP rights to the game, good acquisition IMO, this is looking like an intriguing game.

[Shin-Ra]

Originally Posted by AranhaHunter

I watched the latest trailer they put up on PSN and apparently SCEE bought the IP rights to the game, good acquisition IMO, this is looking like an intriguing game.

Seems to be the case.

The latest rumour is amusing considering SCEE's had the game down as a BBFC 18 for as long as I can remember.

[AranhaHunter]

What latest rumorrs?

[Shin-Ra]

SCEE wishing to censor content and bring the rating down. Didn't even come from a credible source.

[Marine Mike]

Originally Posted by Shin-Ra

SCEE wishing to censor content and bring the rating down. Didn't even come from a credible source.

I hope that they don't bring the rating down as I think it would hinder the 'experience'.

[Shin-Ra]

Heavy Rain: Your Questions Answered I didn't learn anything new from that interview buuuut:

IGN has an interview and bunch of footage from the Ethan Mars coming home scene.

Coming Home
In The Rain
Memories
Interview with David Cage

I think that's the best order to watch them.

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Originally Posted by Shin-Ra

Heavy Rain: Your Questions Answered I didn't learn anything new from that interview buuuut:

You knew about the additional 70 characters beyond the 4 main characters and 20+? secondary character (I didn't even know about the amount of secondary characters).