Heavy Rain has weathered some criticism recently from people who are displeased with what they believe to be a Quick-Time-Event heavy experience. Quantic Dream founder David Cage is not happy with the situation, declaring such accusations to be "bullsh*t." This is not a man you cross, clearly.
"Bullshit! Just bullshit! I mean what's the question? We released Fahrenheit before. People know very well what the kind of balance we're looking for is. The balance is quite similar in Heavy Rain," Cage argues. "I think that people who didn't see any demos or did not play the game are a little bit confused by the fact that the interface is in 3D. It's not quick time events. You navigate. You're free to explore. It's just that the interface, instead of being 2D icons in the lower corner, they are now inside the set. That's the only difference. You control the character second to second, and the balance is quite similar to Fahrenheit. There's no difference."
Cage also reiterated his claim that Heavy Rain is more difficult to demo than a shooter, since people can't grasp the concept easily: "You know when you make a first-person shooter, you just see ten seconds and you know what the game is about. When you see a game that has no real reference, that is kind of different, it's really difficult. Some people imagine things. Don't be afraid. It's not quick time based. All the purpose of Heavy Rain is to tell the story not through cutscenes but through gameplay. I would be stupid just to release cutscenes. I mean what's the point? I'd better make movie then. That's silly."
So there! Don't you dare say bad things about Heavy Rain, or David Cage will f*ck you up. Also, I'm still really looking forward to this game. Fahrenheit was the tits.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
2:40 PM on 08.28.2009
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In all fairness, the QTE in IP/Faren. made God Of War's look like child's play.
QDE (Quantic Dream Events) = That's gold,Jerry, GOLD!
You may get it but clearly, not everyone does. Chill out.
"I have yet to see any gameplay footage involving anything besides "press A to not die"s."
Precisely Cage's point about the difficultly of demoing the game. There is some footage out there showing some of the adventure game aspect. I can imagine they wouldn't want to show too much of it as it could spoil puzzles.
Um, isn't this exactly what people are bitching about? The Indigo Prophecy QTEs were god aweful, and if Heavy Rain is just like that, I will definitely be passing it up. He's not giving his audience enough credit.
Um, isn't this exactly what people are bitching about? The Indigo Prophecy QTEs were god aweful, and if Heavy Rain is just like that, I will definitely be passing it up. He's not giving his audience enough credit.
Personally, I hate not knowing what World of Warcraft or Eragon are about, simply because conversational cues about the subjects don't sufficently describe them. I really hope Wet isn't like that.
Why the fuck doesn't he just show some footage of you getting to explore if it's such a big part of the game? Hard to demo, my ass.
So until the game is out, this will be the favorite assumption.
...At first. Then, around a certain very large plot point, the game suddenly went to shit and the story was shit and everything was shit and it got shitty and I hated that shit.
Your saying the devs should lower themselves to the lowest common denominator and make a game like everything else just because the term "Quick Time Event" has a sort of stigma attached to it because of God of War and its innumerable clones? That is stupid and exactly the reason there is no more originality in this industry (well, very little anyway) and the only reason people "Don't want it" is because like the stupid asses they (and you) are they equate that the so called QTE's in Heavy Rain are the same as the half assed gameplay attempts of other games. Sad really.
QTE is just a cheap way to say TWITCH GAMER!!
Oh well, not going to stop me from picking up the game and enjoying it, and in the end that's all I give a damn about.
You NEVER attack the customers. You make products for them that they want to buy. He is not making a product customers want to buy, and thus, customers will not buy his product.
Plus, I feel like they're overcompensating for that fact with gaussian blur. COME ON.
While I certainly agree with the idea of not calling bullshit on the customers. He is right, people are making judgment calls on something they don't know anything about. The people that are whining about the QTE's are the people that never played IP and think its just another game play copout like alot of other games. People are judging this game unfairly and I'd be upset too if I where a dev working on this game. They are trying to make something unique and they are getting flamed by people who don't know shit about it and getting praise by people who actually played IP and know what this could be. As long as this game stays away from retarded end-game nonsense it should be a great experience.
My point is this - A demo was sent out, and many people came back and said they didn't like how the game played. Now either he sent out an aweful demonstration of what the game is about, or he is hearing the complaints of many customers about a gameplay element that will eventually hamper the success of this game. His job, as an employee of a company, is to make money for investors. He would make more money for investors if he had more customers, and he would have more customers if he removed disliked gameplay mechanics. Instead, he sent out a demo and decided to disreguard the advice of potential customers, could be an artistic reason, could be pride, but either way the advice/criticisms are disreguarded. Thus, he loses customers, makes a less popular game than he could have, and makes less money than he could have.
I'm not saying it's always a good idea to listen to customers (because if Nintendo did that, they probably would have dropped out of the console war by now.) However, when something is widely criticized and unpopular, including it anyway isn't exactly going to help your game.
I would suggest finding this game and playing it.. or at very least look it up on YouTube to see what it's about and then come back to me because your talking as if its something easily removable from the game when it is a fundamental aspect of this games mechanics. To remove the QTEs from the game would mean making a new game. Perhaps a shooter? With space marines? That'll probably sell well yeah...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NKXtOrBs-I&feature=related
That was really, really boring to watch, and didn't at all need to be a game. Honestly, I'm not even sure why Heavy Rain is a game - it could just as easily be a movie.
More companies should be willing to do this honestly. Too many developers just like to take the easy route and make something they know will sell, rather than take a chance on something unique or creative. More companies need to take chances like this, on games that may not appeal to wide audiences or sell a lot, but truly satisfy those that are into that type of game.
And this is the problem. People are too wrapped up in their own ideas of what a "game" should be, completely unwilling to see anybody try attempt anything different. (The funny thing is that this game could be seen as an evolution of the adventure genre, which is one of the oldest forms of gaming around.)
Heavy Rain is a "game" because you interact with it. The entire premise of Heavy Rain is that it's a story you interact with and your actions influence it's outcome. There is no way this could ever be made into a movie without removing the primary goal of the game.
I don't care to argue the semantics of what a game is. As far as I'm concerned, Wii Fit and Heavy Rain are both games. However, Heavy Rain does not look fun or interesting, and I can't say I blame gamers for their criticism from watching it. While I do agree too many developers take the easy route, I happen to like developers like Nintendo best, who make extremely risky games they do not know will sell, but make sure those games are enjoyable/worthwhile to consumers. I can already tell Heavy Rain will be a niche title at best and a critically acclaimed flop at worst.
By the way, your description of it has already been done in book format (I remember when choose your own ending books were popular - there were a few Goosebumps titles in that category).
That scene is actually a pretty poor example of how the game actually works. That video makes it look like all you do is go through a constant string of generic pre-determined QTE's, which isn't how the game works at all.
If you want a better example watch this developer walkthrough:
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gc-09-heavy-rain/54810
As you can see, how you approach each event determines how it plays out. You can end up with completely different outcomes to many of the scenes depending on what decisions you make. Yes, there are QTE's, but they're not just thrown at you so you can feel like your doing something in a scripted event, they actually matter.
You're right, the game does share similarities with choose your own adventure books. However unlike those, you're not just choosing some decision on where you should go next at the end of the page, almost every action you do, and the outcome of those actions, will have a consequence. The consequences will also be much more meaningful than in any choose your own adventure, as you can't just flip back to the last page and pick the other option. (Technically you could load up an old save, but that kind of defeats the purpose.) Also picking the wrong choice won't mean end of the story either. Unlike most CYOA's, you won't see "You went the wrong way and died, too bad." The story will still continue, and even your terrible choices will continue to have an impact.
So in some ways this could also be considered an evolution the CYOA's, but that's hardly a bad thing. CYOA's are actually a pretty cool idea in theory, they just never could deliver on their promise, as your actual choices were always so limited and usually meaningless in the end. If Heavy Rain can deliver on the idea of your decisions influencing the way the story progresses and have a lasting impact it will be a great experience, whether or not you want to consider it a "game".
Without truely understanding the game, I can confidently say it will be a niche title that isn't really for me. I can alsso say that due to my love of the Phoenix Wright series, I am intrigued. However, I cannot say that I feel differently about the game from watching that - overall, it seems like a boring title, and if they have to re-work the entire game so that all the quick time is out with only the decision elements remaining, I would be significantly more interested.
Every time I'm told to press a button to not die I get very annoyed, because I would rather not have to press a pre-decided combination of buttons in a game that I am playing for the story. I don't want to be forced to press buttons in a sequence, it's not fun and kind of disengages me from the action, as I am reminded that I am not the character in the story, but some player that has a controller in his hands.
So yes, I would love a detective story with lots of depth, multiple outcomes, and a ton of intrigue. But I have no interest in playing a game stuffed to the brim in these pesky QTE's when I can just play Phoenix Wright for 4-5 consecutive deep, intriguing stories that place no requirement on me other than that I puzzle through the logical aspects of the situation. Making you think like the character is a much better way to engage gamers than making you have the reaction time of the character.
I can agree with you to an extent about QTE's, if this game was all like that initial video you posted I definitely wouldn't be as interested in the game, but I also don't think this game would work as well without that extra input. That scene I posted for example wouldn't be nearly as tense if the outcome was merely determined by a simple choice, and stuff like potentially being able to knock out the armed man if you act quick enough just wouldn't work if it wasn't based on real input.
Quick Time Events are inherently bad for several reasons. They rely on reaction time, which is something most gamers can never improve. They also are almost never fun - instead of using a tried and true game mechanic, the player is forced to use a mechanic that inherently distances the gamer from the game by forcing him to be aware of arbitrary buttons on his controller. Because it is difficult, if not impossible to improve your QTE skill level, QTE's make the game shallower - there is no depth in "press X to not die," and following through on the desired command (how dare a game command me, rather than letting me command the character) rarely has any enjoyment associated with it, while failing to press the desired button leads to failure and a cheap surprise death.