Remember Heavy Rain? No? Here's a reminder... [update 1]
First, a note: this game is only possible on the Playstation 3. Almost mythical, the title Heavy Rain has been in and out of the public eye ever since last year's E3. You must remember -- the woman auditioning for something who slowly changes from an amicable young lady into a mad, raving, murdering lunatic... and then back again? Pssh, women. Anyway, Quantic Dream's lead designer David Cage recently spoke about the idea of all characters in games showing the full gamut of emotions in the near future. He said, "The pleasure we feel watching a movie or reading a book comes from the different emotions we go through. There is no doubt in my mind that games will follow the same direction and offer more interesting, emotionally involving experiences, with more meaning and depth."
The enormous response from the Heavy Rain trailer really sparked Cage and his crew on to continue creating the title with emotional quality no less than already displayed. What's interesting is they had no intention to show this off -- it was created simply as a test to test how hard the PS3 was to program for. It was never edited, never re-worked. This is a raw, practically from the drawing board, trailer. As such, it's also real-time footage, not a cut-scene. In fact, the game is slated to have no cutscenes. "Also, this trailer is just a real-time non-interactive movie, where the game will be fully interactive, without cut scenes."
Please, keep reading.
Oh, I just like this quote... let me think of a segway. Why hasn't a game displaying rich, detailed emotions been done yet? Sure, some games have tried, but always fall into the Uncanny Valley. Cage responds: "When you try to come up with something really different, they look at you like you are (a) totally nuts, (b) an alien, or, (c) perfectly stupid. You know, 'Why try something different when we could sell so many GTA clones to these stupid teenagers out there?'" This game is the first to step as far away from that cliff as possible (though some like to focus on the one or two imperfections rather than what was acheived... even though the whole lip-synching thing really needs a facelift come round two... but it gets less noticeable at the appropriate times).
If you're wondering what the actual gameplay is going to be like, expect a large, branching non-linear game. It may be similar in some respects to Cage's previous title, Fahrenheit... or as we in the US call it, Indigo Prophecy. There's absolutely no talk of a release date, but we've got to keep bringing this game up, as it will change the generic facial expressions and grunts heard by NPC's for the rest of our lives. Hopefully.
[update: Added the first line. Happy now? =) ]
