I have incredibly mixed feelings about this game. I mean, it looks gorgeous. The animations are silky smooth and the environments seem to be incredibly rich and detailed. And the quick time events seem to have been better implemented this time around, seeming a lot more context sensitive and a lot less Simon Says. But I don't know, as technically impressive the game seems, I just can't fight the feeling that it's going to be completely hollow on the inside. I don't discount that David Cage is a technical visionary -- you have to be brilliant in some way if you can get such non-traditional games like Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain made with such massive budgets -- but artistically? I don't think that's where he shines. I thought the script for Indigo Prophecy was the worst part about the game; what started off as an intriguing thriller quickly devolved into overindulgent melodrama trying too hard to be taken seriously as something thoughtful and mature before finally going off the deep end in the last 1/4 and turning into laughably silly sci-fi schlock. David was trying so hard to make a cinematic game, it even said "written and directed by David Cage" in the manual, but the script he wrote for it would've be the equivalent of a cheesy TV movie starring Judd Nelson and Alyssa Milano that airs on Showtime at 4 in the morning. Do we have lower standards for writing in video games? It was a game desperately trying to be a thoughtful character-driven story yet it ended with the main character jumping over helicopters and running along the sides of buildings. It featured a sex scene which pushed boundaries around the time of the Hot Coffee scandal, but it also featured
Spoiler:an old lady revealing herself to be a computer monster made of up of glowing yellow spirals
. I don't think Heavy Rain is going to get that goofy (or at least I pray it doesn't) but I just can't shake the feeling that it's going to be just as superficial as I found Indigo Prophecy to be; there will be sex scenes, swearing, people screaming and crying while looking up in the rain, and all sorts of attempts to be a serious piece of interactive drama aimed at older players but I just don't think David Cage is good enough to write a script strong enough to pull it off, no matter how realistic the characters look. Despite all of this, I am going to play the game when it comes out, and I think it could be an entertaining and fun thriller if it doesn't try too hard to be something it's not.
