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Heavy Rain Previews Show Promise
As the February release date for Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain nears, several publications have gotten a chance for some hands-on time with the game and seem to be intrigued by what they saw. Quoting the Opposable Thumbs blog: "The game grabs you during the quiet moments where nothing 'happens.' When you look at a picture your child drew. When you're questioning someone about a crime. When you're trying to figure out how to react to a violent situation. The preview we were sent put me in different situations as I played a small handful of characters, and each one provided a few tiny moments that were surprising in terms of storytelling or subtlety." Eurogamer's previewer had a similar reaction: "To my great delight as well — Heavy Rain isn't a mature game because it has unhappy families and moody lighting, it's a mature game because it anticipates an adult response from the player and is prepared to receive it."
Do we HAVE to turn this into a system war? Can't we instead talk about Heavy Rain?
Perhaps you should consider the word "game" more like you consider the word "film." There really isn't anything in the definition of a game that says it must be fun. I mean, chess is a game and it is not exactly the kind of fun that you probably associate with fps video games.
Remind me: how many millions of people play The Sims?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I'm not trying to pick a fight, but I disagree (a little).
I recently was replaying Shadow of the Colossus. To me, there is a game that exemplifies art. It was beautiful to watch, immersive, playing it was unlike anything I had played before, and the story was deep and dramatic. (It even ended on a sad note for those who believe that anything that makes you happy can't be art.)
Forcing someone to play through an hour of boring, everyday tasks is less than art. It's not even very creative (in my opinion). How many movies and books and other things have been made that focus on everyday things?
Or, for that matter, how many games already been made where the user gets to choose between decisions (Black-and-White, Fate [I think], that one with the biological superhero)? Every time, while the game is interesting, the decision making process is hampered by the vary fact that a game is limited to what the designers have already though up. Currently, decision-based games are more like choose-your-own-adventure books. The decisions are more thrown in to add "replay value" than to truly give the user choices. (Save the baby, or let it die? Play it twice, to see the different cut-scenes! Yay, more hours of gameplay...)
The gaming medium as art has to be more than just taking a movie or book and slapping lame controls on it. That's like doing a crayon drawing in oils, and calling it art. It needs to incorporate what makes games different than the other mediums.