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David Cage "We Own The Interactive Story-Telling Genre"

Haven't played it, though I must admit I get more and more interested in giving it a try every time a thread pops up. Need to check it out, see what all the fuss is about.
 
Wolves Evolve said:
I bought Omikron: The Nomad Soul.

I bought Fahrenheit.

I bought Heavy Rain.

I have earned the right to tell David Cage he's wrong.
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I only played Fahrenheit, and I feel the same way.
 
Well since I can't name a single other developer that has ever done a game like Indigo Prophecy or Heavy Rain then I don't think its an inaccurate statement to say that his dev team owns the genre.

Id owned first person shooters until other people started doing them. Not sure if Heavy Rain style gameplay will catch on the same way, though.
 
nib95 said:
Also, I just thought the Black outs were some stress related illness he had, more so to raise suspicion in the gamer that Ethan could be the killer than anything else.
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Actually his blackouts do have an explanation, but it ended up being scrapped and no new explanation was added to replace it.

Also "stress related illness" doesn't explain the origami figures he found in his hand afterward or why he kept traveling a specific place.
 
Meijimasha said:
Well since I can't name a single other developer that has ever done a game like Indigo Prophecy or Heavy Rain then I don't think its an inaccurate statement to say that his dev team owns the genre.

Id owned first person shooters until other people started doing them. Not sure if Heavy Rain style gameplay will catch on the same way, though.
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It's catching already.
 
REMEMBER CITADEL said:
Is it good on PS2? That's the only version I can play right now.
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Good story, everything else about the game is utterly terrible. Even the soundtrack sounded like Yamaoka didn't give a shit anymore, and just phoned it in. I played the PS2 version BTW.
 
Heavy Rain is one fo the worst "interactive stories" I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing. If David Cage is saying he is the best in the "genre" then I want nothing to do with it.
 
Meh I liked Heavy Rain. Just keep making games D Cage. Almost all video game stories bore me to tears but Heavy Rain was hard to put down for me.
 
Ellis Kim said:
You could really tell that the first half of Indigo Prophecy, as its called here, really wanted to try being an engaging crime serial-killer mystery drama. Obviously, the second-half of the game's story undid any good will that the first half, and that's directly contributed to what Cage admitted himself as buckling to his own weakness in having the confidence to tell a serious story in a medium where aliens and impossible feats are the norm.

I wouldn't say that it has a great story, but its certainly not the worst, as you would like to believe.

ReEDIT: I'm going to have to disagree. The replay value in Heavy Rain is far greater than Fahrenheit could be, and its personally engaging on an emotional level for me and many others in this thread who has responded to the posts of hate.
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I haven't said it's the worst, i said it's shitty, even by gaming standards.
That means that there are a lot of games that have a better plot, from Silent Hill 2 to Legacy of Kain, to whatever.
But if you're gonna pick something as barebone (plotwise) as Gears of war to defend it, you know i'm right, might aswell tell me Super Meat Boy has a worst character development.

Concerning the edit: i was talking from a storyline point of view, gameplaywise i agree that Heavy Rain is more interesting--
I can't help but wonder if people who went into Heavy Rain and came out with "ugh, its boring" to simply be the type of gamer who doesn't realize when an extremely hyped game isn't their cup of tea, and can't leave it at that. You go in with the wrong mindset into any sort of entertainment experience, and you'll always leave with a bad taste in your mouth.
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I'll leave you wondering no more then, as i'm going to tell why why the hate for Heavy Rain.
The hate comes from how David Cages continues to go on and talk about maturity and adulthood in the videogame media, something that i can even agree upon, while at the same time, cannot deliver something that an adult or a mature person could not laugh at.
I think we can all agree that Heavy Rain is stupid and immaturely written, so what's up with that? Does he(Cage) assumes that gamers do not watch cinema? Do not read books? Do not watch TV?
Cause i look at The Wire, i look at Revanche or any other piece of entertainment directed to an adult, mature human being, and i'm left wondering what was Heavy Rain all about? So you know, instead of nobilitating the "gamer crowd" as it should do (crowd from which Cage seems to want to take the distances so fiercly, btw) i think it make it look even dumber, cause you play Heavy Rain and think: "This is it? This is the best we can do? This shit is what gamers consider mature?".
So it's not about hype, because the story sucks period, but the build up Cage has done (and continue to bring on), this act about mature and about games being jouvenile and so on, it's just overpromising, and just make him look like a clown, sorry.
 
Acquiescence said:
He must be doing something right to sell two millions copies and get a score of 87 on Metacritic.
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Metacritic scores & sales say nothing about the quality of the game.

The game is terrible. The plot is laughably bad, the voice acting is abysmal, the characters are underdeveloped, the animation is often laughable as well, etc. To say nothing about QTEs being the only gameplay element.

The only decent thing about the game is the music.
 
Heavy Rain was one of my fav games last year. but I have to disagree if he is talking about all VG stories in general.

I'm assuming he is talking about "Interactive Story-Telling Genre" in the same vain as Indigo Prophecy which there aren't many of. If so, I agree, not because of how good the story was, but how well QD can capture a serious and tense experience, especially the stand-off scenes.
 
Treefingers said:
Metacritic scores & sales say nothing about the quality of the game.

The game is terrible. The plot is laughably bad, the voice acting is abysmal, the characters are underdeveloped, the animation is often laughable as well, etc. To say nothing about QTEs being the only gameplay element.

The only decent thing about the game is the music.
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Opinions, etc.

The point is he has enough success to make something better.

I honestly don't know what to really expect from their next game. I enjoyed Heavy Rain and Indigo Prophecy, and like the direction that they are going in, but the genre still has a long way to go before you see something like Changeling or Good Will Hunting.

I'd gladly take the Wire or The Shield as well, but that's a risky idea to pitch to someone and have them buy in.
 
I admire what David Cage is trying to do with games but I think he's pushing the medium in entirely the wrong direction.

Player emotion should come from in-game mechanics rather than from cutscenes (regardless of if they're interactive or not). Heavy Rain was so hit and miss when it came to making me care about the characters. It really depended on whether I played how the developer intended. Once I didn't play by these rules, the game broke and became hilarious.

I doubt anyone will agree with this but the best in game narrative device introduced this generation was the friend leaderboard in the top right corner of Geometry Wars 2. Nothing else has evoked such a wide range of emotions fas beating, getting beaten by and trying to beat friends high scores.
 
Daniel Wersenburger's blog on gamecritics just about sums up my feelings on HR. It's a game full of stupids acting stupid, with a twist that retroactively makes the game worse.
 
Several people own the interactive storytelling genre. Their names are:

Andrew Plotkin

Emily Short

Chris Crawford

There's room for more people on this list. David Cage will never be one of them.
 
Adam Blade said:
Looks like nib95 is ducking my question. I wonder why.
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Looks like nib95 isn't on GAF all hours of the day. It's Friday night dude.

Was this the question?


Adam Blade said:
Granted, I've never even played Heavy Rain, but does nib95's fulsome praise for it mean that there are enough brown and black people in it?

Also, has David Cage never heard of ADVs?
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Where is the question? Was it even directed to me or just about me? Third person malarky...

Also, what's an ADV? Beyond some sort of Asian Manga esque film/anime publication I have no recollection of it.
 
I'd bet he's right in that we'll see a lot of attempts to copy this success. I think the premise is fatally flawed, though. Take Silence of the Lambs. The misdirection makes the linear plot incredible. Chasing down or playing out what turns out to be false is not interesting at all.
 
aasoncott said:
Several people own the interactive storytelling genre. Their names are:

Andrew Plotkin

Emily Short

Chris Crawford

There's room for more people on this list. David Cage will never be one of them.
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If he hired one (or more) of them -- I'd pick Short -- that would be a genius move.

As I said earlier in the thread, he's very good at making sure his vision gets executed pretty much how he imagined. He'd be great, if he would focus solely on being a producer and advocate for his projects. Unfortunately, he also feels the need to write them -- and he's just not a great writer.

As it is, I'm still glad he's around. Anyone who pushes to make high-budget games something more than what they are should be encouraged -- even if it's someone else that ultimately makes a masterpiece based on the lessons learned.
 
Only credit I'm gonna give him is that he try to make something different, which is fresher than another generic dudebros shooter.

Heavy rain was incredibly flawed in term of execution and Cage can't write worth a crap as well. The guy just isn't talented despite having the drive to be different and trying to make videogame into an "art form" (interactive oscar worthy experience/drama/stories?).
 
I loved the hell out of Heavy Rain (I even named my account after one of the characters) and even I think he's wrong. Still, I really REALLY want to see what Quantic Dream is going to do next. I hope that they actually release the rest of that DLC someday.
 
LJ11 said:
Haven't played it, though I must admit I get more and more interested in giving it a try every time a thread pops up. Need to check it out, see what all the fuss is about.
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You should. I really enjoyed it on my first playthough. The game really falls apart on subsequent playthroughs though. Makes all the flaws glaringly obvious.
 
I would say that he's just created an offshoot of the adventure game (or the visual novel even), but structurally Heavy Rain achieved what probably 95 percent of other games don't. If HR had better writing and actual American voice actors for the English dub it could have been an exceptional game.
 
Treefingers said:
Metacritic scores & sales say nothing about the quality of the game.
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Actually, no, you're wrong.

Good games sell well and review well.

Metacritic may not be the most precise measure of a game's quality, but it generally ends up that bad games get bad metacritic ratings and sell poorly, while good games get at least alright metacritic ratings and sell fine.

Heavy Rain sold and reviewed well, and not for no reason.
 
fhtagn said:
Actually, no, you're wrong.

Good games sell well and review well.

Metacritic may not be the most precise measure of a game's quality, but it generally ends up that bad games get bad metacritic ratings and sell poorly, while good games get at least alright metacritic ratings and sell fine.

Heavy Rain sold and reviewed well, and not for no reason.
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wThoj.gif
 
Heavy Rain failed for precisely the reason that, aside from having mind numbingly stupid 'gameplay' and a retarded 'twist', it was appallingly terribly acted for what basically amounts to an interactive movie.
 
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