Fahrenheit (or Indigo Prophecy if your’re American) is an unusual game. The story is goes a bit loco about half way through and its focused almost entirely around Quick Time Events. I didn’t find it fun but please bear with me before the rabid fanboys come and burn down my house. Despite not liking it, I do realise that I did do the whole “being part of a story” thing quite well. David Cage now has another game coming up which is exclusive to the PS3 called Heavy Rain, which promises more of the same. For any PSN users a demo is now available on the network, and I had a little play. The demo contains two levels following two out of the four characters and gives what I feel a pretty good intro to the mechanics. The controls are explained in a tutorial, but basically they revolve around using the buttons according to onscreen prompts. Some are right stick movements, others require you to hold various buttons down at once, others are the obligatory Six Axis waving bullshit while the final type are button mashing. I’m not actually a fan of this as it ends up with you wrapping hands in weird positions. Similarly many of the prompts arrive with plenty of time, but others turn up so fast its hard to get them right. The first section has you playing as an asthmatic private investigator by the name of Scott Shelby. He is investigating a serial killer by the name of the Origami Killer (as all the characters are) and the scene you play is him talking to the mother of one of the victims. It just so happens she is also a lady of ill repute. You can approach the talk with her in a selection of ways. First time through I went in the soft and caring approach, which slightly pissed her while the second time I went in, tricking her into talking. After the talk, you leave and have an asthma attack which required a series of button pushes in order to deal with it. However, of more concern is a man who has just gone into your witness’s room. When you burst back in there, you take part in a long series of what equate to quick time events. It pretty good though as they don’t obscure the mo-capped punch up going on in the background. This sequence also illuminated the point that failing a button press doesn’t end the game which is a quite good for any players who are not quite on bleeding edge of . Instead it changes the events. For example, at the end of the fight, my Shelby (who missed a few buttons) was more beat up with a broken nose than if I’d managed to hit every button. This section also helps to show that, guess what guys, this is a mature game. In fact, wondering through the street before the guest house is a bit film noir, with the constant rain pouring down. In fact, the game shows just how much rain has fallen at the start of each section, which gives me a feeling that it might be a major part of the plot. The second section shows off another side to Heavy Rain, in the shape of a drug popping FBI agent complete with his fake futuristic CSI style evidence gathering system.  You arrive at the scene of an investigation into the death of a boy, the son of the witness from the first game. After dealing with a rather suspicious local police detective and a bunch of ill behaving cops (seriously guys, lets walk all over the crime scene. No chance of disturbing the evidence at all!), you load up your evidence gatherer and walk round looking for clues. Many are dismissed as unrelated or belonging to the police, but some lead on to more clues. I won’t ruin them but I will say that climbing up that hill is the one of the worst sections of quick time events I’ve played. And that is the underlying problem – the story and graphics are superb but the control method feels clunky. Its the same problem that Fahrenheit had and it didn’t quite cripple the game but it did take away some of the enjoyment. Yet in spite of this, the story is gripping (better then many other thriller movie) and the graphics show a massive leap forward. Water is a very hard thing to model but Quantic Dream have made it look the best it has ever been. On top of that, the motion captured actors make it look like it is getting close to the Uncanny Valley with facial expressions to rival that of the landmark in CG, Final Fantasy. They look like real people – from a single glance at Shelby you can tell he is down, stumbling through life with a sigh. Heavy Rain is one of those games that will push gaming along in both story and graphics. When people want to show off that games are not just for kids, Heavy Rain will be the game they use. But, based on the demo, it isn’t going to be the easiest to control. I’m still excited about it, but its the gripping plot that is reeling me in. Heavy Rain comes out later this month (26/02/2010 in the UK) exclusively on PS3.

Fahrenheit (or Indigo Prophecy if your’re American) is an unusual game. The story is goes a bit loco about half way through and its focused almost entirely around Quick Time Events. I didn’t find it fun but please bear with me before the rabid fanboys come and burn down my house. Despite not liking it, I do realise that I did do the whole “being part of a story” thing quite well. David Cage now has another game coming up which is exclusive to the PS3 called Heavy Rain, which promises more of the same. For any PSN users a demo is now available on the network, and I had a little play.

The demo contains two levels following two out of the four characters and gives what I feel a pretty good intro to the mechanics. The controls are explained in a tutorial, but basically they revolve around using the buttons according to onscreen prompts. Some are right stick movements, others require you to hold various buttons down at once, others are the obligatory Six Axis waving bullshit while the final type are button mashing. I’m not actually a fan of this as it ends up with you wrapping hands in weird positions. Similarly many of the prompts arrive with plenty of time, but others turn up so fast its hard to get them right.

The first section has you playing as an asthmatic private investigator by the name of Scott Shelby. He is investigating a serial killer by the name of the Origami Killer (as all the characters are) and the scene you play is him talking to the mother of one of the victims. It just so happens she is also a lady of ill repute. You can approach the talk with her in a selection of ways. First time through I went in the soft and caring approach, which slightly pissed her while the second time I went in, tricking her into talking. After the talk, you leave and have an asthma attack which required a series of button pushes in order to deal with it. However, of more concern is a man who has just gone into your witness’s room. When you burst back in there, you take part in a long series of what equate to quick time events. It pretty good though as they don’t obscure the mo-capped punch up going on in the background. This sequence also illuminated the point that failing a button press doesn’t end the game which is a quite good for any players who are not quite on bleeding edge of . Instead it changes the events. For example, at the end of the fight, my Shelby (who missed a few buttons) was more beat up with a broken nose than if I’d managed to hit every button. This section also helps to show that, guess what guys, this is a mature game. In fact, wondering through the street before the guest house is a bit film noir, with the constant rain pouring down. In fact, the game shows just how much rain has fallen at the start of each section, which gives me a feeling that it might be a major part of the plot.

The second section shows off another side to Heavy Rain, in the shape of a drug popping FBI agent complete with his fake futuristic CSI style evidence gathering system.  You arrive at the scene of an investigation into the death of a boy, the son of the witness from the first game. After dealing with a rather suspicious local police detective and a bunch of ill behaving cops (seriously guys, lets walk all over the crime scene. No chance of disturbing the evidence at all!), you load up your evidence gatherer and walk round looking for clues. Many are dismissed as unrelated or belonging to the police, but some lead on to more clues. I won’t ruin them but I will say that climbing up that hill is the one of the worst sections of quick time events I’ve played.

And that is the underlying problem – the story and graphics are superb but the control method feels clunky. Its the same problem that Fahrenheit had and it didn’t quite cripple the game but it did take away some of the enjoyment. Yet in spite of this, the story is gripping (better then many other thriller movie) and the graphics show a massive leap forward. Water is a very hard thing to model but Quantic Dream have made it look the best it has ever been. On top of that, the motion captured actors make it look like it is getting close to the Uncanny Valley with facial expressions to rival that of the landmark in CG, Final Fantasy. They look like real people – from a single glance at Shelby you can tell he is down, stumbling through life with a sigh.

Heavy Rain is one of those games that will push gaming along in both story and graphics. When people want to show off that games are not just for kids, Heavy Rain will be the game they use. But, based on the demo, it isn’t going to be the easiest to control. I’m still excited about it, but its the gripping plot that is reeling me in.

Heavy Rain comes out later this month (26/02/2010 in the UK) exclusively on PS3.