jboking said:
I can tell you more about how I feel about this game when it's out, but right now I don't find brushing teeth or checking the time to be an enjoyable way to develop feelings for a character. After all, there are other ways to get me to care about a character that are much more fun and interesting. For example, all they had to do to get me to care about Gordon Freeman was to make him a mute so I could impose myself upon him. I care about Kratos because he is an interesting character that has a story to him that actually keeps me coming back to figure out how he will get his revenge. If Kratos dies in anything but a blaze of glory I will be pissed.
The problem is, both those games are complete fantasy. Heavy Rain is heavily grounded in reality (hopefully it will stay that way, from what I've read about Fahrenhiet in the last half), and not only that but it's heavily centered around choice that can form a completely different character within the character if that makes sense.
In Half-Life, Gordon is mute, but that's it. He's just one centered character that you play as, going along the ride. Same thing with Kratos, he's
him, not
you. As badass as Kratos is, you aren't
him, you just control him in a sense that all you can do with him is dismember centaurs. Absolutely nothing wrong with that, I'm as excited for God of War 3 as I am for Heavy Rain, but they are two different forms of interactivity.
With Heavy Rain, every little thing brings you closer to the character, so much so that you actually
become them. With one of the characters, you choose to give your kid an apple instead of chips for a snack, not because it said "Give him the apple...OR THE CHIPS!" but because you felt the
need to give him something healthy. Impose your own sense of parental discipline on him, let him watch TV or force him to go to bed early.
These choices, these minute choices, build up the character more and more until the end where everything you've done up to that point will have the ultimate effect. Maybe by not brushing your teeth, your boss thinks "P.U, you smell" and that in turn has a butterfly effect on the future. Who knows what could happen? Heavy Rain also experiments in that effect, that one action can lead to 10 more consequences, good or bad.
It's very hard to really do that with Kratos, as the most choice you really have with him is "Do I upgrade the Blades first, or the Cestus'?" and "Disembowel or not Disembowel?" I'm not saying it's not possible, though from the situations in Half-Life and God of War, it's extremely unlikely.
You know what's amazing about both of those games, they made me care about the characters while still letting me have fun with the game. I'm not saying every game has to have giant explosions and blood to be good, but having a way to keep me interested would be wonderful. Having me constantly do the main characters daily chores is not interesting. I don't care if it draws me closer to the character, because I know there are better ways to do that.
But, as I said before, those games make you care about the characters in a different way. And I don't like the way you said "while still letting me have fun," as you haven't played Heavy Rain to really tell if it's "fun" or not. Granted, I haven't played Heavy Rain either, and I could be completely wrong about it, but at least keep an open mind in it.
My main problem is that it is mostly QTEs. We're talking about video games here, the medium provides you a ton of ways to tell a story that is specific to the medium, but I get the odd feeling that this is going to be more of a movie than a game...or at least a choose your own adventure book.
I'm going to go all philosophical here and say "What really constitutes as a 'game'"?
What's the real problem with having a game gravitate towards a "movie" than a "game"? I don't see any other game provide this much interactivity, "movie" or not, within the confines of it being defined as a "game". Heavy Rain has been detailed as a choose your own adventure book before, and I don't see why it shouldn't be classified as that.
I don't know how Heavy Rain will turn out, I could be completely wrong about it and it could suck donkey nuts, who knows. But at least try to keep an open mind when looking into Heavy Rain. It's not for everyone, of course, but damnit not everyone has to be against it just because you brush your teeth in it.