After playing the Demo, I was instantly convinced. Unlike Indigo Prophecy, Heavy Rain rectifies all the errors in design you wrote about.

It is a detective film-noire type mystery game, which allows you to play through the cutscenes/action as opposed to just watching them. The controls are ‘quick time events’ but are designed in such a way that correspond to the onscreen action, you don’t just mash ‘X’ at the right time and die if you miss… events play out differently depending on how you performed during the sequences. I think it’s safe to say that the gameplay is a perfect match for the story.

The thing that stood out for me, was that you can’t run. It felt odd the first time, kinda like not being able to jump in a platformer game because we are so used to running and gunning. But as a detective game, running around like in Uncharted 2 wouldn’t be a suitable match for this game.

I know am getting all this a demo, but reading your points and comparing it to what I’ve already played (all three games)… I can’t help but be excited. I’d like to read your take on the game.

@Paul Lam: I haven’t gotten a chance to check out Heavy Rain yet. Sounds very interesting.

@bobkirk: I’m not saying everything needs to be easy. But I am saying that the things that they player expects to be easy should be easier, and the more difficult aspects the player wants to focus on should be more difficult. For example, if you’re making a game that involves navigating a mansion, then you probably don’t want to be focusing on the gameplay of opening a doorknob. That should be easy; it should happen automatically. In Uncharted, they did a good job of knocking out enemies easy because it would have been easy for Drake. If I had to do a complex and difficult minigame every time I tried to choke someone, and sometimes failed, that wouldn’t make me feel like I was skilled; it would me me feel like a fool.

Linearity is a choice of the game. Choice can be built into the game, so long as it’s supported correctly (see my recent post on the ingredients of choice: http://thegameprodigy.com/to-be-or-not-to-be-ingredients-for-meaningful-choice-in-games/)