Okay, after giving the demo a go, I have to say . . . I can't share the enthusiasm.
The minimal interactivity doesn't bother me that much. I'm a fan of the point-and-click adventures of old, and really, the likes of Monkey Island, Gabriel Knight, and Broken Sword aren't that much more interactive. Hell, Phoenix Wright is 95% reading, 5% picking the right thing from a menu, and those games are delightful.
The main thing that sets games like those apart, though (besides the puzzles), is decent storytelling. Now, it's a bit early to judge the entirety of Heavy Rain's story from a half-hour demo, but based on the bits and pieces I've seen and played, it'll have to be a tour de force to make up for all the rubbish. The voice acting ranges from mediocre to terrible (I swear, every time the prostitute opened her mouth, I was howling with laughter--Shatner would be envious of her delivery), the script is at least three-quarters cobbled together movie/TV thriller leftovers (A Saw homage? Really?) with no sense of how people actually talk to one another, and the animation is inconsistent (sometimes the faces and body movements look all right, sometimes they go into full-on Uncanny Valley mannequin mode). For all the big-budget ambitions--and the game does, for the most part, look impressive--the presentation all too often feels amateurish. And nothing I've seen in any videos outside the demo, from the opening mall scene to the unintentionally hilarious sex scene, shows any improvement on this.
I could see the actual game system working really well with a good story. As far as I can tell, though, David Cage doesn't have that story in him.
For my money, Way of the Samurai for PS2 already did this sort of thing much better (minus the multiple characters). It's extraordinarily rough around the edges, and the story isn't much more than a remake of Yojimbo, but the actual storytelling is solid, and it really gives you the sense of playing an active role in an ever-shifting samurai epic--making a couple of slightly different choices can show you a completely new side of the conflict. Plus, one playthrough's about two hours long (shorter if you die), which feels about perfect pace-wise for this sort of game.
Seriously, whatever your feelings about Heavy Rain, I urge you to give Way of the Samurai 3 (on PS3 and 360) a shot if you're into that sort of interactive storytelling. It's the same sort of experience as the first game, and it does a hell of a lot with a tiny fraction of Heavy Rain's budget.
I'm sorry for the rambling--I get that way from time to time. Tl;dr version: The demo didn't wow me. And Way of the Samurai is awesome.
Post edited February 13, 2010 by PaakType