fail? have these guys been living under a rock during the release of Heavy Rain?

It failed really hard

It failed harder than haze

...considering the hype that people were putting on it to "revolutionize" the way stories would be told in games, it's hard to argue that Heavy Rain was a colossal bust. Even if you didn't listen to the hype a game like Heavy Rain, anyone who appreciates quality writing would have to look negatively at Heavy Rain because the one thing that really drives the experience (the story) is executed so poorly that it's almost laughable when logical thought is put into it.

It exceeded expectations
it only failed in the minds of 360 fanboys

Fail in what, sell in numbers or quality?

Aside from some plot holes here and there, Heavy Rain provided me with the most refreshing and immersive experience so far and one that I desperately needed this gen.

The emotions the game pulls from you is something to amazing.

Heavy Rain succeeded at everything it was meant to provoke... The game is excellent.

Where the hell does these articles spawn from? Heavy Rain is a great game, and it does EXACTLY what it tries to do - interactive movie.

Most people i know seems to love it, i think its awesome. LOL nitpickers, i dont see Fallout 3 (bad story and much worse voice acting) so criticised.

No, Heavy Rain hasn't failed, it just appeals to a more mature audience so a lot of people don't get what it's going for. Last time I heard, it had an 89 on metacritic, and last I checked, that's nowhere near a fail. Nice flamebait article though.

I think Heavy Rain was a success. I don't know in terms of sales because I don't really follow that but as an 'emotional experience' that developers were aiming for then, yes, the game is a success.

Its not your typical game where you sit down and maybe shoot things for half an hour or solve puzzles, its interaction, choices and thought provoking scenarios in continously winding and twisting tale of peoples lifes and how much they've been affected by 'The Oragami Killer' that is stalking the streets.

I welcome a game like this out there on the market. Change and simply having the balls to try something different from time to time should be welcomed in this industry, regardless of your console of choice or gaming preference.

Far from failed, this is an amazing experience.

I am part way through and I have to say this is a welcome experience, makes a change from all the FPS etc

if you have a ps3, get it - if you don't, get one. As if you don't get it for this then you'll need it for god of war (...or gt5, or agent, or last guardian..)

Heavy Rain will be a game that will be remembered and talked about for many years to come.
The reasons for this have nothing to do with sales or how many kills people have in the game.

This makes it a success and something special. Something that very few games before it has done.

Absolutely not. It was going for something different, did that, and tons of people love it.

The games a stunner

My favourite game this year and almost as good as Uncharted 2. PS3 is won fire right now, especially with God of War and Gran Turismo still to come. Lets hope Halo Reach is good or my Xbox wont be getting turned on lol
Peace

I'm enjoying HR very much. I'm going to start my 3rd playthrough today. I love uncovering all the possible endings. IMO heavy rain exceeded my expectations. The only thing that I don't like about is the walking (hate holding L2 button).

I've been playing video games for a very long time.
No, tha game has not failed, in any shape or form!
I can promise anyone that has not purchsed tha game, that your jaw will b dropped throughout your play-through!

However, I do wish the entire game was more around tha lines of 15-20hrs. long, maybe that's juss me. I often want AWESOME games to never end..lol. (Guilty).

I personally would love ta c more Developers support Interactive Drama, as it has recently become 1 ov my favorite genres, thanks to Heavy Rain.

Game on!

I love Heavy Rain and it not failed for those who bought it.

Heavy Rain did just what it set out to do. Provide an emotional experience, in my honest opinion.

Doesn't every PS3 Exclusive fail in the eyes of the media/fanboys because it doesn't sell 10000million the first day?

/sarcasm

an activity with rules and parameters that players must adhere to in some way in order to reach a goal.

Heavy Rain is still a game, no matter the wrappings that it's in.

you have rules: you're using the control to direct your character and perform actions.

you have parameters: most interaction of the game is relegated to using the Right Analog Stick and Face and Shoulder buttons to achieve goals.

you have goals: to successfully navigate through a series of scenarios to reach a conclusion; ideally, to catch the Origami Killer and save Shaun Mars.

the game gives you a surprising amount of flexibility with those rules, parameters and goals (for example, you can NOT succeed in navigating your character through a scene, and depending on the outcome, you may lose that character permanently to death, or let the Origami Killer go free, failing to save Shaun Mars).

Heavy Rain succeeds as a game, and it succeeds as a piece of "interactive drama."

the game isn't trying to be a movie. the game is trying to bring out emotions that are generally relegated to film, or books, or movies.

how many games in the past 30 years of gaming history have made you feel emotions like sadness, loss, grief, empathy, and in a REAL way, not the "man, i just lost a life because i failed to miss that jump, i'm bummed" way.

very few games pull at your emotions. Ico is a great example of a game that was not your traditional attempt at engaging the player's emotions. Instead of the princess being locked away in a castle, and the game revolving around you finding her, Ico tasks you with protecting and looking out for the "princess" DIRECTLY; pulling her along, helping her climb up ledges, or cross dangerous chasm. by the end of the game, you have such an attachment to Yorda that end game events are truly gut-wrenching.

Shadow of the Colossus is a bit more abstract, in that the game is pulling your emotions in a similar, yet different way than Ico. you have your horse, Agro, whom you come to rely on for the entirety of the game, and end game events are really emotional as a result of that bond. but even more so is your interaction with the various Colossi themselves. at some point in the game, you, as a player (not the in game character) comes to the realization that these Colossi aren't really doing anything wrong that warrants you murdering them just to save some girl that you simply don't know anything about (they don't establish any relationship the "Wanderer" has with the girl he's trying to save. all you know, as the player, is that she is "dead" and you are trying to resurrect her).

the beauty if Shadow of the Colossus is that it's narrative is open enough for YOU to put your own interpretation of the scenario on it. hell, as far as we know, the "dead" girl could be his sister, or his best friend, or his lover, or his wife. it's up to us.

with Heavy Rain, the characters are more defined. through excellent build-up, we get to, almost intimately, learn these characters. taking a piss, showering, having them eat, drink, interact with their kids/wife, co-workers, strangers, let's us connect with them in some way. some more than others.

as a result of that deliberate slow pace, we really empathize with them when the sh*t starts to hit the fan later on.

also, in other game genres, how, exactly, are we supposed to learn about the characters in a way that we actually CARE about their plight?

look at Kratos, for example. he is a great character, but he adheres to traditional storytelling archetypes. we relate to Kratos because we understand, at a base level, the desire for revenge. all we know about Kratos is that he has been wronged by the gods, and he seeks revenge. THAT'S ALL. what makes Kratos move beyond the traditional "gladiator" archetype, are the exact reasons FOR his quest for revenge. that is where SM Studios shape the character into beyond just that base archetype. through scripting and character quirks (he is single minded to a fault; he will do what he must for revenge, no matter how dangerous. the reasons for his ashy skin are particularly well-conceived also), they flesh him out more.

anyway, it takes a different approach to game design to do what Quantic Dream have done with Heavy Rain. that deep emotional connection we have with Ethan wouldn't be the same if he were busting caps in people because the game "needed" a 3rd person shooter combat engine.

how else would we feel for Shaun and Jason Mars if we had never played or interacted with them early on in the game, or at all?

a cutscene can only do so much in establishing the motivations and connection between characters.

that's what makes Heavy Rain so unique and successful. it's more than just a movie because it's filled with lots of little, almost unnecessary moments we'd NEVER get in a film because they'd slow the pace down.

the intro to Heavy Rain is more than just a tutorial for the game's mechanics. i appreciated it's slow pace because it made the rest of the game, the high tension moments actually MATTER. something that other games that are constantly bombarding you with those moments DON'T DO.

in the end, does it really MATTER when Shepard is battling *SPOILERS* The Human Reaper*END SPOILERS*

or when Snake is crawling through the microwave corridor?

not to the extent that Heavy Rain makes it matter that Ethan Mars get's his son back.

they show us a man that had a rather fantastic life. he was an architect, a loving husband, caring father, and all of that was taken away from him except for his remaining son, Shaun, who is a shell of his former self (not the happy, energetic child from the prologue, but the shambling, monotone little 10 year old who doesn't want to talk and play with his father anymore). and when that last shred of joy in his life (his love of his son) is taken away from him, he is willing to do whatever it takes to get him back, and as the player, so are you.

it doesn't even matter than some of the line delivery is off, and the writing can be spotty (it's no better or worse than TV dramas).

all that matters, and what Quantic Dream pulled of spectacularly, is your connection to Ethan, and the other characters in the game.

it's not trying to be a movie. it IS still a game, but it's unlike even the adventure games of old, because those games were specifically designed to either excite you, or make you laugh (like Escape from Monkey Island). even adventure games like The Lost Crown only have you solving puzzles, with no real emotional investment in the characters that are undergoing the adventure. you're trying to piece together a mystery of course, but what does that mystery really have to do with the characters, and why are they motivated to solve it beyond things like "well, i'm a detective/supernatural investigator/journalists." ;

Heavy Rain is more engrossing than a lot of films because we are active participants.

imagine your favorite high tension movie. how many times have you wanted to YELL at the screen and say, "what the f*ck are you doing?? WHY would you even DO THAT??" well, Heavy Rain lets YOU control those decisions, and live with whatever the consequences may be and all the emotional upheaval that follows.

i don't know about you, but that makes the game a TRIUMPH, because there's nothing else out there on the market.

but sure, go ahead and blanket the game in generalizations like, "it's just a movie with QTEs," or "it's just like the point and click adventure games. it's nothing new."

the game could be an important step for the evolution of interactive drama, and being taken seriously as an entertainment medium, but man, are these folks on the internet like Destructoid really doing their best to put the game down.

i for one don't want the medium to be continually oversaturated with FPS after FPS. there is only so much you can do with multi-player before you realize it's all the just the SAME DAMN THING with new skins. CTF is still CTF, whether the "flag" is a treasure, a flag, or another human being. TDM is still TDM.

Heavy Rain is in a league of it's own, flaws and all. it's a first for it's respective genre, so it's rough around the edges, but efforts like this from Quantic Dream should be praised and built up, not torn down to the point where developers/publishers won't EVER want to build upon this rather solid foundation and IMPROVE upon it.

i remember when FPS games were niche. go and play the original DOOM. it was fresh and unique, but imagine what would have happened if people tore the game down, instead of building it up? imagine how DIFFERENT the FPS genre would be if it had remained niche and tiny.

no Halo. no Crysis. no CoD4. no Killzone 2.

even RPGs were a niche genre back in the day. No Final Fantasy. No Fable. No World of Warcraft.

i'm for giving Heavy Rain a chance and letting it grow it's own niche and genre, and who knows where that will take us as an industry that is still in it's infancy when compared to film, television, music, art, and writing.

this article fails for asking one of the dumbest questions and actually attempts to write about it.

HR while not perfect, clearly is innovative and a breath of fresh air to the games we have seen.

The real question to ask about HR is value.. Games are expensive and is paying 60+ bucks for this game a good value. That is subjective and up to the purchaser to answer

Again, every time an excellent PS3 game came out, there was always this kind article and post appeared here.
And we will see:

Is GOW III failed?
is Killzone 3 failed?

Yes it's an interactive movie like MGSIV

I cannot say that this game failed. Indigo Prophecy and Shenmue inspired this game. Fact is this title is not for everybody. Still, it's a game consist of hitting the movements at the right time with various choices you decide within the game. And some people might just get bored with that. I like the game, but I don't see me playing this a second time around to see the various endings.

But I do give much respect for Quantum for their first game to be unique and fresh for next gen consoles.

Bots you haven't played the game so shut up about it.

You guys probably thought Gears 2 had a great story lol.

You all lack the mental and emotional capacity to enjoy a brilliant story driven game like Heavy Rain. It is your loss.

No. Next question...