Heavy Rain (PS3)

[  1 | 2 | Next Page »  ]

Quantic Dream's David Cage is a man with a message. His on stage Heavy Rain presentation during Sony's gamescom 09 press conference will go down in history for the most uses of the word "love", an emotion he hopes he'll capture with the hotly anticipated PS3 exclusive. The following morning we sat down with the man himself for an extended interview on all things Heavy Rain, and a heap more. Read on for part one of Cage's most revealing interview yet.

VideoGamer.com: I was at the Sony conference yesterday and I very much enjoyed your part of the show. You revealed Ethan Mars, who used to be an architect, as the fourth playable character. How has he been caught up with the Origami Killer?

 Advertisement

David Cage: His son is kidnapped. He lost his first son because he didn't take good care of him. He lost him in the crowd, and two years later he still suffers of this guilt. He has this strange relationship with his son, it's very cold and distant because of what happened. His son disappears and he's probably been kidnapped by the Origami Killer. Ethan knows he has four days to find his son alive, otherwise he'll be found dead, probably in a waste bin, like the others.

VideoGamer.com: Is he trying to help his son without the help of the authorities? There was a moment in the trailer when he looked like he was fighting against a group of people. Are people not listening?

DC: I can't tell you the story, but what happens in fact is that he thinks he has a lead, so he wants to explore that. But at the same time, the police start to find him suspicious for different reasons.

VideoGamer.com: You touched briefly during the conference on Scott Shelby, the third playable character. What can you tell me about him?

DC: Yeah yesterday the focus was really on Ethan. Scott Shelby is a private detective, and he's been hired by the families of the victims to lead a parallel investigation on the Origami Killer case to try to find clues that maybe the police missed. He's really a character from a Film Noir. He's a typical private eye, working on his own. He's really tall, massive, a bit overweight. He works alone always. And he has his own method - he's a former cop. He will have to work with a very special teammate this time, a little bit against his will, and he will form this very strange team with someone else.

VideoGamer.com: At one point in the trailer I saw one character who has already been revealed...

DC: You really analysed the trailer didn't you!

VideoGamer.com: Well, that's my job!

DC: Oh okay! No I appreciate that!

VideoGamer.com: The character was interacting with one of the new characters. How will the four characters intertwine during the story?

DC: The four characters, depending on how you play, can meet and have relationships.

VideoGamer.com: Romantic relationships?

DC: They may. Not men!

VideoGamer.com: Is it possible to go through the game and not cross paths?

DC: There are characters that have to meet and there are other characters that may meet depending on how you play.

VideoGamer.com: Will you play each character's story individually, or will there be a point where they all come together at the end?

dc: It's a very classic structure with four characters. Each one starts from their starting point and they seem not to be related at all. And of course they start to cross and converge to the same point.

VideoGamer.com: That structure reminds me of early Tarantino films. Was there any inspiration you had for that structure?

DC: Yeah many movies did that very well. You mentioned Tarantino definitely did that very well. Collision was a very interesting movie with several characters whose destinies were interlaced. So yeah, all these were definitely inspirations.

VideoGamer.com: What's your take on the PS3 in terms of its graphical potential. Is Heavy Rain pushing the system as far as it can go, or is there more left to provide developers?

DC: Well, you need to keep in mind that Heavy Rain is our first title on PS3. It's not the second or third generation of games on the same platform. We've just discovered the platform right now. So yeah, there's plenty of room for improvement I'm sure.

VideoGamer.com: PS3 owners looking at the games coming out on the PS3 next year are probably thinking the graphics are as good as they're going to get, but you suggest they can get even better?

DC: Oh yeah I'm sure. At Quantic Dream we know we can do much better than what we do here.

[  1 | 2 | Next Page »  ]