Heavy Rain - New dimention of gameplay?

A while back, during a dull and seemless lecture - Heavy Rain was brought to our attention. We were shown a sequence in which a female character gives a thorough monologue about a cheating husband; fantastically scripted with graphics to give some people a wet dream (cough... not me.. cough) over. After watching this, I decided "I MUST HAVE THIS GAME".

Strangely enough, the sequence we were shown is not anything to do with the game whatsoever, just an empty teaser which brings nothing to the plate apart from a "Yep, this is what our motion capture imagery is like. Look at the shiney shiney light reflections off the rain, beaten face of our character". That's fine, but at least give us something more. Thats what we all wanted. More.

It took me a while to get over that sequence. I even forgot about the game for sometime, but I found some vids on Youtube of the actual gameplay and was hooked once again. More! More! MORE! Again, only fragmented gameplay sequences. Nothing to sink your teeth into. Was that the reason for it? If so, its a fucking good piece of marketing. Bravo. Anyway, back to the actual reason for this blog.

Heavy Rain was released today in the UK. The demo has been available for sometime, but due to previous experiences with Demo's (GT5 Prologue, hmmm £19.99 for a demo... fuck that) I have vowed to never touch them again. Reviews have been great, however it looks as though its one of those "Love it or hate it" scenarios.

Love: Graphics, immersion factor, storyline
Hate: WTF do you actually do?, Controlls seem alittle strange, It is now a pointy-clicky adventure game, mixed with QUICK TIME EVENTS.

There are pro's and cons, but ultimately this is definately a ground-breaking theory to gaming. Having said that, Mirror's edge was a 'ground breaking theory to gaming' and now I can find it for £7.99 in the Blockbusters bargain bin... I'm buying it today, as will many others - so you wont be able to fault the sales figures come next month.

I'm reserving my total judgement of Heavy Rain until I play it fully and experience the 'interactive story' for myself. From an outside perspective, this game really does look like it breaks the mould but we will see.... We will see....

Stagnated Appeal- Supporting a team the Spurs way.

The 'nearly' boys are almost being considered the 'ordinary boys'. explain.

Well ok, this isn't too difficult a question: The debate that is being flung around like shit off a shovel today is that "Spurs are boring. They don't play real football. Route one, Route one." blah blah blah.

This is just grade A bollocks. Brad Friedal (sp) in all fairness, a player I have a great amount of respect for, apparently took a pop at us after the 0-0 on Saturday about our style of play - which to me is laughable. This is coming from a team that were under constant pressure from the start (apart from Gomes' great double save) and pretty much 'parked the bus'. Stoke also took a pop, but in all honesty.............. exactly. Nothing to say about the likes of Stoke.

We play great football, to quote 'Arry "we pass the ball to death" but at times seem to be lacking that killer edge to put teams to bed. Is this down to our style or play when Crouch is playing? Would we have as many goals if we had Pav playing regularly? double edged sword... Take Crouch out of the equation and Defoe will not get the close service that he needs to put it away. Playing Pav in the Crouch position will give us a better overall striker and will probably score more than Crouch, but Pav's hold up play is "Bent" at best, therefore Defoe will suffer.

Crouch won virtually everything in the air on Saturday and did all you would want from him, but can you expect him to score week in week out? no of course not, thats not the type of forward he is.

Solution?

Try the Defoe/Crouch pairing until the 60th/70th and if nothing works then actually CHANGE something and bring Pav for the last 20 or so. Gives us a greater attacking option....

Great to see Bale and Bentley playing well once again. I always said they would (oops.......)