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....