Registration of the trophy information could not be completed. The game will quit.
(8001050F)
Every time I try to start Heavy Rain I get this message.
-My machine isnt even connected to PSN. No net at home
-I noticed that all the trophies I had gotten for HR are gone. Which is strange as I've never seen an option to delete trophies.
-Deleting the HR dardrive install doesnt change anything.
-Usng my friends XMB account, witch has no HR trophies/saves gives the same message.
Registration of the trophy information could not be completed. The game will quit.
(8001050F)
Every time I try to start Heavy Rain I get this message.
-My machine isnt even connected to PSN. No net at home
-I noticed that all the trophies I had gotten for HR are gone. Which is strange as I've never seen an option to delete trophies.
-Deleting the HR dardrive install doesnt change anything.
-Usng my friends XMB account, witch has no HR trophies/saves gives the same message.
Anyone know of a solution?
Yes, wait for Sony to release firmware fix. It *might* automatically fix itself when the internal clock on the PS3 hits the next day, but probably not. It *might* also fix itself when PSN comes back up, but again, probably not, check any gaming news site...
I'm so pissed it was scott... I thought he was the f*in man... right up untill I found out he drowns little kids I wish the killer changed depending on how you played, at least that way I wouldn't have been disappointed on my 2nd run through.
Actually changing killers on how you play would be stupid story-wise.
i disagree. if your actions were used as the base for not only the conclusion of a story but its formulation, its history - if a game writer were not restricted by only what hasn't yet happened chronologically to render a meaningful context to your particular tale - interacting with a narrative could be something different entirely. it would rely on a kind of implicit trust in the author - that the world for your particular version of a game will have its own consistency, even if theoretically some details will be decided on the fly - but we're at a stage where we should be trusting them anyway.
because heavy rain is a mystery, where there's an expectation of an objective 'truth' or 'solution', it'd be difficult. but i think it's a game whose power goes beyond just 'whodunnit'. and so it should. good writing means a story needs to resonate beyond the mere details of its plot
But the entire story/plot basically hinges on shelby trying to find the father who would save their son no matter what. Every event basically makes sense or tries to makes sense based on that one motive. Making, say, blake as an alternative murderer would make those events not make any sense at all, so you would basically have to rewrite the whole story. While it sounds like a cool concept, heavy rain as a game and as a story/narrative basically ask us to figure out the murderer with already created scenarios and events which wouldn't make sense if we switch the basic plot device as it is. We would literally have to recreate the entire story and that's not what's heavy rain about, though it could make for a cool game.
I'm so pissed it was scott... I thought he was the f*in man... right up untill I found out he drowns little kids I wish the killer changed depending on how you played, at least that way I wouldn't have been disappointed on my 2nd run through.
Actually changing killers on how you play would be stupid story-wise.
i disagree. if your actions were used as the base for not only the conclusion of a story but its formulation, its history - if a game writer were not restricted by only what hasn't yet happened chronologically to render a meaningful context to your particular tale - interacting with a narrative could be something different entirely. it would rely on a kind of implicit trust in the author - that the world for your particular version of a game will have its own consistency, even if theoretically some details will be decided on the fly - but we're at a stage where we should be trusting them anyway.
because heavy rain is a mystery, where there's an expectation of an objective 'truth' or 'solution', it'd be difficult. but i think it's a game whose power goes beyond just 'whodunnit'. and so it should. good writing means a story needs to resonate beyond the mere details of its plot
I think it would be utterly terrible.
There are times where something like this works. Aisle (an interactive fiction) pulls this off. But a game like this? No.
well sure, it wouldn't work with the story as it is. it was more of a hypothetical suggestion. i think it could be done, it could have even been done for heavy rain, albeit a different heavy rain
edit: drez: why not? i'm not saying, 'if heavy rain were the same game up until the killer is revealed and then the reveal is based on your decisions'. i'm talking if the game consciously changed at an early point, based on, say, who you were playing as malicious, who you were playing as genuinely good. different clues would be fed into the game like as they were with a set killer. it's not a perfect story for the idea but i think it could work, and work well, if handled properly, and it could well lead to a much more unique and cohesive experience with your own actions
well sure, it wouldn't work with the story as it is. it was more of a hypothetical suggestion. i think it could be done, it could have even been done for heavy rain, albeit a different heavy rain
It has been done, in different ways.
The following includes some blunt/major endgame Heavy Rain spoilers. Read at your own peril.
Randomization of a killer is, of course, nothing new. Computerized versions of Clue are probably the most rudimentary form of this. Then there are games like Killed Until Dead (an old Commodore 64 game which randomizes the killer each time). Moving on up you have Blade Runner from Westwood (a PC graphic adventure) which randomizes a couple of things at the beginning of the game but allows the player to basically decide whatever he wants - with a few restrictions on each playthrough. And finally you have Aisle, which I mentioned above, where the "game" offers a ton of different stories and outcomes - some of which outright contradict each other - and all of which stem from the player taking a single action. But realize that these are all games where you do not play as the potential killer. That kind of changes things for me.
I find more value in a concrete story, though, and see something of what you're talking about as more of a gimmick. If the PERCEPTION of events changes based on the player's interaction with a game, that's fine. If the player actually changes the backstory, though, I don't think that's so cool. To me, a game like Heavy Rain should have its firm plot. I'm open to the player's evolving comprehension or perception of the plot changing based on his actions, but not the actual crux of it. Of course, Heavy Rain lets you change the OUTCOME, but not the motivations. I don't think willy-nilly allowing for a wide range of potentially contradictory motivations based on some non-sequitur actions on the part of the player
Consider that this is about a serial killer. Serial killers don't just decide the be serial killers overnight. One major point in this game is that Scott was turned down this path in his childhood. It would make no sense to flip that on another character based on some weird flags behind the scenes based on what the player is doing. I think it's fine to lie to the player, though - especially through omission - and solely based on the player's diligence in the course of a playthrough.
QuanticDream did a better job with the romance this time, but they really need to work on subtlety... To me it still came out of nowhere, although it wasn't as absurd as "I'm gonna do it with a zombie."
But I wasn't comparing Heavy Rain to Aisle. In fact, I was saying that Aisle was the extreme of what bsjezz was looking for...and that it wouldn't at all work with Heavy Rain.
edit: I don't get the "like comparing Lolita to a novel" comment either.
As for the person who mentioned (spoiler about Nahman Jayden)
Nahman ODing even though you never took the stuff, that doesn't seem possible. I never had mine take it, he never OD'd. He went batshit crazy because of spending too much time in the ARI, just like that one dude who I'm pretty sure wasn't real warned him about, but that's it . I even got a cutscene of him throwing the drug in the toilet, signifying his sobriety from it.
Yeah, that was me.
I didn't think it was possible either, but that's what happened.
I did get a couple of those 'Shining bartender' scenes.
Here's what happened in my game:
Just before Ethan finds Shaun, Blake & Perry tell Jayden he's off the Origami case, because they know who the killer is (Ethan).
Jayden, knowing this isn't true, goes back into ARI to review the evidence.
He reviews a video ARI recorded of the fight with the killer at the night club.
He discovers the killer is wearing the same type of watch given police officers when they make lieutenant.
He realise the killer is a cop and theorises that Blake is the killer.
Now at this point I was given the choice to accuse Blake or continue reviewing evidence. I decided to continue because I thought the link to Blake was pretty weak. After a while Jayden collapses with blood streaming from his eyes and nose. It wasn't immediately made clear he had died.
After typing it all out I realise the death might not be drug related, but ARI related.
It's not made clear in the game though, it's possibly a combination of both.
So, what your saying is Jayden can die from an ARI overdose? And the crazy white dude was warning him about using ARI, and not tripto?
I need to play through this again, and kill Jayden using the virtua boy glasses.
I very nearly killed him that way. I only noticed by the end of what I was doing that blood was streaming down his face.
I spent god knows how long dicking about with the video clip. I totally stumbled onto the watch - I didn't even see it. I was trying to freeze frame the clip on the killer's hands, to see if he was missing a finger!
I honestly never spotted any blood on Jaydens face after using the glasses, however, in my second playthrough, i did something different, and the old man showed up in the hotel room when he starts detoxing, i figured it was just the tripto he was talking about though.
So. How do you kill Jayden with the glasses, just sit back and make a sandwich while he has the glasses on?
firstly, and all i have time to say at the moment, there's a vast difference between randomization and variability for narrative reasons. randomization means the detail is arbitrary and kind of necessarily less integrated. if it were changed with authorial intent then it's pretty much the opposite to arbitrary
When they are posted on a forum, comparisons are supposed to be meaningful and communicative.
I forgive you though Ori because you used to be an awesome mod and you were the one who mod-edited my signature and added the paranoia GM guild thing after I wrote a really insightful comment about GMing Paranoia games. You are NOT a silly goose. :-)
mspencer on
MEMBER OF THE PARANOIA GM GUILD
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK QRZ || My last known GPS coordinates: FindU or APRS.fi (Car antenna feed line busted -- no ham radio for me X__X )
because heavy rain is interactive fiction. lolita is a novel.
Your comparison was like comparing things to other things.
nope. interactive fiction is a genre, just like the novel. a definite thing-thing comparison.
Ah, I see now where the confusion comes from.
Heavy Rain is not "interactive fiction" unless you take each term of that genre name literally, which you should not do when categorizing into genres. As you just stated, "interactive fiction" is a genre. The genre definition of interactive fiction is equivalent to "text adventure" at this point. In fact, I almost wrote "text adventure" but opted for "interactive fiction" because it is the modern name for interactive fiction.
I would suggest that Heavy Rain is in its own brand new genre of "interactive movie." Previously, this was an epithet attributed to cinematic-heavy games that offered very little actual gameplay. Heavy Rain is an unabashed interactive film, however, and does an excellent job of it.
Regardless, I would say Heavy Rain is the exact opposite of interactive fiction if you are actually referring to the genre name (which I was/am).
Finished the game tonight, after buying it yesterday afternoon. So clearly, I liked it a lot. But man...
The Shelby twist was completely unearned. I say this as someone who *loves* a good twist. Fight Club is among my favorite movies, and Bioshock is one of my favorite game stories. But this twist was not well executed. OTI hit the nail on the head a few pages ago. Putting you in the character's head and having him think like his internal monologue is being tapped by the FBI makes no sense. Is it inconsistent? No, but it's also not how real people think. The Manfred murder is also handled poorly.... especially if you make Shelby think "I should go check on Manfred." Sure, you can rationalize it, but it feels cheap.
To make a twist work, you need to drop a mix of hints and red herrings so that it's a surprise, but it feels earned. Heavy Rain gives a good amount of hints, but also lays on the herrings too thick. It makes the twist feel like a cheap shot.
I also didn't like my ending, where a single press of R2 was the difference between happily ever after and horrific tragedy. Up to that point, the game had made it seem like a single button press would never be the difference between success and failure.
Overall still a great game. My favorite part, and one that I haven't heard too much talk about, is the set design. These are some of the most artistic, beautiful, and delightfully grungy spaces to ever appear in a video game. If this were a movie, I wouldn't be surprised to see it nominated for an Oscar in that category. Anytime someone entered a new room, I was in awe.
I wonder if they'll sell some of those concept art paintings?
because heavy rain is interactive fiction. lolita is a novel.
Your comparison was like comparing things to other things.
nope. interactive fiction is a genre, just like the novel. a definite thing-thing comparison.
Ah, I see now where the confusion comes from.
Heavy Rain is not "interactive fiction" unless you take each term of that genre name literally, which you should not do when categorizing into genres. As you just stated, "interactive fiction" is a genre. The genre definition of interactive fiction is equivalent to "text adventure" at this point. In fact, I almost wrote "text adventure" but opted for "interactive fiction" because it is the modern name for interactive fiction.
I would suggest that Heavy Rain is in its own brand new genre of "interactive movie." Previously, this was an epithet attributed to cinematic-heavy games that offered very little actual gameplay. Heavy Rain is an unabashed interactive film, however, and does an excellent job of it.
Regardless, I would say Heavy Rain is the exact opposite of interactive fiction if you are actually referring to the genre name (which I was/am).
I think the classical genre definition we called text adventures, which we now call Interactive Fiction or IF, really should open up and include this game.
Think about it: in an IF game, you verb nouns. You verb lots of nouns, and frequently have to verb nouns with other nouns, and have to hunt for the right verb to verb the nouns with.
Heavy Rain is an IF game done large, and purged of many of the frustrating interface stuff that makes IF games take longer to play. The available nouns are visible onscreen, and if a verb applies to them, you see an action icon over them. In many IF games only one verb will apply to a noun at any given time -- so in Heavy Rain, the action icon represents the only, obvious verb to use on that noun.
In cases where the verb might be unclear, the authors cleverly used a compound sweeping action icon, so as you start executing you see what your character is about to do. If they're doing the wrong thing, you stop.
Think of what an IF game would do when you have to drive off in your car. Get in car? You haven't opened the door. Open door. Get in. Start the car. Pull away -- but you forgot to remove the handbrake. In Heavy Rain, all of those actions are present, but they are made obvious to the player, as they would be obvious to the character. Heavy Rain isn't full of scripted cute, "entertaining" remarks to make when you fail to type a command to do something that would have been obvious in real life.
Heavy Rain IS interactive fiction in the pure GET LAMP sense -- with some modifiers, innovations, which should serve to expand the genre, not disqualify the game and move it to a different genre. Graphics and controller input instead of text and verbing nouns. QTE's that require action in a certain amount of time, instead of QTE's that require action within a certain number of typed commands.
Then again, according to my reasoning games like Maniac Mansion are also interactive fiction in the same sense. Those games already have a genre: adventure.
Uh oh. Argument self-destructed. X__X
mspencer on
MEMBER OF THE PARANOIA GM GUILD
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK QRZ || My last known GPS coordinates: FindU or APRS.fi (Car antenna feed line busted -- no ham radio for me X__X )
because heavy rain is interactive fiction. lolita is a novel.
Your comparison was like comparing things to other things.
nope. interactive fiction is a genre, just like the novel. a definite thing-thing comparison.
Ah, I see now where the confusion comes from.
Heavy Rain is not "interactive fiction" unless you take each term of that genre name literally, which you should not do when categorizing into genres. As you just stated, "interactive fiction" is a genre. The genre definition of interactive fiction is equivalent to "text adventure" at this point. In fact, I almost wrote "text adventure" but opted for "interactive fiction" because it is the modern name for interactive fiction.
I would suggest that Heavy Rain is in its own brand new genre of "interactive movie." Previously, this was an epithet attributed to cinematic-heavy games that offered very little actual gameplay. Heavy Rain is an unabashed interactive film, however, and does an excellent job of it.
Regardless, I would say Heavy Rain is the exact opposite of interactive fiction if you are actually referring to the genre name (which I was/am).
Nope. This is pretty categorically misinformed.
Nope, it isn't misinformed at all. I've spent quite a bit of time in the IF community in the last year and a half. I could summon up various articles for you, but I'm not going to derail the thread any further as this tangent is completely irrelevant to Heavy Rain and you seem unwilling to explain yourself beyond generalized negations. Hint: If you think I'm misinformed, maybe you should explain why.
Anyway, I'll just conclude by saying I'm kind of surprised that you believe differently than what I posted above, particularly considering you were (as far as I remember) involved with IF for so long. As far as most of the community is concerned, though, the term "text adventure" is almost entirely deprecated in favor of "interactive fiction," which still refers to text-based games, though not necessarily "adventure" or "puzzle" games which comprised the majority of text adventures years ago. IF is still a text-heavy game. I'm not sure someone like Emily Short would entirely agree, but no single voice defines the genre.
I think the classical genre definition we called text adventures, which we now call Interactive Fiction or IF, really should open up and include this game.
Think about it: in an IF game, you verb nouns. You verb lots of nouns, and frequently have to verb nouns with other nouns, and have to hunt for the right verb to verb the nouns with.
Heavy Rain is an IF game done large, and purged of many of the frustrating interface stuff that makes IF games take longer to play. The available nouns are visible onscreen, and if a verb applies to them, you see an action icon over them. In many IF games only one verb will apply to a noun at any given time -- so in Heavy Rain, the action icon represents the only, obvious verb to use on that noun.
In cases where the verb might be unclear, the authors cleverly used a compound sweeping action icon, so as you start executing you see what your character is about to do. If they're doing the wrong thing, you stop.
Think of what an IF game would do when you have to drive off in your car. Get in car? You haven't opened the door. Open door. Get in. Start the car. Pull away -- but you forgot to remove the handbrake. In Heavy Rain, all of those actions are present, but they are made obvious to the player, as they would be obvious to the character. Heavy Rain isn't full of scripted cute, "entertaining" remarks to make when you fail to type a command to do something that would have been obvious in real life.
Heavy Rain IS interactive fiction in the pure GET LAMP sense -- with some modifiers, innovations, which should serve to expand the genre, not disqualify the game and move it to a different genre. Graphics and controller input instead of text and verbing nouns. QTE's that require action in a certain amount of time, instead of QTE's that require action within a certain number of typed commands.
Then again, according to my reasoning games like Maniac Mansion are also interactive fiction in the same sense. Those games already have a genre: adventure.
Uh oh. Argument self-destructed. X__X
I'm very much against overly minute categorizations. And I see the logic in likening Heavy Rain to the text adventure-type Interactive Fiction. However, while I do believe certain IF can be ultra-immersive (like Vespers, Varicella, and Violet - interesting that three of my favorites start with a "v"), I think Heavy Rain explores a completely different kind of immersion, especially with regard to input. I don't even think Heavy Rain would be the same game on the Xbox 360. There is a natural immersive flow with the way the PS3 controller is programmed to be used.
I'd say that this calls for a completely different categorization than simply Interactive Fiction. I understand the comparison, of course, but I think it would be better to fit Heavy Rain into its own category.
Namely I feel this way because I'd rather more games aspire to Heavy Rain level of immersion. As I went through the Butterfly trial, I could only think "now if Silent Hill were like THIS..."
See I also disagree that Heavy Rain can be thought of in terms of the verb-noun paradigm, either. An old adage in text adventure/IF design is that basically all object-related puzzles - ALL of them - are some variation of the lock-and-key sort. What is a lock and what is a key is something the author has to switch up to keep the game novel, but the underlying algorithm is lock and key. Bring the troll a carrot to proceed. Put a ladder against the window to climb up. They all have the same premise and the same result, with different dressings.
Heavy Rain is quite different from that. Except for a few scenes, you can entirely ignore the props. And that's exactly what they are: props. They are there to make the world seem more believable, to let your characters interact with the world in some essentially non-essential way. There is no consequential verb-noun relation. There's just action.
Oh no, don't misunderstand. Genre discussion. This is not a bunch of fanboys having an argument; this is wise, experienced game fans having a meta-discussion about merging the innovations introduced by this game into a set of similar games.
Fake
OK, it's totally a genre argument. Sorry.
mspencer on
MEMBER OF THE PARANOIA GM GUILD
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK QRZ || My last known GPS coordinates: FindU or APRS.fi (Car antenna feed line busted -- no ham radio for me X__X )
I don't want to contribute to that kind of shit so I'm just going to bow out of the argument.
My final point: If you want to call Heavy Rain "interactive fiction," I don't REALLY have a problem with that. I think it is good enough and has achieved such a level of cinematic immersion that it is worth putting into its own category. And I think other games should try to do what Quantic Dream did.
Oh no, don't misunderstand. Genre discussion. This is not a bunch of fanboys having an argument; this is wise, experienced game fans having a meta-discussion about merging the innovations introduced by this game into a set of similar games.
Fake
OK, it's totally a genre argument. Sorry.
I wouldn't call it a "genre discussion" so much as I would call it a discussion of genres.
As for the person who mentioned (spoiler about Nahman Jayden)
Nahman ODing even though you never took the stuff, that doesn't seem possible. I never had mine take it, he never OD'd. He went batshit crazy because of spending too much time in the ARI, just like that one dude who I'm pretty sure wasn't real warned him about, but that's it . I even got a cutscene of him throwing the drug in the toilet, signifying his sobriety from it.
Yeah, that was me.
I didn't think it was possible either, but that's what happened.
I did get a couple of those 'Shining bartender' scenes.
Here's what happened in my game:
Just before Ethan finds Shaun, Blake & Perry tell Jayden he's off the Origami case, because they know who the killer is (Ethan).
Jayden, knowing this isn't true, goes back into ARI to review the evidence.
He reviews a video ARI recorded of the fight with the killer at the night club.
He discovers the killer is wearing the same type of watch given police officers when they make lieutenant.
He realise the killer is a cop and theorises that Blake is the killer.
Now at this point I was given the choice to accuse Blake or continue reviewing evidence. I decided to continue because I thought the link to Blake was pretty weak. After a while Jayden collapses with blood streaming from his eyes and nose. It wasn't immediately made clear he had died.
After typing it all out I realise the death might not be drug related, but ARI related.
It's not made clear in the game though, it's possibly a combination of both.
So, what your saying is Jayden can die from an ARI overdose? And the crazy white dude was warning him about using ARI, and not tripto?
I need to play through this again, and kill Jayden using the virtua boy glasses.
I very nearly killed him that way. I only noticed by the end of what I was doing that blood was streaming down his face.
I spent god knows how long dicking about with the video clip. I totally stumbled onto the watch - I didn't even see it. I was trying to freeze frame the clip on the killer's hands, to see if he was missing a finger!
Me too, only I was trying to freeze to analyze the fact that he was purposefully missing with the sword, thinking it would reveal the killer was a friend. In retrospect, I think that was just the result of sloppy acting in the mocap. >.<
See I also disagree that Heavy Rain can be thought of in terms of the verb-noun paradigm, either. An old adage in text adventure/IF design is that basically all object-related puzzles - ALL of them - are some variation of the lock-and-key sort. What is a lock and what is a key is something the author has to switch up to keep the game novel, but the underlying algorithm is lock and key. Bring the troll a carrot to proceed. Put a ladder against the window to climb up. They all have the same premise and the same result, with different dressings.
Heavy Rain is quite different from that. Except for a few scenes, you can entirely ignore the props. And that's exactly what they are: props. They are there to make the world seem more believable, to let your characters interact with the world in some essentially non-essential way. There is no consequential verb-noun relation. There's just action.
That's interesting in a different way actually. Those adventure game and IF and (whatever Heavy Rain is) interactions can be further thought of in terms of game mechanics. What gives the player an opportunity for failure, and feedback when they fail? In IF, those key-lock mechanics present a challenge that's not easy to present in a game like Heavy Rain: all of the possible keys are nouns described with text. Try to pick them up - you will succeed with only some of them. Try them in the lock. You will only succeed with one of them. Your intuition about the game world, or knowledge of obscure facts known by the developer, or some other outside influence will help you succeed faster than random chance would.
Heavy Rain's interface strips out a lot of that opportunity for failure. That doesn't make it dissimilar to an IF game because challenge is missing, in my opinion: that challenge shouldn't be there. The character wouldn't try to use a badger on a telephone, because that's stupid. A text-based interface would let you try that, and if it's any good it will make you laugh when it tells you that you failed. Heavy Rain just makes that interaction impossible.
IF games have other mechanics, other opportunities for failure, other than lock and key. Many of those are shared in common with Heavy Rain.
mspencer on
MEMBER OF THE PARANOIA GM GUILD
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK QRZ || My last known GPS coordinates: FindU or APRS.fi (Car antenna feed line busted -- no ham radio for me X__X )
See I also disagree that Heavy Rain can be thought of in terms of the verb-noun paradigm, either. An old adage in text adventure/IF design is that basically all object-related puzzles - ALL of them - are some variation of the lock-and-key sort. What is a lock and what is a key is something the author has to switch up to keep the game novel, but the underlying algorithm is lock and key. Bring the troll a carrot to proceed. Put a ladder against the window to climb up. They all have the same premise and the same result, with different dressings.
Heavy Rain is quite different from that. Except for a few scenes, you can entirely ignore the props. And that's exactly what they are: props. They are there to make the world seem more believable, to let your characters interact with the world in some essentially non-essential way. There is no consequential verb-noun relation. There's just action.
That's interesting in a different way actually. Those adventure game and IF and (whatever Heavy Rain is) interactions can be further thought of in terms of game mechanics. What gives the player an opportunity for failure, and feedback when they fail? In IF, those key-lock mechanics present a challenge that's not easy to present in a game like Heavy Rain: all of the possible keys are nouns described with text. Try to pick them up - you will succeed with only some of them. Try them in the lock. You will only succeed with one of them. Your intuition about the game world, or knowledge of obscure facts known by the developer, or some other outside influence will help you succeed faster than random chance would.
Heavy Rain's interface strips out a lot of that opportunity for failure. That doesn't make it dissimilar to an IF game because challenge is missing, in my opinion: that challenge shouldn't be there. The character wouldn't try to use a badger on a telephone, because that's stupid. A text-based interface would let you try that, and if it's any good it will make you laugh when it tells you that you failed. Heavy Rain just makes that interaction impossible.
IF games have other mechanics, other opportunities for failure, other than lock and key. Many of those are shared in common with Heavy Rain.
Sure, but there there will always be overlap between genres.
And my point is that the settings and objects in Heavy Rain are there solely to pull the player into the experience and manage the level of tension the player is experiencing. They really have no other purpose. Even in those few scenes where objects have a great deal to do with the scene, like...
The Lizard
...you still have options, all of which will lead to the conclusion of the scene.
The objects and settings are there to manage the player's level of tension, and all of that is a highly visual and cinematic process. I'm not denying that text can paint a pretty vivid picture, nor that it can convey tension, but I think Heavy Rain attempts to (and succeeds at) doing it in such a different way, that it is almost incomparable to any other genre.
I would suggest that the entire point of Heavy Rain is to develop realistic levels of tension for the player, to translate in-game tension to real-world tension. Does IF try to do that? I don't know. I thought Spider and Web was a good example. Maybe they both try to do a similar thing, I don't know, but there are certain mechanisms present in most IF that Heavy Rain doesn't have because in many ways it almost isn't a game...it's a relationship between the player and the characters that involves a transfer of emotion and tension.
As a mental exercise, I'm going to try to list all the clues that point towards the killer's true identity throughout the game off the top of my head. Let me know if I'm missing any.
Obviously, huge spoilers ahead.
The wheezing and difficulty keeping up of Shelby's younger self in the flashback scene (explaining why we see his inhaler early in the story and then never again, so we don't put the two together easily)
The typewriter on Shelby's desk.
The origami magazine on Shelby's desk
The increasingly suspicious lack of information on Shelby's employers
The awkward, angry exchange between him and the shopkeeper when the man claims he couldn't have done anything to save his son
He doesn't call the cops when a lady tries to kill herself, just gets her well enough to tell her if there were any clues and leaves her alone in the house with a baby
His increasing desire for Lauren to leave him alone
Lauren, a random whore, comes up with several simplistic ideas (cross-referencing the two customer lists chief among them) that Shelby, an ex-cop and seasoned detective, appears to miss entirely
Shelby greets each of these aforementioned ideas/suggestions with reluctance, annoyance, and even anger
The strange lack of information on Shelby's motives beyond finding clues in his internal monologue
The conspicuous scene in the typewriter shop where the camera focuses on Lauren, the clocks all go off, and suddenly Shelby seems out of sorts and anxious
Shelby tells her to leave the list they came to get in the typewriter shop, despite it taking literally seconds to pick it up
Shelby's strange non-reaction to the mob boss's idiot kid's "confession"
Fits Jayden's profile exactly
Shelby's complete lack of acknowledgment regarding new developments in the case released to the public (Ethan's supposed guilt especially)
We never see Shelby seriously investigate any of the clues he collects
As a mental exercise, I'm going to try to list all the clues that point towards the killer's true identity throughout the game off the top of my head. Let me know if I'm missing any.
Obviously, huge spoilers ahead.
The wheezing and difficulty keeping up of Shelby's younger self in the flashback scene (explaining why we see his inhaler early in the story and then never again, so we don't put the two together easily)
The typewriter on Shelby's desk.
The origami magazine on Shelby's desk
The increasingly suspicious lack of information on Shelby's employers
The awkward, angry exchange between him and the shopkeeper when the man claims he couldn't have done anything to save his son
He doesn't call the cops when a lady tries to kill herself, just gets her well enough to tell her if there were any clues and leaves her alone in the house with a baby
His increasing desire for Lauren to leave him alone
Lauren, a random whore, comes up with several simplistic ideas (cross-referencing the two customer lists chief among them) that Shelby, an ex-cop and seasoned detective, appears to miss entirely
Shelby greets each of these aforementioned ideas/suggestions with reluctance, annoyance, and even anger
The strange lack of information on Shelby's motives beyond finding clues in his internal monologue
The conspicuous scene in the typewriter shop where the camera focuses on Lauren, the clocks all go off, and suddenly Shelby seems out of sorts and anxious
Shelby tells her to leave the list they came to get in the typewriter shop, despite it taking literally seconds to pick it up
Shelby's strange non-reaction to the mob boss's idiot kid's "confession"
Fits Jayden's profile exactly
Shelby's complete lack of acknowledgment regarding new developments in the case released to the public (Ethan's supposed guilt especially)
We never see Shelby seriously investigate any of the clues he collects
Umm, as to the first point, off the top of my head, I can remember four instances through the middle of the game where the inhaler is referenced. Sleazy Hotel, Hassan's Shop, when you're back in your office before Lauren comes to meet you (you can open the drawer), and...while I was typing this I forgot the fourth. Crap. But that's three anyway. Not just Sleazy Hotel.
Plus, in almost every one of the "quieter" Shelby scenes, "asthma" shows up in his thought bubbles.
I still didn't put those clues together, but still...
Registration of the trophy information could not be completed. The game will quit.
(8001050F)
Every time I try to start Heavy Rain I get this message.
-My machine isnt even connected to PSN. No net at home
-I noticed that all the trophies I had gotten for HR are gone. Which is strange as I've never seen an option to delete trophies.
-Deleting the HR dardrive install doesnt change anything.
-Usng my friends XMB account, witch has no HR trophies/saves gives the same message.
Anyone know of a solution?
This is very strange -- I just started getting the same error message, after starting the game over (see previous angry post at the top of one of these recent pages) and suffering through the game having a sort of stuttering cadence. The frame rate would stay constant but it seems the simulation would slow down for a brief moment once per second, and then speed up again.
After dealing with that for a while I decided to carefully quit to the main menu (fool me once shame on you, etc.) and then exit back to the dash. The game seemed to exit, but the screen stayed black and the PS3 appeared to be hung. I flipped the power switch on the back off and on again, powered on by hand, synced the controller again.
Now Heavy Rain won't launch, reporting that error about trophies . . . and I cannot connect to PSN. "An error has occurred. You have been signed out of PlayStationNetwork. (8001050F)" Also my system clock was back to 1999. I tried to set time via the Internet and it failed. I was able to use the "reset password" feature of the login dialog on the PS3, answered my security questions, successfully reset my password -- and an email appeared on my gmail account confirming my password was just reset (which rules out network communication issues) -- but I still can't sign in. Same error.
Weird.
mspencer on
MEMBER OF THE PARANOIA GM GUILD
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK QRZ || My last known GPS coordinates: FindU or APRS.fi (Car antenna feed line busted -- no ham radio for me X__X )
Also it's clearly not save file corruption because I just signed in as a profile that hasn't been signed in at all since the release of Heavy Rain. Same error on launching Heavy Rain. 8001050F.
mspencer on
MEMBER OF THE PARANOIA GM GUILD
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK QRZ || My last known GPS coordinates: FindU or APRS.fi (Car antenna feed line busted -- no ham radio for me X__X )
We're aware that many of you are having problems connecting to PSN, and yes, we're looking into it. Stay tuned for updates.
PSN status update: We're narrowing down the issue and continue to work to restore service to all. Updates as soon as we have them.
PSN status update (part 2): Readers/followers are confirming that "slim" units (120/250 GB models) are connecting normally.
mspencer's stupid joke comment: heads up to all you guys competing on The Tester. Whoever wins . . . well I hope you like resetting the PS3 system clock. Because while nobody could have seen this coming and I don't really fault Sony for having a problem like this happen, I imagine every console manufacturer for the next hundred years will have test/QA managers making people test for correct operation on a variety of mathematically "special" dates.
("I don't fault Sony" meaning: obviously they made a mistake and their mistake caused problems. People use past history of mistakes as a future predictor of mistakes, and I don't think this mistake predicts lots of future Sony OS and network service programmer mistakes. It predicts a lot of OS and network service programmers' lives becoming pure hell for the forseeable future, but that's life.)
mspencer on
MEMBER OF THE PARANOIA GM GUILD
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK QRZ || My last known GPS coordinates: FindU or APRS.fi (Car antenna feed line busted -- no ham radio for me X__X )
Posts
(8001050F)
Every time I try to start Heavy Rain I get this message.
-My machine isnt even connected to PSN. No net at home
-I noticed that all the trophies I had gotten for HR are gone. Which is strange as I've never seen an option to delete trophies.
-Deleting the HR dardrive install doesnt change anything.
-Usng my friends XMB account, witch has no HR trophies/saves gives the same message.
Anyone know of a solution?
FF14: ARR
I think it would be utterly terrible.
There are times where something like this works. Aisle (an interactive fiction) pulls this off. But a game like this? No.
edit: drez: why not? i'm not saying, 'if heavy rain were the same game up until the killer is revealed and then the reveal is based on your decisions'. i'm talking if the game consciously changed at an early point, based on, say, who you were playing as malicious, who you were playing as genuinely good. different clues would be fed into the game like as they were with a set killer. it's not a perfect story for the idea but i think it could work, and work well, if handled properly, and it could well lead to a much more unique and cohesive experience with your own actions
It has been done, in different ways.
The following includes some blunt/major endgame Heavy Rain spoilers. Read at your own peril.
I find more value in a concrete story, though, and see something of what you're talking about as more of a gimmick. If the PERCEPTION of events changes based on the player's interaction with a game, that's fine. If the player actually changes the backstory, though, I don't think that's so cool. To me, a game like Heavy Rain should have its firm plot. I'm open to the player's evolving comprehension or perception of the plot changing based on his actions, but not the actual crux of it. Of course, Heavy Rain lets you change the OUTCOME, but not the motivations. I don't think willy-nilly allowing for a wide range of potentially contradictory motivations based on some non-sequitur actions on the part of the player
Consider that this is about a serial killer. Serial killers don't just decide the be serial killers overnight. One major point in this game is that Scott was turned down this path in his childhood. It would make no sense to flip that on another character based on some weird flags behind the scenes based on what the player is doing. I think it's fine to lie to the player, though - especially through omission - and solely based on the player's diligence in the course of a playthrough.
Wait, why wouldn't lolita be a novel?
I haven't actually finished it yet but... why?
Or am I misreading something.
But I wasn't comparing Heavy Rain to Aisle. In fact, I was saying that Aisle was the extreme of what bsjezz was looking for...and that it wouldn't at all work with Heavy Rain.
edit: I don't get the "like comparing Lolita to a novel" comment either.
So. How do you kill Jayden with the glasses, just sit back and make a sandwich while he has the glasses on?
Your comparison was like comparing things to other things.
nope. interactive fiction is a genre, just like the novel. a definite thing-thing comparison.
Isn't that what a comparison is suppose to be?
Image by Sharpwriter on deviantart.com
I forgive you though Ori because you used to be an awesome mod and you were the one who mod-edited my signature and added the paranoia GM guild thing after I wrote a really insightful comment about GMing Paranoia games. You are NOT a silly goose. :-)
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK
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Ah, I see now where the confusion comes from.
Heavy Rain is not "interactive fiction" unless you take each term of that genre name literally, which you should not do when categorizing into genres. As you just stated, "interactive fiction" is a genre. The genre definition of interactive fiction is equivalent to "text adventure" at this point. In fact, I almost wrote "text adventure" but opted for "interactive fiction" because it is the modern name for interactive fiction.
I would suggest that Heavy Rain is in its own brand new genre of "interactive movie." Previously, this was an epithet attributed to cinematic-heavy games that offered very little actual gameplay. Heavy Rain is an unabashed interactive film, however, and does an excellent job of it.
Regardless, I would say Heavy Rain is the exact opposite of interactive fiction if you are actually referring to the genre name (which I was/am).
To make a twist work, you need to drop a mix of hints and red herrings so that it's a surprise, but it feels earned. Heavy Rain gives a good amount of hints, but also lays on the herrings too thick. It makes the twist feel like a cheap shot.
I also didn't like my ending, where a single press of R2 was the difference between happily ever after and horrific tragedy. Up to that point, the game had made it seem like a single button press would never be the difference between success and failure.
Overall still a great game. My favorite part, and one that I haven't heard too much talk about, is the set design. These are some of the most artistic, beautiful, and delightfully grungy spaces to ever appear in a video game. If this were a movie, I wouldn't be surprised to see it nominated for an Oscar in that category. Anytime someone entered a new room, I was in awe.
I wonder if they'll sell some of those concept art paintings?
Nope. This is pretty categorically misinformed.
Think about it: in an IF game, you verb nouns. You verb lots of nouns, and frequently have to verb nouns with other nouns, and have to hunt for the right verb to verb the nouns with.
Heavy Rain is an IF game done large, and purged of many of the frustrating interface stuff that makes IF games take longer to play. The available nouns are visible onscreen, and if a verb applies to them, you see an action icon over them. In many IF games only one verb will apply to a noun at any given time -- so in Heavy Rain, the action icon represents the only, obvious verb to use on that noun.
In cases where the verb might be unclear, the authors cleverly used a compound sweeping action icon, so as you start executing you see what your character is about to do. If they're doing the wrong thing, you stop.
Think of what an IF game would do when you have to drive off in your car. Get in car? You haven't opened the door. Open door. Get in. Start the car. Pull away -- but you forgot to remove the handbrake. In Heavy Rain, all of those actions are present, but they are made obvious to the player, as they would be obvious to the character. Heavy Rain isn't full of scripted cute, "entertaining" remarks to make when you fail to type a command to do something that would have been obvious in real life.
Heavy Rain IS interactive fiction in the pure GET LAMP sense -- with some modifiers, innovations, which should serve to expand the genre, not disqualify the game and move it to a different genre. Graphics and controller input instead of text and verbing nouns. QTE's that require action in a certain amount of time, instead of QTE's that require action within a certain number of typed commands.
Then again, according to my reasoning games like Maniac Mansion are also interactive fiction in the same sense. Those games already have a genre: adventure.
Uh oh. Argument self-destructed. X__X
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK
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Nope, it isn't misinformed at all. I've spent quite a bit of time in the IF community in the last year and a half. I could summon up various articles for you, but I'm not going to derail the thread any further as this tangent is completely irrelevant to Heavy Rain and you seem unwilling to explain yourself beyond generalized negations. Hint: If you think I'm misinformed, maybe you should explain why.
Anyway, I'll just conclude by saying I'm kind of surprised that you believe differently than what I posted above, particularly considering you were (as far as I remember) involved with IF for so long. As far as most of the community is concerned, though, the term "text adventure" is almost entirely deprecated in favor of "interactive fiction," which still refers to text-based games, though not necessarily "adventure" or "puzzle" games which comprised the majority of text adventures years ago. IF is still a text-heavy game. I'm not sure someone like Emily Short would entirely agree, but no single voice defines the genre.
I'm very much against overly minute categorizations. And I see the logic in likening Heavy Rain to the text adventure-type Interactive Fiction. However, while I do believe certain IF can be ultra-immersive (like Vespers, Varicella, and Violet - interesting that three of my favorites start with a "v"), I think Heavy Rain explores a completely different kind of immersion, especially with regard to input. I don't even think Heavy Rain would be the same game on the Xbox 360. There is a natural immersive flow with the way the PS3 controller is programmed to be used.
I'd say that this calls for a completely different categorization than simply Interactive Fiction. I understand the comparison, of course, but I think it would be better to fit Heavy Rain into its own category.
Namely I feel this way because I'd rather more games aspire to Heavy Rain level of immersion. As I went through the Butterfly trial, I could only think "now if Silent Hill were like THIS..."
Reminds me of this.
http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/
Heavy Rain is quite different from that. Except for a few scenes, you can entirely ignore the props. And that's exactly what they are: props. They are there to make the world seem more believable, to let your characters interact with the world in some essentially non-essential way. There is no consequential verb-noun relation. There's just action.
Fake
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK
QRZ || My last known GPS coordinates: FindU or APRS.fi (Car antenna feed line busted -- no ham radio for me X__X )
That site has broken me.
I don't want to contribute to that kind of shit so I'm just going to bow out of the argument.
My final point: If you want to call Heavy Rain "interactive fiction," I don't REALLY have a problem with that. I think it is good enough and has achieved such a level of cinematic immersion that it is worth putting into its own category. And I think other games should try to do what Quantic Dream did.
I wouldn't call it a "genre discussion" so much as I would call it a discussion of genres.
Heavy Rain's interface strips out a lot of that opportunity for failure. That doesn't make it dissimilar to an IF game because challenge is missing, in my opinion: that challenge shouldn't be there. The character wouldn't try to use a badger on a telephone, because that's stupid. A text-based interface would let you try that, and if it's any good it will make you laugh when it tells you that you failed. Heavy Rain just makes that interaction impossible.
IF games have other mechanics, other opportunities for failure, other than lock and key. Many of those are shared in common with Heavy Rain.
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK
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Sure, but there there will always be overlap between genres.
And my point is that the settings and objects in Heavy Rain are there solely to pull the player into the experience and manage the level of tension the player is experiencing. They really have no other purpose. Even in those few scenes where objects have a great deal to do with the scene, like...
...you still have options, all of which will lead to the conclusion of the scene.
The objects and settings are there to manage the player's level of tension, and all of that is a highly visual and cinematic process. I'm not denying that text can paint a pretty vivid picture, nor that it can convey tension, but I think Heavy Rain attempts to (and succeeds at) doing it in such a different way, that it is almost incomparable to any other genre.
I would suggest that the entire point of Heavy Rain is to develop realistic levels of tension for the player, to translate in-game tension to real-world tension. Does IF try to do that? I don't know. I thought Spider and Web was a good example. Maybe they both try to do a similar thing, I don't know, but there are certain mechanisms present in most IF that Heavy Rain doesn't have because in many ways it almost isn't a game...it's a relationship between the player and the characters that involves a transfer of emotion and tension.
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Obviously, huge spoilers ahead.
Plus, in almost every one of the "quieter" Shelby scenes, "asthma" shows up in his thought bubbles.
I still didn't put those clues together, but still...
After dealing with that for a while I decided to carefully quit to the main menu (fool me once shame on you, etc.) and then exit back to the dash. The game seemed to exit, but the screen stayed black and the PS3 appeared to be hung. I flipped the power switch on the back off and on again, powered on by hand, synced the controller again.
Now Heavy Rain won't launch, reporting that error about trophies . . . and I cannot connect to PSN. "An error has occurred. You have been signed out of PlayStationNetwork. (8001050F)" Also my system clock was back to 1999. I tried to set time via the Internet and it failed. I was able to use the "reset password" feature of the login dialog on the PS3, answered my security questions, successfully reset my password -- and an email appeared on my gmail account confirming my password was just reset (which rules out network communication issues) -- but I still can't sign in. Same error.
Weird.
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK
QRZ || My last known GPS coordinates: FindU or APRS.fi (Car antenna feed line busted -- no ham radio for me X__X )
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK
QRZ || My last known GPS coordinates: FindU or APRS.fi (Car antenna feed line busted -- no ham radio for me X__X )
http://twitter.com/SonyPlayStation
We're aware that many of you are having problems connecting to PSN, and yes, we're looking into it. Stay tuned for updates.
PSN status update: We're narrowing down the issue and continue to work to restore service to all. Updates as soon as we have them.
PSN status update (part 2): Readers/followers are confirming that "slim" units (120/250 GB models) are connecting normally.
mspencer's stupid joke comment: heads up to all you guys competing on The Tester. Whoever wins . . . well I hope you like resetting the PS3 system clock. Because while nobody could have seen this coming and I don't really fault Sony for having a problem like this happen, I imagine every console manufacturer for the next hundred years will have test/QA managers making people test for correct operation on a variety of mathematically "special" dates.
("I don't fault Sony" meaning: obviously they made a mistake and their mistake caused problems. People use past history of mistakes as a future predictor of mistakes, and I don't think this mistake predicts lots of future Sony OS and network service programmer mistakes. It predicts a lot of OS and network service programmers' lives becoming pure hell for the forseeable future, but that's life.)
XBL Michael Spencer || Wii 6007 6812 1605 7315 || PSN MichaelSpencerJr || Steam Michael_Spencer || Ham NOØK
QRZ || My last known GPS coordinates: FindU or APRS.fi (Car antenna feed line busted -- no ham radio for me X__X )