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Pierre, the closest game to Heavy Rain was Quantic Dream's last game - Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy. It had the same idea of multiple characters and gestures for dialogue options. It had quicktime events (which made a lot less sense), and had a few endings.

The story couldn't deviate quite as much as it does in Heavy Rain, but it was built on the same mocap system that Heavy Rain works on.

I recommend the game for the first 2/3rds, but don't play it after that :p

I finished one play through of Heavy Rain myself over Friday night (from about 5pm till about 2.30am with a few long breaks in between for food and vitamin D supplements), and I truly loved the experience. Fahrenheit was a breath of fresh air when it came out, but had some serious problems. This had fixed them all, and more. I think it makes more sense contextually to be on a console rather than the PC, especially with the Sixense stuff. It's far more satisfying to beat a door down rather than use mouse gestures to click it open.

The story itself was much improved - no silly paranormal copout explanations! I was actually impressed with the acting technology, but do think the smoothness of some of the facial animation systems could perhaps be improved a tad? I'm assuming due to the mocap data they had, they couldn't risk dynamic simulations for clothing and such, and you could certainly tell when clothes were hand-animated. Some of the character models clipped scenery and each other, occasionally, but this is my only genuine problem with how the game looked. The rest was utterly stunning (oh, well, some of the rain looked a littl-- nah, it was all fine :p).

Very impressed with the music, but I was with Fahrenheit too (but with Angelo Badalamenti, what more could you expect?). Whilst not quite as famous this time, the composer does really well, especially considering the constraints of the system (being unable to tell when the music will end, and needing certain sections to be tense for quite a long time).

I think I was most impressed with the way the story moulded itself around your decisions, within the framework given to you. There are some horrifically grey decisions you have to make within split seconds that *really* don't make you feel great afterwards that I absolutely adored. I loved that you had to deal with it when someone died - and when they do it really sucks.

What I'm most looking forward to is what on earth the AAA development community are going to do with this. Of course, it's going to depend on whether it's a commercial success or not, but it certainly is critically, and that has to account for something. I suppose the system being used currently is more difficult to replicate; Quantic Dream have their own mocap facility, and they spent a very long time capturing and choreographing the sequences. Could someone but them use the same system?

Eh, who cares. It was a cool game, and I appear to have written an essay on it. Whoops.
 
Furie Wrote
It's a problem which affected a potential 20% of an initial batch of 360's (I think it was the first 18 month's worth or something). Microsoft have changed the insides of the 360 since that time and it doesn't happen to any models with the new design.

I have to disagree with this statement as new xbox30 get the RROD just as much as the old ones we get at least 4 a week back with RROD and since microsoft dont technicly support for it anymore its getting harder to sort it out for customers. As for the ps3 situation people are panicking over it to much to be honest its a day without psn no biggie no one got on there high hore when xbox live went down for 2 days but cause its ps3 everyne is jumping on the bandwagon. Thats not to say ps3 dosnt have its problems like sony shiping a batch of ps3 120 gig machines to us all with corrupt hard drives lol about 19 grands worth all in all oops on there part but then we swap over £800 of 360 a week and they get sent back to microsoft there all as bad as each other lol.
 
Microsoft lied??? Who'd have guessed it.

Aaron Greenberg (360 Product Manager) issued a statement in May last year saying that the new internal tech shouldn't RROD, and that the 360's sent back for repair should now be getting the new tech. So as the least of the older versions vanish - the 360 RROD problem should also vanish.

You'd have thought that it would be all new tech 9 months down the line.

This is probably why MS have stopped doing the easy support on this - as the 360's shouldn't be having this issue.

The PS3 issue is a major embarrassment to Sony. While the problem is "fixed" - it wasn't fixed by Sony, just by the fact the days now marry up correctly. It's an issue in the hardware, but the next time it will possibly affect the console is is 2030 (maybe 2016, but it's doubtful it affects every even year). Sony were very bloody lucky that the issue just resolved itself.

Though to be honest, Microsoft to fix their consoles have to do a hardware repair. Sony have to time travel. They forced the world to move on 60 seconds every minute. 60 minutes an hour until they finally managed to force the world to 12:00.01 GMT. It was a difficult job, but Sony Heuristic and Implementations in Time (S.H.I.T.) teams worked through the night (until midnightish) to get this fixed for everyone. Well done Sony :p

Oh and Trophies?

Apparently... If you synced, then they will simply resync. If you switched on and lost trophies since your last sync (Inverse/Brookes) then they will apparently re-appear the next trophy you win on that game.
 
furie said:
Oh and Trophies?

Apparently... If you synced, then they will simply resync. If you switched on and lost trophies since your last sync (Inverse/Brookes) then they will apparently re-appear the next trophy you win on that game.

I was hoping for this, but nope. I spent the morning replaying the 2nd half of Heavy Rain to get them back.
 
Well, there's been a little excitement overnight. Basically Valve released a content update to Portal, and 12 hours later, we've got screens of what appears to be Portal 2.

More explained here, and here.

I am excite! I've also got the new achievable, and it's very creepy, having to walk around the game with radios which effectively turn into Number Stations.
 
Oh and Trophies?

Apparently... If you synced, then they will simply resync. If you switched on and lost trophies since your last sync (Inverse/Brookes) then they will apparently re-appear the next trophy you win on that game.

Ok thanks for the info but I didn't lose any due to having a slimline. It's weird how you lost them though Inverse, I think all my mates have got their trophies back.
 
Today in vidya news. What is Activision smoking?

http://kotaku.com/5483492/scandal-hits- ... Bupdate%5D

In short;

-Activision hired guards to boot everybody out of Infinity Ward, a lot of the senior/higher up people fired.
-Call of Duty series to get a new developer/business sector.

I don't know what Activision is smoking. I'm not a fan of Modern Warfare 2, but that game is probably the only thing that helped Activision make a profit last year after WoW membership plateaued, lackluster sales of games with peripherals like DJ Hero and Tony Hawk Ride, and over-saturating the rhythm game market with rushed Guitar Hero sequels and spin offs.

Why would Activision want to do this with their "trump card" developer? :?
 
New Grid DLC <3

I wasn't sure about the value of the 8-ball pack (just 8 new cars for the best part of £7???).

However, added to the new Prestige pack (a further 10 cars or so and an additional track) - I have to say it's really made the difference to the game. The new cars expand the range enough and have enough difference in handling to really make a difference. The McLaren Merc is a monster, but not as fast as the Veyron. However, at least the McLaren will go around a corner :)

It's given a great set of new car options and has opened up multiplayer a lot. Sorry, but if you want to play multi-player now with me - you'll need both packs.

It may be worth rebuying Grid in the new double pack which comes with the original Dirt, another copy of Grid and both sets of Grid DLC. It's £29.99, but you can probably get a fiver for Grid - so it would mean Dirt is about £16 which is worth it (Dirt is a great game too).
 
portal2top.jpg


http://gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/ ... ealed.aspx

Well that was a surprise.
 
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