David Cage “unhappy with everything” about Heavy Rain
David Cage isn’t happy about Heavy Rain. In fact, while the team are proud with the outcome they’re still “pretty much unhappy with everything”.
(Heavy Rain , PS3)
Yeah, Cage's brain is just too big for games. He'll never be satisfied, but that's what makes him a great team leader and visionary. It's inspirational, and even if he's not happy with the end result, it brings quality out of his team in the form of games like Heavy Rain.
@da_2pacalypse The major difference is that Cage delivers. Pete makes promises about his game that never come to fruition...ever. In fact, Fable 3 was closer to what he'd promised for Fable 1 than what we got out of Fable 1. But by the time Fable 3 came out, it wasn't impressive because games had evolved beyond it.
Cage, on the other hand, gives us experiences we haven't felt before.
Peter Molyneux is a good developer but he just promises too much and talks too much but he admits his faults. Games like Populous, Team Park and Dungeon Keeper were original and at least he showed genuine passion for games. Hence the reason he received the BAFTA lifetime achievement award in 2011.
On topic, David Cage is a great developer also and Heavy Rain was a unique experience. I think they will blow us away at E3. I wonder if a game could have the same level of depth in the story and choice for the player but not have QTEs. QTEs are fine but what about something more enjoyable.
Cage's opinion of the outcome of Heavy Rain is natural considering what it seemed he was shooting for at least visually. I think the first screenshot of Heavy Rain released was a shot that was positioned to make the character look as realistic as possible.
I anticipate his team's next PS4 project to reach closer to that goal... and be delayed into infinity.
It definitely serves to create what he and the rest of his team seek, which is audience emotion.
Unfortunately, for many it isn't quite a lasting appeal. It has the bullet points of where an invested player will be scared, angry, happy, shocked, but looking back and repeat plays kind of reveal a little more of the cracks in the paint job.
Nothing too seriously wrong with the visuals, although I agree that having motion capture and voice recording simultaneously will improve things quite a bit. One of the most awkward things I can remember about Heavy Rain is how some of the characters walk with this thousand yard stare.
The script could use the most work, just in terms of refining set pieces, trimming or lampshading gaps, and things like that.
He needs to stick with makin movies as that's all heavyrain is wth interactive elements. I felt it to be to hands off and petty boring for a game. Ifit was a movie I would have felt diffrent.
I seriously doubt Cage will become a Molyneux. (God let's hope not, we don't need another of him...) However, there are some people out there who can't help but critique their work to no end. I myself am like that on things I create whether it's artwork or writing... Sometimes you just want to keep adding on, or changing little things, and to be honest that's GOOD for the game industry. It means you'll be adding as much as you can before the deadline for a game, and in turn will usually only improve the quality of the work.
Oh, no, not another stealth troll comment from the fanboy formerly known as Financial Gamer. This is how ignorance starts. I've always thought he was a bit touched in the head.
Seriously, though, why is it bad to be critical of your work? Even if it's praised highly by others, as the creator you can always see things that didn't go as well as you'd hoped. At least, I'd HOPE that you can. If you can't see any flaws in what you've done, THEN you're probably pretentious.
He's arrogant, that's a fact. I remember him attacking reviewers who didn't give Heavy Rain at least a 9 out of 10 score back in 2010 because of how amazing he thought his game was, and now he pretends he's "unhappy with everything"..
How can something be fact that you can't prove and only make assumptions / guesses on?
OT: With Heavy Rain be my #1 game overall, it's a little shocking to hear this from him. Then again, it's good on the flip-side, because his next work will have more of the things he wanted in HR.
I didn't see many glaring weaknesses other than some issues with the writing (some extremely misleading inner monologue thoughts of key character in particular). I think if Cage partnered up with a professional writer they'd really be dangerous. And perhaps disguise some of the accents a bit better. :) I thought they improved just about everything over Indigo Prophecy, which was a game I liked quite a bit.
Regarding whether he's arrogant, he should be proud of his ambition. So many developers keep doing the same thing over and over. Quantic Dream has taken risks and pulled it off. Supposedly there would be no market for a game like Heavy Rain released on a single platform, with many predicting niche-level success at best, and it turned out to do quite well. And more importantly, it was a very good game.
It's not necessarily a bad quality to be critical of your own work and strive to improve everything. That's basically what they did going from Indigo Prophecy to Heavy Rain. They improved over the previous game in just about every way.
The misleading inner monologues of the "key" character you mentioned were a MAJOR problem with the storytelling. Not to mention there were many actions performed by this character that made NO sense considering the revelation at the end. There were also too many pointless scenes and elements scattered throughout Heavy Rain just to arbitrarily extend the length. There were a lot of issues with the game, so I'm not surprised that Cage is unhappy about it. I'm personally baffled by all the praise it gets.
Most of those issues would be fairly easily fixed if Cage paired up with a professional writer in future Quantic Dream games. They may have been issues that were significant problems for you, but most of them have the same solution.
I will say this when you're in the police station and the detective is typing it's pretty bad, but when you are running from the cops in the motel it's one of the best time I had playing a game this gen.
He should be very proud of Heavy Rain, proud that he made such an excellent game and pushed the envelope. I hope the people who make FPSs are unhappy that they have muddied the water of the video game industry.
Bottom line is the game SUCKED!!!! I absolutely LOVED Indigo Prophecy! This game kept getting compared to being similar in the way it plays but Indigo Prophecy still kicks this game's A$$!
I doubt you played either if you think the last half of Indigo'supernatural/Matrix twist kicked anything but its own @ss. Completely destroyed the realistic tone of the game. The ME3 of its time. Garbage end. Heavy Rain destroyed Indigo Prophecy in that regard, and others
Love indigo then the 2nd 1/2 alien nonsense took over and it really ruined it. Still loved the game but a huge chunk of love died as soon as the supernatural stuff was starting to take form.
indigo was a good game/ Heavy rain was a good game.
Hey, YOU felt the need to Stone Cold bottom line something. Ain't no bottom line except this http://www.youtube.com/watc... being lunacy. I 'loved' that part bout as much as a hangnail ripped up to my elbow.
As a side, I'm surprised how many ppl here didn't READ the article and instead took this as an opportunity to bash. Cage said he's proud of the game, just wishes he had more time to polish it even furthur. George Lucas does this every couple years with Star Wars. Headline is out of context. Surprise surprise.
Heavy Rain was a unique experience but the thing that bothered me was the screen tearing.
For a game that doesn't really rely on precision, why did it have to run at 60fps? Isn't it more like a movie anyway? They could've dropped the framerate down to a stable 30fps with zero screen tearing and it would have looked a lot better than it did.
Graphics aside... it was a rather interesting and compelling game. I couldn't stop playing it.
“[Big sigh] Well, there were different things. With the team, we were pretty much unhappy with everything. We thought we could have done a better job in all areas, and have better rendering, and better visuals, and better gameplay, and better everything.”
I've held this opinion even before it released and low and behold the devs also felt the same way before release. It just goes to show just how many of you PS3 fanboys block out reality and that everything I said about this game wasn't just BS/trolling but a valid opinion based on FACTS!
A lot of people (outside of N4G) actually didn't like the game and many say the visuals were average at best, I would say UC2 looks better.
The Last of Us is what you call a good attempt at photo-realistic characters.
Its good that he is unhappy, that means the next game is gonna be even better than the last! See if they were happpy with the game we would have a million Heavy Rains in our heands, does that sound familiar? Yes, Call of Duty folks. Call of Duty, thats what happens when youre happy with your work, you stop improving.
IMO, I say good , I'm glad he's unhappy with Heavy Rain, because if he thinks he made a bad game that was actually a good game ( it was some fresh air in all this shooter pollution) & he thinks they can do better then hell yeah , "It was a sh*tty game, you can do better lol" /s. Can't wait to see what the next game brings... Long Live Gaming!!!
This is how it always ends up with developers and other people who create things.After it goes through it's paces many times they become highly critical of it especially when they go through what they could have done differently or see things that bother them. It doesn't mean necessarily what they originally did was terrible but they realize it needed some work.
Which is a healthy thing to do instead of the developers who just continuously do the make the same mistakes each time and no one calls them out for doing it. At least he knows he has to evolve and refine his technique which is probably why QD said they created a whole new engine for their next game.
I urge people to read the gamasutra article that is 4 pages, beefjack only focused on this one questions when there is so much more to the gamasutra article.
This is one of those situations where you are better off reading the source and not the blog.
so they release software that they are completely unhappy with? Not looking forward to his title title, since im sure hes gonna lie to us about how great it is too. When nintendo isnt happy with something, they revamp or cancel it. These guys release it while lying saying its great
From a perfectionist's view point, I can understand where he is coming from.. This may sound silly, But I spent.. months working on my level for LBP, literally months, Tweaking every tiny detail too perfection from my view point, No matter how Good the level became, or how detailed it became.. I always felt like I could do more too my level.
Eventually I released it for the public too play, it managed to get a 4.5 star rating with alot of very nice comments asking for more, But in my eyes the level was still "unfinished" .. It just didn't seem good enough, No matter what I did I thought I could do more, with the heat limit within LBP & at the time there was no water, I had to create my own version of water ect.. But again & again after revamps & remakes, It still too this day seems like a silly mess too me,
I feel Hideo Kojima & David are in the same situation, I'm very VERY strict with my art work for college aswell as my creations on the likes of LBP, No matter what I do.. I only feel like my work is acceptable for just a few moments, No matter how good the original outcome was. But think of it as a Blessing & a curse.. It only means people like Hideo & David will do the absolute perfection of their abilities to bring you the absolute perfect video-games,
I'd rather play MGS3 over & over again than play any of the Call Of Duty games that have raged through the youth of this generation, Because I always feel Every COD game could have been so much better than the COD before hand.. I think you guys will know what I mean, COD4 was the best for me.. & I hate too even say it's a "COD" game, because it was so fucking good for it's time and now "COD" means that daft shooting game that literally everybody plays.
It was a breathe of fresh air.. but the next few COD's just did not improve from there onward, Which is the problem these days, we lack people like David Cage & Hideo Kojima, Sorry for the Big text block guys, Just felt that I had a good idea of where David is coming from, and I look forward too any projects either of these hard working developers have to share with us. Happy Gaming \m/
I'm unhappy a-holes spammed who the killer was all over the internet forums and comment sections randomly and ruined the game for me before I had a chance to buy it.
Seriously, I was looking at a review for an unrelated game and all I see in all caps is the identity of the killer. Sometimes I hate people.
Same here man. When the game was about trying to uncover who the origami killer is and some assholes decided it would be funny to spoil it really pissed me off. I still haven't played it because I feel like the whole story will be tainted by me knowing the bad guy the whole time...
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Seriously though, I don't know how he can be unhappy about Heavy Rain, it was brilliant.
The only thing I'm not happy with is that we only got one episode of the Heavy Rain Chronicles (the Taxidermist). I want MORE!
The major difference is that Cage delivers. Pete makes promises about his game that never come to fruition...ever. In fact, Fable 3 was closer to what he'd promised for Fable 1 than what we got out of Fable 1. But by the time Fable 3 came out, it wasn't impressive because games had evolved beyond it.
Cage, on the other hand, gives us experiences we haven't felt before.
On topic, David Cage is a great developer also and Heavy Rain was a unique experience. I think they will blow us away at E3. I wonder if a game could have the same level of depth in the story and choice for the player but not have QTEs. QTEs are fine but what about something more enjoyable.
seems like he's taking the inspiration of being unhappy with past work from Molyneux!
damn Peter, don't spread your disease in the industry!
I anticipate his team's next PS4 project to reach closer to that goal... and be delayed into infinity.
Unfortunately, for many it isn't quite a lasting appeal. It has the bullet points of where an invested player will be scared, angry, happy, shocked, but looking back and repeat plays kind of reveal a little more of the cracks in the paint job.
Nothing too seriously wrong with the visuals, although I agree that having motion capture and voice recording simultaneously will improve things quite a bit. One of the most awkward things I can remember about Heavy Rain is how some of the characters walk with this thousand yard stare.
The script could use the most work, just in terms of refining set pieces, trimming or lampshading gaps, and things like that.
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the rack of Mai!! from KOF
LOL
(^_^)
But seriously, great game.
I did a shark attack instead...
lol get outa there stick man :P
Cage doesn't over-promise like Peter Lucas-neux.
Seriously, though, why is it bad to be critical of your work? Even if it's praised highly by others, as the creator you can always see things that didn't go as well as you'd hoped. At least, I'd HOPE that you can. If you can't see any flaws in what you've done, THEN you're probably pretentious.
OT: With Heavy Rain be my #1 game overall, it's a little shocking to hear this from him. Then again, it's good on the flip-side, because his next work will have more of the things he wanted in HR.
Regarding whether he's arrogant, he should be proud of his ambition. So many developers keep doing the same thing over and over. Quantic Dream has taken risks and pulled it off. Supposedly there would be no market for a game like Heavy Rain released on a single platform, with many predicting niche-level success at best, and it turned out to do quite well. And more importantly, it was a very good game.
It's not necessarily a bad quality to be critical of your own work and strive to improve everything. That's basically what they did going from Indigo Prophecy to Heavy Rain. They improved over the previous game in just about every way.
For me, the only issue was some plot holes and I'm afraid that does fall directly with Cage himself.
Learn from your mistakes, what more can you do.
RAWR!! （╯°□°）╯ ︵ ┻━┻
Love indigo then the 2nd 1/2 alien nonsense took over and it really ruined it. Still loved the game but a huge chunk of love died as soon as the supernatural stuff was starting to take form.
indigo was a good game/ Heavy rain was a good game.
As a side, I'm surprised how many ppl here didn't READ the article and instead took this as an opportunity to bash. Cage said he's proud of the game, just wishes he had more time to polish it even furthur. George Lucas does this every couple years with Star Wars. Headline is out of context. Surprise surprise.
For a game that doesn't really rely on precision, why did it have to run at 60fps? Isn't it more like a movie anyway? They could've dropped the framerate down to a stable 30fps with zero screen tearing and it would have looked a lot better than it did.
Graphics aside... it was a rather interesting and compelling game. I couldn't stop playing it.
I've held this opinion even before it released and low and behold the devs also felt the same way before release. It just goes to show just how many of you PS3 fanboys block out reality and that everything I said about this game wasn't just BS/trolling but a valid opinion based on FACTS!
A lot of people (outside of N4G) actually didn't like the game and many say the visuals were average at best, I would say UC2 looks better.
The Last of Us is what you call a good attempt at photo-realistic characters.
I love it.
Can't wait to see what the next game brings... Long Live Gaming!!!
Which is a healthy thing to do instead of the developers who just continuously do the make the same mistakes each time and no one calls them out for doing it. At least he knows he has to evolve and refine his technique which is probably why QD said they created a whole new engine for their next game.
This is one of those situations where you are better off reading the source and not the blog.
Eventually I released it for the public too play, it managed to get a 4.5 star rating with alot of very nice comments asking for more, But in my eyes the level was still "unfinished" .. It just didn't seem good enough, No matter what I did I thought I could do more, with the heat limit within LBP & at the time there was no water, I had to create my own version of water ect.. But again & again after revamps & remakes, It still too this day seems like a silly mess too me,
I feel Hideo Kojima & David are in the same situation, I'm very VERY strict with my art work for college aswell as my creations on the likes of LBP, No matter what I do.. I only feel like my work is acceptable for just a few moments, No matter how good the original outcome was. But think of it as a Blessing & a curse.. It only means people like Hideo & David will do the absolute perfection of their abilities to bring you the absolute perfect video-games,
I'd rather play MGS3 over & over again than play any of the Call Of Duty games that have raged through the youth of this generation, Because I always feel Every COD game could have been so much better than the COD before hand.. I think you guys will know what I mean, COD4 was the best for me.. & I hate too even say it's a "COD" game, because it was so fucking good for it's time and now "COD" means that daft shooting game that literally everybody plays.
It was a breathe of fresh air.. but the next few COD's just did not improve from there onward, Which is the problem these days, we lack people like David Cage & Hideo Kojima, Sorry for the Big text block guys, Just felt that I had a good idea of where David is coming from, and I look forward too any projects either of these hard working developers have to share with us. Happy Gaming \m/
Seriously, I was looking at a review for an unrelated game and all I see in all caps is the identity of the killer. Sometimes I hate people.
When the game was about trying to uncover who the origami killer is and some assholes decided it would be funny to spoil it really pissed me off. I still haven't played it because I feel like the whole story will be tainted by me knowing the bad guy the whole time...