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LOOK WHO CAME:

Kenneth Cummings

Perfidious Sinn 1

M Randy 1

Isaac59 1

Voltech 1

long john 1

With Beyond: Two Souls receiving a very mixed reception, I think it's a good idea to go back and pick apart David Cage's previous work, Heavy Rain. It's a game with which I'm all too familiar. Having earned the platinum trophy for it, I know the ins and outs of every scene, every line of dialogue, and every permutation thereof. I'll preface this by saying that I know what I'm talking about when I say this is not a good story, or even a good game. It fails to deliver on just about every level. When it comes to stupidity, Heavy Rain is the gift that keeps on giving.I don't hate this game. I certainly don't love it, but hate isn't the right word. I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed in David Cage, for holding back the potential of this medium, and in the fans, for taking this garbage as their high standard for art. Sure, no game or story is perfect, but there's a limit. A goof or two or three is one thing. I can understand a discrepancy betwixt shots, or a slight oversight. And Heavy Rain has plenty of those; it's clear David Cage doesn't have any attention to detail.There's a limit, however. Eventually, those mistakes pile up, and people begin to see through the fa�ade. If you're building an "interactive drama", with narrative at the forefront, plot is twice as important than it usually is (though it's still second to graphics), so it's natural for this game to fall under heavier scrutiny. And when one actually pays attention and uses their brain, they realise that Heavy Rain doesn't just have a few minor mistakes here and there: it's plot is a mangled mess, riddled with holes. The nitpicks I could ignore. Unfortunately, Heavy Rain doesn't just have these minor issues. It has big ones.David Cage once said that "We need to forget about video game rules � bosses, missions, game over, etc... are very old words of a very old language". If that statement isn't ludicrous on its own, it's made even worse by the fact that he's the one saying it. Even when he gets something right, I still have trouble siding with him. It's like having Michael Moore as your dietician.This is why it bothers me so much that people love Heavy Rain. Not because they're opinions are different than mine, but because it drags this medium down. As a movie, this would have failed. As a novel, this would have failed. As anything else, the God-awful writing, script, and voice acting would have made it an abomination, and it is an abomination. It's an interactive drama with a horrible plot. The story is at the centre of the entire experience, and it's completely corrupt to the core. It's characters are all paper-thin clich�s designed to tug at your heart strings, the "plot" is a farce, and the voice acting ranges from bad to ear-bleeding.Heavy Rain isn't a good game, and it's certainly not a good story; it�s a rough draft, and a bad one at that.