I think Heavy Rain is about malleability of plot, Walking Dead is about malleability of protagonist. The characters in Heavy Rain are who they are, but the plot can change based on player input. The plot in Walking Dead is what it is, but the protagonist can change based on player input. Walking Dead has more in common with Mass Effect than it does Heavy Rain.
But can you seperate characters from plot? To me a good narrative flows from the characters. Lee is a man with a troubled past who must give up his hope for finding a normal life for Clementine and prepare her for a grim future. Clementine is a child who must face that she has to give up her childhood to face a new reality. The story flows naturally from that, and the ending is the natural conclusion of their character arcs. In David Cage games, I couldn't tell you what most of the characters were there to accomplish, and that leads to his stories having hackneyed plot twists and final acts.
I haven't played Heavy Rain but I watched a full LP of it and found the story laughable, between the bizarre ARI stuff, some questionable voice acting and shameless, emotionally exploitative moments one after another (interactive stripping, forced self-mutilation). TWD managed to feature the loss of body parts without it feeling exploitative at all. I also feel like TWD can be watched as an uninvolved observer and still be deeply emotionally affecting. Although I played TWD right through myself, I also watched a live stream of it afterwards and even people who hadn't played the game were talking about getting choked up. Since both games are essentially all about the story, I think it's fair to say that creatively one is a failure and the other is a massive success.
Well put. I feel a lot of the problems with Heavy Rain was that the characters were very shallow and could easily be summed up: Grief-stricken dad. Hooker with at heart of gold. Private snoop. The Walking Dead characters are for the most part much more complex characters and constantly reveal new sides of themselves that forces you to change your perspective.
Both games were among my favorites the year they came out, and yes The Walking Dead surpasses it in most ways, but at the same time I don't think that game could have been made if Heavy Rain hadn't implemented a lot of those ideas first. It's kind of unfair to dismiss the accomplishments of an older game simply because the new one's better.
That is a good point, I guess. The Walking Dead does draw inspiration from Fahrenheit and Heavy Rain. My point is also mostly, that we have all the tools we need NOW to create an emotionally engaging experience, all the stuff about facial capture and digital actors is removing the focus from where it should be.
I was thinking about how much more connected and emotionally involved I was with The Walking Dead than with Heavy Rain.
David Cage has made his project to show that you can have deeper emotional connections with game characters. But in spite of him loudly touting himself as a pioneer of this kind of storytelling, along comes The Walking Dead and quietly completely surpasses him. I was thinking about what that was. And to me, the answer is this: Simply better writing.
I cared way more about Clementine than the kids in Heavy Rain. I cared way more about Lee than I did about Ethan Mars. And this just goes to show that you can invent all sorts of fancy facial capture systems and inventive new gameplay, but if you can't write characters to properly connect to, it doesn't matter much. I'm interested to see if Cage can respond with Beyond - 2 Souls, but for now I'm looking forward to The Walking Dead Season 2.
Oh Journey. I didn't dislike it when I played it, just thought it was very meh and a bit overwrought. Then everyone started heaping ridiculous amounts of praise on it, and now I hate it a little bit.
Did you also point out that people were being silly when they observed that Obama is the first black president?
I did, actually. I felt (and still feel) that celebrating Obama's presidency because he is black shows how far we have not come as a society. If we truly had risen above the racism of the past, we would have not noticed it at all, because he would be just another person - regardless of his skin color.
It's not exactly racism. I don't know what the word is for people's behavior there. But it's not healthy, either, because it shows that they can't look past skin color (regardless of how benign their reasons are).
But surely you also recognise that the fact that he is elected at all, show that you've come a long way as a society. Because him being elected was unthinkable 50 years ago.
@BSw We need to celebrate it so much that "hey look, he's just like you, but BLACK!" becomes a cliche. Then it won't matter. But even that seems like (pardon the term) whitewashing the issue. There are so many things to be explored with race, but for your average game it doesn't matter. There can be all sorts of culture and background mixtures that can be part of a game, but most games don't have to worry about it. The skin color of a character in Call of Duty doesn't mean much for.the story they tell.
I understand your point, but no, we should not. All that happens when that is done is that you are emphasizing that there are people that still think that there are differences in value between people with visibly different skin colours (or, for that matter, sex, nationality, hair colour, etc.). Everybody is equal (at least at face value) and should be treated as such. So as long as you are emphasizing the fact there is a non-white that is a likeable main character (although you - and everybody in this thread - mean well), you are actually upholding this perceived (and delusional) difference in value instead of getting rid of it.
Did you also point out that people were being silly when they observed that Obama is the first black president?
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