Heavy Rain: "The Casting"
From the creators of Indigo Prophecy, Heavy Rain is a unique technical demo showing off the capabilities of the PlayStation 3. Similar to the Final Fantasy VII concept demonstration shown at last year's E3, this is not necessarily a trailer for an actual game, but is rather an example of what can be achieved on the platform. The scene revolves around a "virtual actor" and is rendered entirely in real time 3D.

Many parts of the ambitious demonstration are indistinguishable from real life, especially during the emotion fueled climax. The kitchen is amazingly detailed, the lip-syncing is spot on and the character's "personality" is successfully delivered and weaved into the "acting" she does. While some may argue that the goofiness is due to poor animation, I believe it is clearly part of the persona that Quantic Dream set out to create for the character. Either way, we are still left with a very convincing imitation of real life.

While the demonstration is extremely impressive, I can't wait to see what developers manage to do in the year they have to improve upon and implement it.

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Impressive eyecandy...

Indigo Prophecy is a great game. its too bad it got slept on by so many gamers who's brains can't handle a deep story and would rather just sit in front of a tv and shoot sh!t up. I'm anxious to see what they can do with the PS3.

quote Cdemon

Impressive eyecandy...

Real-time eyecandy...

What? It's just a tech demo...

Work on mouth movements. It looks like I'm watching a Godzilla movie. Other than that, very impressive.

Okay, first off, very impressive CGI display of what the PS3 can do. However, it is obviously CGI! No way would any of that ever fool me, if I didn't know it was a PS3 demo. Sorry, but as incredible as it looks, and it does look awesome, in no way does any of that look "indistinguishable from real life". the good news is that if that is how detailed the games are going to be then...OMFG is that SWEET!

its obviously real-time, u can tell from the clarity of the objects/models. i agree that its definitely not indistinguishable from real life, but the acting and lighting effects is what made it seem life like, in my opinion.

This message was edited by iLLmatic on May 16 2006.

quote ChiroVette

Okay, first off, very impressive CGI display of what the PS3 can do. However, it is obviously CGI! No way would any of that ever fool me, if I didn't know it was a PS3 demo. Sorry, but as incredible as it looks, and it does look awesome, in no way does any of that look "indistinguishable from real life". the good news is that if that is how detailed the games are going to be then...OMFG is that SWEET!

Heh i couldn't help but thing that even if this is a representation of the "future" in some aspects that it was bad.

Since if games look like this visually we will have no games to play cause they will all get banned... GTA5 looking like that would get banned, hell even fantasy games like Spyro or something like that would get banned cause the burning physics on the sheep would be too real lol...

Not too good from the eyes of the future lol

quote Cdemon

What? It's just a tech demo...

Well duh lol.

I don't know about you guys but I really don't want games to be realistic. I want them to have good graphics but I don't want them to look so human. It just sort of stops you from escaping from the reality, you know?

This message was edited by Darknet on May 18 2006.

Darknet abd GloomyDoomy, I'm with you guys. I want games, particularly GTA games to look LIKE GAMES! lol I would personally find GTA (using that as an example) to be way too disturbing if it looked real.

quote ChiroVette

Darknet abd GloomyDoomy, I'm with you guys. I want games, particularly GTA games to look LIKE GAMES! lol I would personally find GTA (using that as an example) to be way too disturbing if it looked real.

Not to mention i would still love to have a GTA to play, which won't happen if visuals got that high... GTA wouldn't even pass the ratings board with visuals as good as that and as real as that heh

GTA, and probably a lot of other violent games. I think that car racing games could benefit from this level of details, and perhaps some of the milder RPG's as well. Even Platformers like JAK and Ratchet & Clank games though, would go from being "really cute and fun" to probably being labeled as too violent.

Yeah like earlier i used Spyro the Dragon as an example... completely innocent fun yet the level of detail the new console can deliver doesn't leave much room for cartoon like games.

cause something like Spyro you have to charge and flamegrill sheep to get the gems nothing wrong with that but when the visuals get to that...

The once cute dragon will now be flamegrilling these sheep with photorealistic fire and fire effects and it will go from being cute to damn near brutal just for a game that could be labelled educational lol.

I think visuals like this aren't needed, funny that through the years we all want better better better visuals and now we have been shown the future in some aspects i don't want it anymore, i like it how it is where it is good to look at yet its not too real that everything looks like the next Sony blockbuster movie.