Well, here it is. Heavy Rain gameplay from Pre E3 press event.

[Reasonable]

WereKitten said:

@Reasonable
You simply seem too rigid on what is an "adventure" game.

I played great adventure games that mixed the "pure" textual adventure with RPG elements such as combat, stat-augmenting items etc. The Hobbit was such a game, the outcome of the fights was semi-random like in an RPG.

In Myst, that you named, the exploration is interspersed with small logical puzzles that are more like self-contained flash mini-games, and are more extraneous to the plot than the action scenes were in Fahrenheit.

All of these are ok, but using QTE based action scenes is "weak"? I think they're simply a different tool, with which they can deliver good or bad content and narration. After all, if in an adventure you're lending your intelligence to the character, as in you're solving predetermined situations with your inventive, I don't see anything wrong with you also having to lend your reflexes or endurance when the character is tested for them, again in predetermined situations.

I loved most of Fahrenheit, and what I loathed of it has to do with the way its plot falls apart by the end, not the way its mechanic worked.
Some of what they delivered with those QTEs was great and if the dream of the giant fleas in the office space was a cut-scene instead it would not have worked the same for me.

I'm glad you liked it - honestly.  But just as films are visual so to are a large extent are games.  In the scene with the giant fleas, your view is obscured by giant, colour coded button pressing guides.  That is most definately 'weak' IMHO.  You're so busy watching the cue you barely get to watch the action - in a visual medium anything that distracts from what's going on is weak.

Sure, a QTE is more interaction than none at all - but it just about the weakest interaction approach I can think of.  And if QD don't get the balance right, then just as with Farenheight (or Indigo Prophecy as you know it) expect to see the game get marked down in most reviews for the controls.

I don't want to be rigid, but not everything works as an approach, and there are reasons why in games, films and books there are certain know approaches that will essentially work well and every time, and as I said most (not all of course) gamers seem to complain that QTE's as shown here don't work too well vs other games more intuitive and involving controls.

Simply put I find the approach is passable at best but doesn't garner much true involvement from the player.

That's why I mentioned film/books.  Most games make it clear the plot is simply a device, not the main point, but QD are trying to blur that, which is fine, but if the end result is not too involving from a gameplay mechanic, then I raise the point perhaps Cage should consider the stronger medium of film/writing is he really wants to tell a gripping story.  Although, again to be blunt, on the evidence of his writing in Indigo Prophecy and the clips here, he probably shouldn't.

But as I said I will probably buy this.  I expect it to not get everything right, but I do applaud the developer for trying and in some ways I'd rather play an ambitious title that's also flawed than a totally derrivative title that's polished and near enough flawless.

Still, I think we're going to have to 'agree to disagree' on this one.  I can see you find QTEs fine, I don't for reasons that aren't going to change - and yet it looks like we're going to both support the title, human nature is crazy, huh?