Anyone else a bit offended at claims Heavy Rain's writing is Oscar Worthy?

[LordTheNightKnight]

Reasonable said:
I'm not bothered or offended assuming such claims are made - heck, didn't some gaming journos (with more enthusiam than knowledge it would seem) claim GTAIV was as good as The Godfather.

Personally, I'm with Ebert in his recent question of why it matters? Games are clearly miles away from producing writing and direction of the quality of films and particularly novels.

Your point is valid, though, in that if people really do want to see writing, etc. really taken seriously then they're going to have to up their critical view of the medium and demand much higher levels of quality.(1)

That said some parts of HR were reasonably well written, although most was only average.(2)

1. That really is my issue. It's as though someone wrote a Choose Your Own Adventure book with some violence and sex, took out any speculative fiction elements, and the CYOA fans touted it as a great achievement, but the writing is still on the level of the other books. I would still say that's a dumb line of thinking, and not going to put those books on the level of art.

BTW, I used to read those books, so I actually like them.

2. I agree that the writing has its ups and downs, but overall not really above many other games. I'd compare it do Japanese visual novels (which is likely why this sold little in Japan), except there aren't that many in English (I just bought Sakura Wars V, but the writing isn't that much better, although the camp makes up for it).