Heavy Rain Is "Not Porn"

[BehattedWanderer]

What's the matter Greg, you've never found yourself in a fit of lust and love, enjoying the soft embrace, feeling the prickles as you and your lover whisper sweet nothings to each other?

Yeah, I'll stop that now, before I drift off to sleep myself. If they're wanting to call it love, then I'm intrigued. 'Love' in a gaming medium has always been blocky and unrefined so far, with that everpresent feeling of forced to it. But that they're saying that it happens because the love there is genuine, and not just 'hey, let's have ourselves an onscreen screw', then I'm interested to see how they do it (no pun/innuendo intended). To accurately portray the emotions involved in both dialogue and actions would definitely be a step forward to the whole sex in games conflict, especially if they manage to pull it off with a sense of familiarity between the two, instead of the normal trend which seems to be more of the 'never done it before' variety (not counting GTA--that's not love). I don't know enough about the characters to know if it's going to be love between two who have known each other some time or two strangers who fall in love while searching for things/people/answers, but I'm at least intrigued enough to find out. Just because it's got sex in it does not make it pornographic, and for a dev to actually want to try and capture the emotional and physical connection between two adults is at least a positive step towards a matured culture.

 

[Nurb]

In other words:

Free publicity for the game over pixilated sex, another push to make games like this illegal by bored housewives and opportunistic politicians, meaningless debate on game sites and mags, then end with disappointed teenagers hoping for porn and a stupid sketch on X-Play

 

[ThreeKneeNick]

Ive never liked sex scenes, be it in games or movies. They're just ... bah, pointless. Okay, i get it, its a 'mature' game/movie, but why does mature have to have a sex scene... Maybe my problem is that i find sex so ordinary and normal whereas the americans think the devil himself invented it and somehow a sex scene is the definition of badass, bah.

 

[Ham_authority95]

Holy shit! "love" during a video game sex scene????? :O

 

[farmerboy219]

When is this game supposed to be coming out again?

They seem to be doing lots of talking about it but not much showing it to us, which is more than a little disconcerting. It certainly doesn't hold back the fear they're just making Fahrenheit with extra boobs. Eh, maybe it'll turn out great, who knows.

read the article again

 

[fix-the-spade]

read the article again

Read it again, answered my own question, nevermind...

 

[Therumancer]

My thoughts on sex in games are very simple when you get down to it. Games are about escapism and if sex is going to be involved I want it to be the kind of awesome sex that doesn't exist in reality. We don't need "nasty" anatomical detail or anything, but the kind of wild, kinky adventures with beauiful women that the overwhelming majority of people don't get to have in real life are the kinds of things I'm looking for. It's all part of being a somewhat ideal hero or whatever. Whether your in love or not IRL, everyone still has their fantasies, and wants things they can't get IRL.

Basically I want to have the beautiful sex goddess fall madly in love with me (and vice versa) and do all kinds of wild things. Maybe even having two or three women fall in love with me and have them all co-exist peacefully in this relationship unlike what could happen IRL (you know like "harem anime" type stuff).

Heavey Rain seems to be trying to be reall mature about the subject, but honestly when you get down to it I feel escapist sexual fantasy tends not to be all that mature, irregardless of what gender is involved. The point of a game would be to explore this when it comes up, without having to justify it or feel embarrassed/ashamed since it would be just me and my game so to speak.


Now I guess there are pure porn simulators that do some of this, but for me I find straight porn or non-stop "sex farces" gradually lose their appeal.

Laugh if you want, but I'd think it would be awesome to have an RPG where as an option you could say raid a ship on the high seas, kidnap a princess, make her your sex slave, and have her fall in love with you (and perhaps mutually which may or may not be stated). Sort of a Tarl Cabot/Conan type fantasy that just wouldn't work in real life, but can be made to work in fantasy. I'd still go out and spend most of my time slaying monsters, collecting treature, leveling up, and trying to kill whatever "Foozle" calls himself in this game, but could go back to my mansion/harem/castle/sex dungeon/whatever for some moments with my girl.

Of course then there are you know more normal less dominant/submissive type things like scoring with the elf princess, or hot alien warrior chick, or whatever else you can think of. I mean look at some of the naughty fan art comic characters and such have inspired over the years, I think you can have that co-existing within a normal comic framework, and even put stuff like that into a game. Basically insert sex, without turning something purely into a sex product.

My problem with Heavy Rain is simply that they seem to be taking "mature" too literally. It almost sounds like it could make sex boring when I hear about it at times. I live in reality, why do I want "realism" in a video game? I mean even in Heavy Rain I'm living out a vainglorious empowered detective fantasy to try and catch this "Origami Killer" guy. For all that can be said about realism, part of that whole stereotype is for the detective to have hot and cold running babes (those he's with, and otherwise). While perhaps too vintage you do know that a lot of detective stories DO tend to pick up with lines like "Suddenly this great pair of gams appeared in my office, looking up they were attached to an equally appealing blonde".

 

[BlindChance]

Heavy Rain Is "Not Porn"

Cage is also after the ever-elusive emotional connection in games. "In most games you've got adrenaline, stress, tension, frustration, competition: very simple emotions," he said. "With Heavy Rain we try to make you feel an empathy, make you smile, and make you cry. We try to make you feel what the characters feel, even if it's discomfort."

Empathy: Ico.
Make you smile: Super Mario Bros.
Make you cry: The Christmas scene of Elite Beat Agents.
Discomfort: Silent Hill.

I am sick unto death of David Cage pretending he's the only guy in gaming trying to make you feel anything. It's just not true.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Japan has been doing emotional erotica and stuff like that for a while. I'm actually quite interested in seeing a western developer's take on that, and I'm willing to take them at their word that they're interested in using the themes respectfully.

...I just wish I had a PS3 to find out if they succeed.

 

[Tom13ombadil]

wet white t-shirt ftw!~

 

[Xanadu84]

Upon reading a rather indirect retraction of one of the designers position of supreme art elitist douchbaggery (Heavy Rain is not a game...), I am again very intrigued by this game. I love the fun, slay the bad guy power fantasy, but I admit that this has been Gamings one trick pony. Any attempt to make a game that doesn't have combat as the focus immediately grabs my attention. And a big budget, mainstream game? That's damn impressive, and its about time. Of course, I think they need to acknowledge other efforts in the field: From the tiny experimental, 8 bit art games like The Marriage or The Passage, to the indie but ambitious developers making things like Devils Tuning Fork or The Path, there IS games which present concepts of this caliber. Hell, even in the mainstream, you can't forget games like Silent Hill. Of course I'm concerned about this being a glorified Choose Your Own Adventure, but there philosophy of choice making seems to ring true as a legit philosophy to drive the game mechanics. Anyways, now that they aknowledge that they are making a game again, and seem to have there pride in that fact restored...well I almost never buy a console game, and the PS3 isn't actually mine, but I just might need to get this.

 

[Sparten0515]

i honestly haven't heard of the game up till now but I'm pretty sure you can get a similar experience watching actual movies.

 

[nonW00t]

Why silly, we play games!! lol

 

[Therumancer]

Laugh if you want, but I'd think it would be awesome to have an RPG where as an option you could say raid a ship on the high seas, kidnap a princess, make her your sex slave, and have her fall in love with you (and perhaps mutually which may or may not be stated).

You could do that in an old boardgame, I think: there was a "Governor's Daughter" rule.
http://fortressat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=287&Itemid=190

Well I meant in a video game. I could technically do it with the GM's compliance in an PnP RPG (you can do anything with the GM's compliance) as well and wouldn't even need a special rule.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I'd just like to ask "If porn isn't adrenaline, stress, tension, frustration, competition, empathy or making love, what exactly is it? And how do you know that Heavy Rain isn't it?

Btw Greg, small typo on the title. Needs a small i.

 

[ThatsBitch3n]

This game has gotten my attention enough that its gonna be a rent.