So Quantic Dream came out with a new video and some screenshots for Heavy Rain the other day, and boy did it get me excited. If there is one game to point to for a reason for me to get a PS3, it is this game… right next to God of War 3.

I have been a fan of Quantic Dream since the release of Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy in the US) during the last generation of gaming. I remember when the game came out and I got it for PC, I played through the entire game in 2 days; I was glued to my laptop. Anyways, let’s take a look at the new preview trailer:

This trailer has me pretty fucking excited. There is one thing that bothers me that is a problem in pretty much every videogame today but overall, I see good things. I’ll just get my complaint out of the way, the facial animation and lip syncing suck. But, that is to be expected as they suck in pretty much every game today. When you get character models with as much detail as these have, the animation looks very fake when it is just slightly off, and it looks way off in these trailers.

But the good things in this trailer outweigh the shitty facial animation. Firstly, it seems that Quantic Dream understands the difference between cloth, leather, and skin. I hate all the games today that make all the different materials have the same shininess to them, it is annoying as fuck. Granted, it is raining in this video so most of the stuff has a shiny to it but you can still see a slight difference between the different textures.

The water effects are fantastic, by the way. If you take a look at the screenshots you can really tell how good the rain looks. The one shot shows the black guy dripping wet, it reminds me of the sweat effects in Fight Night Round 4. Also, the guys wifebeater actually looks wet as well. Overall, I am really impressed with the animation, which is to be expected; Quantic Dream did some fantastic motion capture and animation with Fahrenheit. The last thing that really impressed me are some of the environmental effects.

In the screenshot you can see the tiretracks left in the mud by the car. It reminds me of what Motorstorm was supposed to be. During the fight scene you can also see the dents left in the car when the attacker hit it with the pipe on the hood and the way the glass breaks when he pierces the windshield. The are itself looks amazing with smoke billowing into the sky in the background and there is a very forboding feeling to the entire scene from the start.

If you want to check out an extended version of the video above you can watch it on GameTrailers in a two part video. Check out Part 1 and Part 2 as well as a short clip of a nightclub scene called Lagoon.