Quantic Dream, the French developer’s of last year’s highly acclaimed adventure game, Indigo Prophecy, has placed their rolling audition technical demo online. The video is in HD, and the video capture is based on the real-time demo shown on the Playstation 3 at E3. Quantic Dream boasts the use of Ageia effects and the environment shown is fairly impressive.

The demo purports to show the audition tape of one of the actors for their upcoming game, Heavy Rain and starts in a sparse environment, where one of the casting directors is apparently recording the session. After a while, though, the scene cuts into the same actress, in a kitchen, acting out a scene. The scene is eerie, both in the look of the environment, which is well rendered, and in the emotions portrayed, which can be startlingly realistic. There are times when the rendering strays a little bit too close to the uncanny valley, but there are other times when the viewer almost forgets that this is an animation. For a few moments, everything comes together: the motion capture, facial expressions, and the voice acting all work together towards an emotional impact. At the beginning of the demo, however, things seem a little plastic, and rigid.

Given Quantic Dream’s previous efforts have been heaving on character development and story, the combination of their narratives with the technical achievements seen in the video should make for another strong entry into the adventure game genre.

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