I hate how people are just attacking David Cage in this thread without actually discussing the topic at hand. Real mature, guys. Carry on.
As someone who followed the adventure genre closely, I remember Heavy Rain coming at a time when there was an actual drought in the genre. Telltale had just started getting into the choice-based adventure games and had some modest success, but, outside of that, there was nothing.
Now, choice-based adventure games aren't exactly new, but a game pushing that as its main feature (and even the promise of the story continuing in the death of a major character) was pretty groundbreaking at that point. Adventure games also haven't gotten that much attention in the AAA space, and Heavy Rain occupying that space was extremely rare.
Heavy Rain's success paved the way for more developers and publishers to reconsider the genre. Yes, Heavy Rain's plot was shit, but David Cage laid the foundation for these games to work on. On the top of my mind, Life is Strange, Until Dawn, Dreamfall: Chapters, all came out pushing the same gameplay feature as its selling point.
He's good at eliciting emotion out of players, and I'm not being sarcastic. There are scenes in all his games that are really effective and genuinely good.
His problem is weaving them all to make the complete experience.
As someone critical of David Cage, I totally agree with this. I have to point out that building an individual scene is a different beast altogether and having to do that while taking into account that this is a multi-branch video game (aka, the scene has to end in different ways, and the scene itself should be engaging to PLAY, not just watch) is a feat altogether. Say what you want about David Cage's games, but there are some amazing scenes in the game and (Ethan's major choices, Kara's escape from Alice's father and their subsequent search for shelter).
