A couple of things I saw today got me thinking about the dilemma faced in both promoting and covering narrative driven games. In an interview with G4TV.com Heavy Rain director David Cage confirmed that they are working on a demo for the game. But they face two difficult problems. For one they don't want to give the wrong impression about what sort of game you'll be playing. For another they have to be careful about giving away too much of the story.

That second point came up again in another story I noticed while on the site. My good friend Patrick Klepek had been reviewing his notes from TGS and came across a little part he'd glossed over from a demo of Alan Wake. During it developer Remedy's managing director Matias Myllyrinne said that while it would be something they'd discuss with Microsoft that he'd prefer they hold back the ending from preview copies of the game sent out before release.

For my side of the deal it's a clear sign that we have to get better at what we do. Too often our stories amount to little more than book reports on the content in a game. Guess I better get to work. Or I could go catch the second half of Monday Night Football. It is Saints and Falcons after all.