In-game footage
http://www.gamekyo.com/video12723_heavy ... video.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The 1up preview confirms that you can move freely:
http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3169463" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Movement in Heavy Rain doesn't come from the analog stick; it comes from holding down the right trigger (R2), "like in a racing game," says Cage. "Simple. You never get lost. Pressing the button always makes you move forward."
The newly freed left analog stick, then, controls your character's head -- and serves as the steering wheel, essentially.
Those having Resident Evil tank-controls-nightmare flashbacks can relax. While button-movement seems strange at first, it solves one of Indigo Prophecy's key control issues.
Because that game relied so heavily on cinematic camera angles, as the view changed players often found themselves turning around unintentionally; the camera would shift before they could orientate themselves to the new perspective. With button-movement, that problem disappears, though I'm curious to see how natural it feels to move quickly with this setup.
The rest of the controls have changed a decent bit as well. You still interact with the world around you using the right analog stick (to knock on a door, for instance), but now you make many choices with the Sixaxis' tilt sensor. Walk up to a door and the game will give you three dialogue choices, which you select by physically moving your controller toward them. "What is interesting in this interface is the fact that you are not stuck when you want to talk," says Cage. "In most games, when you want to talk, you enter a cut-scene with fixed cameras, and there's nothing you can do. But here we can move and talk and interact at the same time, like in real life." Using a similar interface, you can pull up a short list of your character's thoughts at any time by holding down L1 and moving the controller to select between them, the idea being that you can ask your character what they are thinking as a way to gain clues or extra information about what's occurring around them.