Heavy Rain | PS3 | Quick Review
Heavy Rain is an experience that is difficult to categorise. A good summation of that is observed with one of the first trophies a player receives: ‘Thank you for supporting Interactive Drama’, it state – which kind of sums it up. This is not a conventional video game – but it’s not really an interactive movie either. Right from the off, that lack of convention and protocol is evident, both in the narrative and in the way you, the player, interact with that narrative. Heavy Rain isn’t an A to B affair, it’s a tale that carefully unfolds across multiple story threads each revealing plot details and story lines that attempt to enrich the experience and create a connection between you and the characters you play.
Those characters are four individuals drawn together by the the Origami Killer – a psychopath whose victims are all young boys. Each character is fleshed out in a way that makes them difficult to compare with most other traditional video game protagonists. They are all normal folk plunged into extraordinary situations. All have much more in common with films like 28 Grams or Babel that they do with any game. They are not superheroes with massive guns or special powers, they are ordinary people whose choices and actions are human and are grounded in their (your) reactions to the individual situations. The choices you make as those characters determines the path a story takes and ultimately the outcome of the experience. At no point does the game question the choices or actions you make, it merely locks or unlocks doors based on these decisions. It’s an impressively varied model, to the point that any of the the four main characters can die and the game will continue – adjusting accordingly. This not only makes for a unique experience but it enables players to attach their own moral uncertainties to the characters and narrative which, very cleverly, adds depth to the relationship. Of course, it’s not easy to create or feel empathy for a 3D model – but if you can suspend your disbelief a little and share the pain and anguish of the likes of Mr Ethan Mars, you’ll probably find the experience all the more engrossing. Quantic Dream have gone out of their way to give you as much of a head start as they can with that.
In terms of the actual on screen experience the visuals, score, controls and dialogue are all equally impressive. From a purely graphical point of view this is the most rich and real environment ever created for a console and is for that reason peerless. The animation, mostly filmed with motion sensors and green screen, is some of the best I’ve seen in any game and the majority of the voice acting and face-tracking is equally as good. Of course, this isn’t celluloid, so it’s not perfect, but the fact it’s being compared to such a medium is enough of a recommendation. As for the controls, R2 acts as an ‘accelerator’ to your character’s motion and the right thumbstick is used to interact with the environment and the various objects within it. Other interaction and action sequences are controlled by commands like QTE‘s and a smart approach to the motion capabilities of the SIXAXIS.
Heavy Rain is a game you need to jump into and accept for what it is if you are to gain the most enjoyment out of it. To say that it’s an ‘awesome gaming experience’ implies that you can compare it against its contemporaries, which is difficult at best. It’s a game that takes massive risks in design, narrative, and mechanics – luckily for us everyone involved has executed on those risks and ideas in a truly masterful fashion. On top of that, no matter how little, this game gets under your skin. You will care about the impact of the decisions you make and you will find yourself somewhere else, idly wondering if you made the right choice.
Yeah it’s flawed, but it’s audacious and for that I salute David Cage, Quantic Dream and ultimately Sony.
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