Not a lot of people really like Heavy Rain. I am not one of those people. The game is an odd and unique little number and I ate up every moment of it. It came out last year and I played it last year, but recently I got the chance to play it again and thought hey, why not talk about it again? Because I just can't shut-up about games I love.
Heavy Rain is just one of those games that only comes along every once in a while, and one that I'm predicting will be more appreciated in a few years since playing with the medium doesn't always sit well with gamers initially. In the year since it's release, it's been called less of a game and more of an interactive movie. I do have to agree with that, but damn, what a fine movie it turns out to be.
In Heavy Rain, you play four characters: Dad of the Year, Detective Meat and Potatoes, Agent Babyface (or Agent Not Mulder), and "Legs" (the girl). Yeah, they all have real names, but this is how we ended up referring to them in the game. There have been a string of murders in the city by a mysterious serial killer known as "the Origami Killer" (due to the origami figurines he leaves behind at the crime scene).
Each character has their own storyline and their own motives for getting involved in the murders. Dad of the Year, the most most directly involved, is still grieving the death of his first son (who somewhat stupidly died in a car accident) when his second son is taken by the Origami Killer in the park and now must race against time to save him by playing the killer's psychological games. Detective Meat and Potatoes is a private detective (every film noir has one) investigating the previous murders for the families of the victims, Agent Babyface is the FBI's lead investigator on the origami killings, and Legs is there to show some legs....okay, she's a journalist looking for a story, but she's mostly there for the legs.
So let's get the most apparent feature out of the way: the gameplay. Unlike other games, Heavy Rain relies almost entirely on Quicktime events. Rather than completely controlling fights with your joystick and button mashing, the player responds to a series of prompts from the screen (press X, tap Circle repeatedly, go left on the joystick). This isn't the first game to use Quicktime events. Another one is Dragon's Lair. Unlike Dragon's Lair though, if you miss a quicktime event, you don't necessarily fail. The fight just plays out differently, or the character won't get the information they need and that in turn affects the story. There are occasions where a character can die, more on that later though.
And it's not just relegated to fights. Pretty much every action in the game is a QTE. Opening doors, sneaking around, even drinking milk and cooking eggs are all QTE's. Despite being somewhat jarring at first, it becomes incredibly intuitive and after a couple of chapters of the game I more than had the hang of it and actually found that it ramped up the tension of the game even more. If a character was nervous or frightened, the buttons displaying your options would be shaking, making it difficult to see and thus making it difficult to make the right choice, just like in real life when your own thoughts are scattered. Sometimes responding to a QTE is the wrong thing to do.
In one part of the game, where Agent Babyface is interrogating a suspect with Lieutenant Dickface, the suspect...well, gets more dangerous and despite my best efforts not to shoot the guy, a command suddenly came up and without thinking I pressed it. I have not known one person who's played the game to have done it differently the first time around. And everytime the excuse is the same "My finger slipped!"
Obviously, the reason I love this game so much is pretty apparent. It's story is definitely it's strongest feature. The beauty of these QTE's is that they don't take over the game. The story affects the gameply, not the other way around and in that regard Quantic Dream really delivered. You can't help but get immersed in the story and characters, and it's one that your decisions can alter if only slightly. There are a variety of different endings, from the almost sickeningly sweet happy endings to the depressing oh my god I feel like drinking myself to death sad endings.
What makes this game truly unique, though, is the fact that characters can die but that it doesn't end the game. If someone dies, it doesn't mean the game is over. The story continues on minus one character, giving for a slightly different play experience as there's now information that you won't get that the other character would have. The first time I played through, we managed to get all of the characters through to the end. When I leant it to my dad, though, he lost one along the way and it was interesting to see how the game played out without that character. Not to worry, though. If you're not happy with the way the chapter panned out, you can go back and replay it to get a different ending.
Unfortunately, the story does take some time to get moving and it's not until about 40% of the way through that things REALLY start picking up. I think this is why the game doesn't sit well with so many people. You really have to be willing to stick to with it. Don't get me wrong, I was having a blast going through the first levels of the game, but I'm not someone who necessarily needs action. But when the story starts picking up speed? Oh man, it does not stop. The tension and action pretty much keep your eyes glued to the screen and the moral choices you have to make only get more dramatic. There is one part in particular that was probably in the Top 10 most difficult gaming moments in gaming history that both Dan and I and every player that I spoke to were basically cringing and practically screaming along with the character on the screen.
It also helps that the soundtrack is pretty much right out of a film noir or at times a Hitchcock movie. I'm listening to it while writing this and it constantly feels like I have five minutes to finish this before some bomb goes off. Whether it's a tense, epic fight, or a more somber intimate piano piece, the soundtrack really reaaaaalllly helps the story along and sets the mood beautifully.
And the game looks great. Yeah, it looks great. I'll say it. Sure, there are better looking games out there, but that doesn't mean this one isn't stellar. The only downside is that sometimes you have less detailed objects contrasting sharply with the characters overly detailed face. But everything else? Gorgeous. The colours are appropriately somber, the detail in even little things like the rain is impressive, and the character faces are very convincing.
The downsides? Sometimes yes, the controls are a bit cumbersome. Sometimes it drags. The voice acting, while good, is obviously done by Europeans attempting American accents. And while the identity of the killer did take me by surprise, part of it was because it was somewhat clumsily handled. If you're not familiar with the Playstation 3 controls, it can be aggravating remembering where certain buttons are in the heat of the moment. Oh yeah, the biggest downside is that this is just on the Playstation 3, part of the reason I think the game didn't do as well as it could have. I ended up going to my friend Dan's and begging to use his for the weekend to play the game. Don't get me wrong, we ended up having a blast and having one of the most fun weekends I've ever had, but it also meant I couldn't easily replay it not owning a playstation 3.
I talked about this game last year too on my livejournal, but recently I got the chance to play it again when Dan bought a cheap copy and wanted to replay it to get absolutely all of the possible trophies and endings. He's still working on it, but there was also a downloadable bonus chapter that you can play as Madison...I mean, Legs. It was a lot of fun (and incredibly panic inducing at points) to get back into the game. In this storyline you get to investigate a taxidermist (yeah, already it's creepy) by sneaking into his house to see what possible nefarious deeds he's doing to get the story. Of course, something's going on, and of course I knocked over that damn stuffed owl by accident so that when he got home he IMMEDIATELY knew something was up (replaying the chapter, yes, sometimes he can arrive home and you have the chance to escape without his knowing you're there...not that I'm ever that co-ordinated).
I'm really hoping this game series can continue. A lot of people that weren't critics (critics freakin' loved it) belittled this game, and I think had the story picked up a little more quickly it might have gotten a bigger audience. But then, people don't always like new things to begin with. Today, Quantic Dream's previous game, The Indigo Prophecy, which also operates heavily on the same sort of Quicktime events, is viewed as one of the best games of all time. Maybe Heavy Rain's time is coming. Definately try it out if you love a good story. It's not one you're soon to forget.
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