From their start, it was clear Quantic Dream was a studio swimming upstream from current gaming trends. While FPS and RTS games were taking over, they released Omikron: The Nomad Soul; Omikron was an adventure game featuring David Bowie playing two roles and providing the majority of the soundtrack, not to mention most of the album Hours on the game’s disc. A few years later, technological advancements allowed them to create Indigo Prophecy, a game which could be called a real experiment. The natural evolution of the adventure genre, it had players controlling three characters all acting in opposition to one another, forced to keep an eye on their mental states as they work to solve the mystery presented, occasionally interspersed by action in the form of quick-time events.
Now the studio has released Heavy Rain, a PS3 exclusive title, and the biggest release of February on any platform. Following in the footsteps of Indigo Prophecy, Heavy Rain is as much movie as game. And not in the Metal Gear 90-minute-sit-and-watch-this-cutscene way, very few things are out of player control, particularly the more cinematic moments. Rather, players direct the action and some of the dialog, working to find clues and solve the mysteries presented through four different main characters’ perspectives. Each is attempting to find the Origami Killer, a serial killer who drowns children in rainwater, and his latest victim whose number may not be up yet, if they can find him in time.
Like its predecessor, Heavy Rain has players controlling movements in game by mimicking them with the controller, indicated on-screen. Careful movements require slow, subtle movements with the analog stick, forceful movements often involve moving the whole controller. Stomping something, for example, means thrusting the controller down; punching someone means swinging the controller to the side. It’s all indicated in a quick-time event style, with the required movement label hovering over the item. The system helps to add to intuition in the movement, especially analog stick based ones during action sequences in a way reminiscent of Dragon’s Lair and Time Gal. It also draws the eye toward the action, instead of keeping players watching the center of the screen for inputs.
There’s also no failure condition in Heavy Rain. The game continues on, and players live with the consequences, characters show them. No magical medkits in the game, when one of the characters got cut with a saw during a fight, the wound was still on her abdomen during a later scene. The game makes it clear every action and every inaction have consequences, be it a failure to react in time or making a poor decision. Because of the game’s habit of saving after every major decision or action, there’s not going to be a lot of trying it over during the game, though players can restart from any scene after they finish the game. The end result is that players have to carefully weigh decisions, and know it matters. No quickloading if things don’t go right, that’s just how things are going to be. Live with it.
Heavy Rain also takes a big risk by truly wanting to get players emotionally involved. The game starts slow, but with very good reason as things begin to unfold. Rather than just letting players make the easy decision to get the best ending, the game forces players to really feel out a decision. To accept the consequences, to empathize, to think ahead. To ask, as the game’s campaign and manual dare you to, “How far will you go to save someone you love?”
Technically solid, as it really needs to be considering the quick reflexes needed at some points, Heavy Rain holds a high framerate even in some extremely crowded sequences. It also doesn’t sacrifice graphical quality in those scenes, and side from some boundaries seeming to go further than they should around a character (moving through a crowd can look like people are floating away sometimes, rather than the actual contact one gets in Assassin’s Creed), they really are great. Once in a while the texture streaming shows up, but that’s rare. Faces are given particular attention of course, as shown on the loading screens which use a render of the characters’ faces, and at points they manage to show the level of detail and beyond one sees in top budget movies.
It’s a weakness of the game that the acting doesn’t always hold up to the levels it could for what is, effectively, a very long movie. The acting for children in the game is really weak, and their dialog just doesn’t come off as believable sometimes. The four main characters mostly put on solid performances, as do most of the side characters, with occasional weak spots showing up. They’re not winning any Oscars, but they’re not winning a Razzie either generally.
One of the most impressive aspects of the game is the environment presented. Rounded, believable characters moving around an environment that feels like a cheap Hollywood backlot can kill a scene. Heavy Rain spent the time and money on the locations they use to make them real. Quantic Dream always has an impressive musical score, licensing quite a few songs in this case. They’ve also spent the money to use real world gadgets and cars, rather than inventing knockoffs and distracting players with them.
Houses actually feel like real, livable and lived-in places. Train stations are big and open, junkyards have a rusty, downtrodden feel. The whole of the game, taking place during the fall rainstorms, just feels right, and the rain splattering on glass is particularly impressive. There’s an overall feeling of darkness, a quiet sadness in a lot of places, and a chaotic fear in others, aided by weather and music. Heavy Rain manages ambience in a way very few games or movies do.
This is not, to be fair, a game for kids or those looking for action. It calls itself interactive drama with good reason, the bulk of the game is exploring the scene, puzzling things out, talking with other characters. When the action happens, it’s fast and it feels like it’s for keeps, not just a throwaway fight. People come off battered, bruised and exhausted even when they win the fight. Everything has consequences, everything has meaning. Heavy Rain explores real mature themes, with graphic violence at points, nudity, and most of all, emotionally complex themes.
Video games tend to be about anger. It’s easy to tell someone to get revenge. It’s easy to point a gun at some goons who don’t mean anything to anyone, who aren’t people really (or sometimes really aren’t people, they’re zombies or aliens). But Heavy Rain is a game that tells players to save someone. To be in the game, evaluate everyone as a real, living person. Not another mindless target.
But in Heavy Rain, revenge isn’t the goal. The goal is to save a child, and find a serial killer. Heavy Rain is, ultimately, a game about love. That’s something not a lot of games are, but here’s hoping more will be; without a doubt, Heavy Rain an excellent game. If you want action, avoid. If you want an experience, jump on it.
