Gaming Weekly W7: Heavy Rain
Monday, February 15, 2010Heavy Rain is a Playstation 3 exclusive game developed by Quantic Dream. The founder and CEO is David Cage who also wrote and directed on of my favorite games. Omikron: The Nomad Soul and another great game by the name of Fahrenheit. Heavy Rain is said to be a dark film noir thriller with mature themes and without supernatural elements. In the end I can call the game an interactive drama adventure.
The extraordinary game
I’ve seen Heavy Rain but I’ve not yet played the demo or something like that. To me Heavy Rain seems more to be a game centered around in-game cinematics and QTE (quicktime events) with limited actual gameplay. In an interview with David Cage 2008 he said:
“Heavy Rain is about normal people who have landed in extraordinary situations. I wanted a much more personal story. The first thing that came to my mind, as a father of two little boys, was that the main theme should simply be a father’s love for his son.This is not a game about saving the princess or the world. Its [sic] purely about a father’s love. The main story will revolve around four different characters, and we’re putting the spotlight on their perceptions. The question ‘what is good and what is evil’ is the key here, that will be just a matter of viewpoint…I believe heavily in moral choices, I’m going to use them A LOT. They’re not about being good or bad, but about finding the right balance.”
“I don’t want to do a big free-roaming city like GTA, because the flow of the story will then be hard to control. Nevertheless, I do want to incorporate big sets, with a crowd, heavy populated areas like a mall and a subway are going to be in there. Of course, the gameplay has got to make use of that aspect too.”
The games story revolves around four characters searching for clues about the Origami Killer. The Origami killer has had eight victims in the last three years, all boys between nine and thirteen, without a single lead.
Gameplay
The game has a rather unique control-scheme, to walk forward you actually press on of the triggers on the controller. It’s said that it’s like that because the developers don’t want their player to suddenly change direction camera changes location. It will also take advantage of the buttons analogue function etc pressing harder will make the character walk faster and works the other way if pressed softly. Another interesting game-mechanic is the characters thoughts function, any time in the game when you have control over a character you can bring up a small cloud of thoughts by pressing the L2 button and corresponding buttons to say or do whatever the character you’re controlling is thinking. It’s also said that sometimes these thoughts are a blur and selecting them at the wrong time will affect the character’s reaction, causing them to say or do something in the wrong way.
Quick Time Events are also a big thing in this game, all action sequences will be played out as QTE. If the player fails to accurately input combinations, the story of the game takes an alternative path and more mistakes might even lead to the characters death. If a character dies, the game does not end. You switch to one of the other characters you can control during the game with the previous character’s death affecting the story. If all four dies, the game ends.
Own thoughts
I’ve always been kind of skeptical to these types of games, it’s hard to define the line of “game” or “interactive movie” though I’ve always had my own definition of what a video-game is. Which I’ll tell you: “A game is a problem-solving activity approached with a playful attitude” even though the game is not a happy go bubble game, it’s certainly a problem-solving activity approached with enjoyment.
The game has been doing good, reviewers has given the game a 9/10 saying that the game is the freshest, most exciting, and might even be one of the most important games on PS3 so far. As I said before, it’s a fine line between a game and an interactive movie but clearly this game actually succeeds as an interactive drama game and it might be an interesting buy.
I’ve only seen a couple of screenshots of this game, I knew nothing about it. But it definitely looks interesting, I like that there is still game-makers out there that try out new things. Can’t wait to see how Heavy Rain will work interactively.
I know nothing about the game either, not sure how I should feel about this title. Its gorgeous if anything.
As soon as I have a better internet connection, I’m gonna try the demo.
I’m hoping I’ll like it.
@Alexander
Well I’ve only heard positive things about the game , it will be interesting when I get my hands on it. Though I don’t have the money right now to spend on the game.
@Yazuka
Yeah it’s probably better to try the demo, but since it’s more of an classic adventure game it probably won’t leave you with much longing to play the whole game. Though, it shows players what the game is all about.
@Christoffer
Yeah, I expected as much. But to my luck a friend of mine was sold on the game after the demo.
So he’s getting it. So I’ll be able to borrow it. So that’s great.
@Yazuka
Though I have let Internet friends borrow my games before, you just send the game to them, and then they send it back once they are done.
I’m pretty much the guy that buys all the exclusive games in my friend circle…I wish one of my friends bought it. So that I could borrow it
I’m not sure what to expect from Heavy Rain, but I’ll likely pick it up at some point. As much as it looks great and appeals to me, it doesn’t have priority over the onslaught of other games I have going. Also, what you said about the controls… I guess I’m a creature of habit and not exactly pumped to have an awkward way of controlling the character.
@Rockers Delight
Yeah the amount of other awesome games is jaw-dropping, and soon in March/April we’ll see another load of great games coming. It’s gonna be a tough year for my wallet.