Heavy Rain

Heavy Rain is an adventure game developed by Quantic Dream, the team best known for the PS2/Xbox title Indigo Prophecy. Gameplaywise Heavy Rain is similar to Indigo Prophecy and revolves around exploring locations in order to progress the story forward. The biggest advancement in Heavy Rain is that the events can completely differ from player to player depending on the choices made throughout the game. Unlike other games that have major decisions that will take the player down different paths Heavy Rain features tons of options that will alter the game in major and minor ways. While the game itself is a series of decisions on what to do next there are also a series of quick time events that failing could change the course of the game, including the death of your playable characters.

The only way to really lose the game is to have all of your playable characters killed off, though it is still possible to complete the game with only one left alive.

Heavy Rains gameplay is tough to describe to anyone who’s not familiar with other adventure games that preceded it. It’s easy for gamers to write the game off as an interactive movie, but the game is more of an evolution of old school adventure games like Kings Quest, Broken Sword, etc. A lot of the systems from those games have been streamlined and the closest comparison is perhaps the newest Silent Hill (Shattered Memories). The game is really just about exploring areas, looking for information and advancing the story. There are “quicktime” events for all the action scenes, but the buttons are very contextual making them play out more in a more interesting way than a traditional QTE. Having the actions relate to specific buttons give a better feel of what the characters are trying to do with each action.

I think the biggest hurdle for a lot of players to overcome is getting used to the controls. While the QTE like stuff comes quickly, the movement controls can be awkward at first. This is because R2 is the walk forward button, while the left analog stick controls the direction your character moves. This is because Quantic Dream was looking for a balance between the issues with the two typical control schemes in 3rd person games. The first being tank controls which never disorient the player when the camera changes, but are hated by most players because they make movement clunky. The other is the “up is up” control scheme where the character moves in the direction pressed. When the camera angle changes the character keeps moving in that direction but any slight deviation on the analog stick resets the direction and the character can start moving in a completely opposite direction than intended. The control scheme works ok, but it does take along time to get used to, and it doesn’t completely solve the issues with the other control schemes.

I’ll be very vague about the story because it’s really the driving force of the game. The gameplay offers some of the most dramatic and intense sequences in video game history. To see the whole story and how each choice can affect it is the driving force behind the game.

The story revolves around 4 characters that are unrelated but are all trying to catch a serial killer called the Origami killer. The characters include:
- Ethan Mars, devoted father with a tragic past trying to hold it together.
- Scoot Shelby, A private eye who spends his time interviewing the parents of past victims.
- Madison Paige, an insomniac who gets caught up in the events when she meets Ethan at a motel.
- Norman Jayden, a profiler with the FBI who investigates the recent crime scenes and has an addiction problem to contend with.

The game is split up into a ton of smaller scenes, each with a specific character. The focus of the game changes slightly for each character. With Ethan, you’re spending the early chapters of the game just being a father, playing with your kids and going through daily routines. This changes later as the story evolves. With Scott you spend a lot of time interviewing the parents of other victims and hoping to come across some info that will break the case wide open. Jayden spends a lot of time exploring crime scenes and going through evidence using a device called Ari which samples and provides info on evidence found. Madison spends her time helping Ethan recover from injuries.

The presentation for Heavy Rain is top notch. The graphics are great, and the character animations are amazing. There’s probably more animation in this game than any game previously. The world is presented nicely and they’ve spent a lot of time making it feel more alive than your typical game. There are crowd dynamics in certain sequences, and the world is litter with stuff that in inconsequential to the game. It feels a bit like Shenmue in that respect.

The biggest drawback to the presentation is some of the voice acting. Some of the actors have accents that slip, and can really ruin the experience. The actor for Lauren (the woman Scott Shelby talks to in the demo) is probably the best example of this. Luckily, the worst offenders are secondary characters. For the most part the voice acting is great and the actors for the 4 main characters do a good job.

The game is fairly long and the replay value is good. There are several endings to experience, and the best part of the game is going back and doing things differently. It’s amazing to see how different the game can be because of a few decisions.

If you’re the type of gamer who prefers action to everything else than Heavy Rain is probably not a game for you, but I urge you to try it out anyway. It’s in a game genre that’s pretty rare now, and delivers an amazing story and experience. Sure it boils down to some exploration scenes and quicktime events, but the overall package is so much more than that. If you care at all about stories in video games, then Heavy Rain is for you.

Like this game? Order it online

Article Comments

Read the 6 comment(s) for this article, or post your own.

Name Email (will not be published) Website

Security Code: