Heavy Rain: Review

I'm sure that you've all come here to read gaming news, gaming reviews and even some gaming opinion now and then. Unfortunately I cannot offer you any of that here. Yes, yes...I know. The heaviness of your hearts is quite apparent. But please don't blame me, your humble author. You see, I am not to blame for this fiasco. Blame lies squarely with developer Quantum Dreams. For they will not allow me to review a “game.” Instead I must review an Interactive Drama. Quite the buzzword but the word we'll be using just for today. So would you like to know where this Interactive Drama fits in with our modern gaming and cinematic world? Hit the jump to read our review.

Heavy Rain (PS3)
Developer: Quantic Dream
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Released: February 23, 2010

Honestly Quantic Dreams is responsible for one of my favorite older games. Omikron: The Nomad Soul had everything I wanted in 1999. A Sci-fi setting, an open world and David Bowie. It was a different time. If I went back to play it now I'm sure that the power of nostalgia is playing a huge role in those fond memories. Fast forward 20 years and Quantic Dreams has now brought us both Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit) and Heavy Rain. Whereas Omikron was very much a Bethesda style open world action game, Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain were created to give the player cinematic experiences. And I'm not just talking sweeping camera angles and crescendo-ing music. Quantic Dreams wants to make you feel like you are watching a movie. The main problem is that throughout this Interactive Drama you'll get a sense that you've really seen this movie before...and you've seen it done much, much better.

But lets back up a moment.

In Heavy Rain it is the duty of the player to control multiple characters in their search for a killer who has been drowning local children for the better part of 10 years. Much like Indigo Prophecy you will never stay in control of one persona for long, instead playing the part of the multiple plot threads as they slowly conjoin as the plot progresses. The underlying narrative of multiple intersecting plot points is fairly well done, and Quantic Dreams does a good job of giving each story its due process and allowing multiple events, that are happening simultaneously, be controlled by the player without the sense of time being completely lost. Now I'm not talking the plot itself, just simply the way in which time lines are addressed in the game play. I found this quite impressive indeed.

Visually the game is stunning and the set pieces are extremely detailed. If two characters are in a building talking near some windows, then traffic and pedestrians can be seen moving about outside. Its something you almost don't even notice at first but little details like that go a very long way to having the world seem alive. On a HDTV some lower-light scenes look photo-realistic and the amount of detail in the characters is amazing. The loading screens consist of extreme closeups of the characters faces as their eyes dart about as if they were watching some invisible tennis match. The effect is surely creepy and disconcerting, but does show off just how much detail is evident in the character models.

Upon entering the game you won't be able to help but just walk around a bit and look at everything, it really is that good, and then something will happen that will shatter your entire world. You'll hit X and one of the main characters will talk. When I did this I literally screeched to a halt like pulling the emergency brake on a race car going 120mph. I mentally spun out, tires screeching, smoke billowing, and it took me a few moments to regain my composure, correct the drift, and begin driving in a straight line again. It was a simple line “I guess I better go take a shower” but delivered in such an odd and awful way, compared to the visually beautiful scene behind it, that it tore apart any semblance of reality the game might have otherwise convinced me of.

Considering that Heavy Rain is supposed to be a AAA cinematic experience the voice acting is abysmal. The voice of Ethan Mars is so off-putting and just not right that any line he says, that isn't him screaming, seems almost nothing more than comical. Norman Jayden's northeast, Long Island, accent is forced at best and hilarious at worst. Off all the main characters I found Scott Shelby to be the best fit, but interestingly enough it is side characters, the ones that are there for MAYBE a scene at most, that are the most convincing, the most entertaining and the most fitting. Unfortunately their presence is fleeting and we are left with listening to Ethan titter about this thing or that thing with the emotion of drywall.

Its sometimes said that good material will breed good actors. If this is true then maybe we can't blame the voice actors since the dialogue in Heavy Rain is as flawed as I've ever seen. Writing natural dialogue is a difficult thing. Its almost like someone telling you to walk normal for them...no matter how hard you try you never quite FEEL like you're walking normal when someone orders you to do it. But there are professionals out there, people who can do it, and David Cage may have just learned why Directors often will have writers doing that job for them.

In terms of dialogue, Heavy Rain is a strange world indeed. A world where officers will respond with “Yes SIR! Lieutenant!” when asked to get a coffee instead of a more natural “Sure, milk or sugar?” Or, after shooting a suspect, a main character reflects “I...shot him” and his partner responds with a hilariously comical and out of place “YOU SURE DID!” It's even a place where hardened thugs who enjoy sexual assault will use the word “swell.” This certainly isn't the world I grew up in inner-city Jersey...but maybe its like that in France. These are just a few small examples but a lot of the dialogue is really this bad.

Lots has been said about the plot and I'm not going to get into any spoilers here for the sake of the few who have yet to pick up the game. I am glad that the plot was kept fairly realistic and did not venture off into crazy Indigo Prophecy territory. Our real world, and our real aspirations can usually be interesting enough without having to go into a world of giant ticks and disintegrating apartments. However, I can't say that the motivations of the main characters in Heavy Rain always make much sense. I especially felt that the motivations of the Origami Killer were feeble at best. Ill get into player choice in detail shortly, I just can't help but feel that some of the motivational inconsistency was introduced to the plot through the very need to interject player choice into the narrative. Or maybe its just that the player is given the wrong choices.

For example, (light spoiler) I had a very hard time believing that Ethan would even consider having sex with Madison. Knowing that time was crucial to finding his son, that every moment NOT looking was time wasted, do you actually think he would spend any amount of time banging some broad? Not to mention that he had just put his body through some of the most physically demanding and damaging tasks one can imagine. This guy must have the potency of a porn star and, in that case, would be much better off going to LA to bang BellaDonna and Emily Davinci than looking for his brat of a son.

Main choices throughout the game elude the player much more than I expected. In terms of plot line, the player really has no choice. Quantic Dream knows the story they want to tell and they are not about to let the player get in the way of that. Sure, who lives and dies at the end of the story may change Ala Mass Effect 2 style, but the way the story plays out is set in stone. Now, of course, the story will screech to a halt when it is up to the player to brush some teeth or drink some orange juice, but other extremely important decisions are made for you without so much of a turn or flick of the analogue stick.

Player choice in Heavy Rain is largely an illusion and I found multiple instances where one could almost put the controller down completely and watch the Interactive Drama play itself.

While player choice and success/failure of quick-time events does open up some alternative scenes these are not so much Y's in the road as they are small detours which will invariably being the player to where they were before. This does speak to one thing I've always wanted developers to do however. I've always hated that the failure of quick-time events, and especially time trials, ended with a simple (and unimaginative) “Game Over” screen. Instead, I thought that those failures should be worked into the plot lines in some way and Heavy Rain does this. But small detours are just that, small alternative scenes that get the player back on track and don't really make me yearn for another play through once I have solved the mystery of the game.

Ultimately I found that I wished the player had more control over the plot. Often times I felt like I was simply getting in the way of Quantic Dreams' story. Sure sometimes they would throw me a bone and have me help a character start a car or make some eggs, but this is only when they remembered that there was a player at the other end of their movie waiting for something to do.

The times that Quantic Dreams really gets the player involved are very well done. The contextual controls have been written about at length here on 4PP and I found them very well thought out...when they were well thought out. Other times I felt like they were nothing more than filler. For example, two characters join forces in the game. This is not your choice, in fact I was hoping it would be my choice so that I could say “no” but darn if it they weren't going to get together. Then one of the characters goes to make some eggs and boy...you sure are responsible for making those eggs. Those characters would have starved if it wasn't for you and your analogue stick egg-making ability. Thanks for the eggs player...now sit back and watch these next 5 scenes.

In another place in the game you are tasked with getting information from a certain swarthy club owner. During the course of the interrogation you grab onto his testicles and literally squeeze the information out of him. As the contextual controls pop onto the screen your right hand begins to squeeze around the controller. I suddenly noticed that if I turned my hand 90 degrees clockwise I would be in the exact position for grabbing someone's testicles and squeezing harshly. I found this to be a work of genius. And there are some more situations where the greatness of the controls shine through...just not enough, and the tooth-brushing, egg-making, car-starting, door-opening sequences surely outnumber them.

Heavy Rain borrows heavily from many other sources. Its a genera work, but one that I found really adds nothing to the genera it is trying so hard to be. I said earlier in this review that you'll feel that you've seen this movie before and you have. The music is straight out of Taxi Driver, a certain dream sequence utilizes a public improve stunt that's been going on for years, the home of a certain insane individual is very reminiscentof the movie Seven, the FBI agents cyber tools are taken directly from Johnny Mnemonic, and the trials that Ethan must endure have been seen many a time in the various SAW movies.

In fact, much of the genera stuff seems so replicated, so predictable, and at times so forced, that they have more of an eye-rolling effect that an atmospheric one. A scene where Ethan drops to his knees in the middle of the street, screaming into the night as rain pours down his face is particularly groan inducing. And I simply do not buy that Quantic Dreams is paying homage to these past works. Homage is a very particular thing. Movies like Pulp Fiction, Black Dynamite and Shaolin Soccer (Stephen Chow) are able to do it because they take the original source work and expand upon it in a somewhat comical or expounded fashion. They then produce a light-hearted celebration of the source material. Heavy Rain, on the other hand, takes itself VERY seriously. It wants you to know that it is edgy and innovative...and it wants you to FEEL. It tries so hard to make you FEEL that I found myself simply shutting off.

Is Heavy Rain innovative? Yes and no. If you were to take either the gameplay or story and experience them independently neither one would hold up on their own. Together, while they do create something that we haven't seen done with such complexity, we have seen it done before. Cinematic games, controlled by player input, have been around since Dragon's Lair was released in 1983, followed by a number of other games released on the Atari Jaguar. True...none reach the complexity of Heavy Rain but surely we are not to believe that Quantic Dreams has pulled it whole cloth and have revolutionized gaming as they, and Sony, would like us to believe.

But Heavy Rain is an important game. It takes an old, mostly dead idea, and injects it with new life. While I don't think it will cause any revolution I do think we will see some of the ideas brought about in Heavy Rain in future games. If anything, Quantic Dreams has pushed the boundary of what a QTE can be. We might have seen the end of the simple “one button press” quicktime event and the introduction of a much more fluid system that requires more player interaction and maybe just a little more thought. For that, Heavy Rain has earned a place in my collection.

Score - 75