Heavy Rain

 I'm glad I managed to finish this before the massive failure of older PS3s last night. Here's hoping they fix it without too much trouble. Anyway, Heavy Rain is a different sort of video game. Its creators would have us all completely avoid the label if possible, preferring terms like "interactive drama". It's a video game though, that doesn't have to be a dirty word. It's a different sort of game than we usually play, but still a game. It's the evolution of what Quantic Dream tried a few years ago with Indigo Prophecy, what's basically an adventure game that works harder to immerse you in its story than to stump you with complicated environmental puzzles. That element is still there, as the game often sticks you as one of its four main characters in some limited environment, and lets you walk around, examining and interacting with objects in the world, with some ultimate goal in mind. Sometimes things are casual, like just walking around your house after waking up in the prologue. Other times the situation is more stressful and you have to think on your feet. It's made further complex with one character, an FBI agent who can scour crime scenes for clues using a device straight out of science fiction. The controls in these parts are a bit weird. Instead of moving with the analog stick, it merely directs the direction you're looking in, while holding a button down moves you forward. It's a bit awkward, although it didn't cause me many problems beyond sometimes having difficulty navigating when the camera switches.

The other part of the gameplay is the use of infamous quick time events. It seems wrong to refer to the more cinematic segments as "cut scenes", because they're so pervasive through the game that they seem to be the point of the experience instead of more traditional gameplay set-ups. Any complex interactions beyond walking are controlled by various actions indicated by on screen prompts, including movements with the right analog stick, pressing buttons, or holding multiple ones at once for particularly difficult or intricate actions. Sometimes they're simple, sometimes you're in great stress and doing them to stay alive. The game makes a point of letting you know that the characters are vulnerable, and capable of being killed before the end of the story. This isn't true in every dangerous situation, but often enough that you want to pay attention whenever things aren't looking good. From fighting off home invaders to escaping from the police, these sequences are always tense and thrilling in ways that games usually aren't, and while messing up the control prompts occasionally won't necessarily kill you, they will at least make things go badly in ways that usually show up later. I never became totally comfortable knowing exactly which sort of action was expected when they do things beyond simple button presses, but this didn't become a huge issue.

I've spent a lot of time just talking about how the game works, though the most important factor to the experience working is the story. And... it's not great, but not bad. In some ways it's worth playing just to see this kind of story in a game, which is very uncommon. It plays out like an eight hour suspense/mystery movie, and the fact that it doesn't completely fall apart under all that weight is something of an accomplishment. Despite the lengthiness of the plot, it doesn't feel like that time is used completely effectively. A lot of the game time is spent, especially early in the different characters' respective stories, doing things that aren't very important. Playing with your kids, wandering through your apartment at night, they help establish personalities a bit but aren't the most elegantly presented character development you'll see and take time away from what could have been more useful. I liked the main characters for the most part, but their relationships aren't developed well enough for some of the directions they take, and certain twists later on make you feel like a lot of what you're doing was wasted and that you were lied to. Most stories with big surprises do a bit of pulling the rug from under you, but in a game when you directly control these characters' actions, it seems especially disingenuous.

Like I said though, I didn't hate the story, and in a lot of ways it deserves respect just for its ambition. It's genuinely intriguing and disturbing in places, and while the fact of player interaction makes certain things weaker, it also increases the drama and impact elsewhere. It puts you in the shoes of people who sometimes have to make very tough decisions, and while I didn't have as many qualms about some things simply because I wasn't actually feeling whatever they were, it was still pretty impressive in places. I wasn't sure about Madison, the female character for a while. It seems like she's exploited pretty often just for being a woman, and some segments with her with a bit uncomfortable. If that sense of vulnerability is what they were actually going for with her, which seems likely, then it was very effective, though resorting to making you play an attractive woman in compromising situations isn't the most elegant way to do that. I'm not sure the story was as dynamic as advertised. From what I can see from my experiences and reading about what you can do, the main plot seems pretty set in stone, with only the extraneous details being highly variable. The ending is basically stitched together, sort of like Fallout 3, except with a lot more effort put into it.

I guess I should touch on how well the story is presented too. Both visually and aurally, it has successes and failures. The graphics are technically very good for the most part. Characters are pretty impressive looking, especially in some facial details, environments look great, and just the visual atmosphere is very strong throughout. There are some hiccups here and there though, and some of the issues with things like soft materials, mouth movements, and the occasionally stiff animation are all the worse when the focus is so heavy on the presentation. The voice acting has its problems, although it's only really an issue because so much of the game is talking. A lot of the actors aren't bad, some even occasionally great, but almost all of them are clearly Europeans imitating American accents, some a lot worse than others. The music though is fantastic, with the strong orchestral score being one of the game's best assets. It's haunting and moving in all the right places. Ultimately, Heavy Rain is far from perfect, but worth of praise and attention just for its ambition and how admirably close it comes to achieving it.