Heavy Rain

 This review contains someof plot **SPOILERS**. You've been warned.


Leading up to this Playstation exclusive game's release, the internet was ablaze with anticipation. Writer/producer David Cage promised an adult, thoughtful narrative full of realistic, deeply emotional characters the player could empathize with. A veritable tour de force in video game storytelling. Gamers that own only a PS3 were ready to call this a defining reason everyone game on the Sony platform. A stunning gem that would become an instant classic. Would it live up to the hype? 
 
Yes. To most reviewers it would, at least. Receiving many perfect scores, the gaming media was having a love affair with Heavy Rain. Reviewers were calling it everything from "the future of video games" to "the best argument for why games are art". Even Giant Bomb's own Brad Shoemaker gave it 4/5 stars, with a review description as follows: "A few technical hiccups barely temper the emotional impact of this tense, character-driven thriller."


These professionals must have been playing another game called "Heavy Rain", because the one I played, in my assessment, was an unmitigated disaster of plot holes, flimsy narrative devices, one-dimention characters that show no growth (or even much personality, honestly), and a sea of red herrings that insult the player's intelligence. While it succeeds in moody atmosphere, creating suspense (or at least the illusion of suspense) in some of its playable segments, and offering an entertaining piece of interactive media, it fails miserably in its main goal: Providing an adult, thoughtful narrative.


Where do I even begin? Let's start by introducing the characters.


The closest thing to a protagonist this game has is Ethan Mars. Ethan is a seemingly successful arcitect. I would think he would have to be between his gorgeous stately house and his ability to draw perfectly straight lines without the use of a ruler. Anyway, Ethan lives with his wife and two young sons, Jason and Shawn. They're a stereotypically bland suburban family with no defining characteristics to speak of. I think maybe they are an animatronic family that are placeholders until the actual human family moves in.


After a short time playing in the yard, the family goes on an outing to the shopping mall. The wife and younger son Shawn go to try on shoes leaving Ethan to look after Jason. Now, in a story of any merit, this would be the part where Ethan would go into a dressing room or bathroom stall, somewhere he can't keep line of sight on the kid, telling his son to stay put, ultimately losing the child through no fault of his own. That isn't David Cage's style. Instead Ethan seems to start staring into space and daydreaming, possibly singing "Cheeseburger In Paradise" in his head as Jason slowly wanders off. The player has no choice but to watch this happen since you can't make Ethan run or grab Jason's hand. Instead you're railroaded into being two steps behind, shouting his name to no effect. Character choices, indeed.


But you're in luck! A shiny trinket has caught your crow of a son's attention. A clown holding balloons. Instead of scolding Jason like a responsible parent, you reward him with a balloon. Then as you pay the clown $2 for it, JASON VANISHES A 2ND TIME. I don't know about you, but if I lost my kid once, the scare would make me grab his hand with a vice-like grip and keep my eyes on him like a hawk for the rest of the day. Not Ethan, crappiest dad of 2010. He loses Jason again, ultimately ending in Jason running into a road and getting hit by a car. Nice work, team Mars!


From there on, Ethan slips into a depression. Now living alone in a low income home (that's still bigger than where I live currently) and shares joint custody over the son with enough survival instinct not to get killed in five minutes, Shawn. Sorry to spoil the plot, but Shawn gets kidnapped by the so-called Origami Killer. Also refered to as the "Origammy" Killer and "Origarmi" Killer by the characters due to the bad voice direction. Ethan wakes up with an origami animal in his hand (which is never explained in the final game itself) and no memory as to what happened. This is all meaningingless, you later find out, but OOOOH IT'S MYSTERIOUS!!!!


To fill out the cast we have Norman Jayden, another blank slate of a character that sounds a bit like a French-Canadian Christopher Walkin. He's an FBI agent with Minority Report computer sunglasses that can magically do what normally takes a room full of forensic scientists to figure out. Why the local police force doesn't have a single pair of these is anybody's guess. He also has a drug addiction. That sentence is about as in depth as the game goes. We never learn what started his dependency or anything about his past. In fact, his character isn't developed. At all. He's a one-note "cop with high moral fiber, despite his dark secret shame" architype. That's about all we know about him.


There's also Madison Paige. She's the woman and eye candy of the game. Both of which are made abundantly clear during an early, borderline voyeuristic scene where you watch her shower, complete with uncensored full frontal nudity. Cage says this gets you "intimate" with her character. Funny, since you never see two of the three male playable characters disrobe ever. I guess the player isn't meant to give a shit about either of them, by Cage's logic. By the time the game is through, you see her in her undergarments three times, you can potentially see her breasts two more times, as well as potentially getting Roofied by a crazy raper guy. But it's cool! She's an empowered woman because she says, and I quote, "That's what I call kicking butt! You GO, girl!!" to herself in one scene, after an avoided gunpoint rape. What a role model for women everywhere!


Finally, you have a character I genuinely liked for 85% of the game. Scott Shelby, a worn out, droopy eyed, bulldog looking retired cop turned private investigator. He's easily the most fleshed out and likable character in the game. He's got an actual personality! Odd for a character driven game, I know! He's a compassionate man, always with a dry joke or a comforting word to ease the tension of a situation. He'll cook you a simple meal of eggs and give you a place to stay, if you need it. A truly admirable human being. It's unfortunate David Cage later ruins the believability of the character in the name of dramatic tension.


Beyond that, the story is not well written or well acted. Cage litters boring mundane dialogue with FUCKS in what I guess is an attempt to "mature" up the game. It didn't work. It reads like something a college film student wrote. Character motivations aren't clear and don't always make sense. Madison falls in love with Ethan in less than a week for seemingly no other reason than pity, even after she finds out he's a fugitive. A rich industrialist goes from saying a boy his son murdered "won't be missed" because he was poor to saying he puts flowers on a grave of a boy who died on a construction site he owned out of guilt in the same scene. A woman trusts a stranger that broke into her house to take care of her baby. The game has no basis in reality. Things just happen because the plot requires them to. If you know anything about story writing, you'll know that's a no-no.


And there are a bunch of more minor gripes I have with just how "convenient" things are. Somehow the Origami Killer is a jack of all trades, to Mary Sue extents. They can reprogram a GPS to talk about kidnapped sons, then when a trial is finished, where the clue is hidden. They can rewire a rundown power station to create a Jigsaw style maze. They know how to use a katana... And once you find out the identity of the killer, it makes no sense as to how they know how to do all this. It's like they're a supervillain. And it's just handwaved away by "Yeah, but THEY'RE A MURDERER!"


Then there's the two seperate scenes where Madison knows characters she's never met by name because the story calls for it. As if she's been watching you play the game and is breaking the 4th wall. No explanation is given. I could give David Cage the benefit of the doubt and say it's because she's a reporter, but it's never explicitly stated as a reason, so I'm hesitant to do that. It's probably just be a mistake. This game has those in spades.


Now, let me just say, if you enjoyed Heavy Rain for what it is (an interactive movie), I have no beef with that. Its story is certainly no worse than most of garbage in video games these days. But that's not what a lot of people are saying about it. A lot of people are throwing around "masterpiece" and "a work of art" like it's going out of style. People are saying it "pushes the boundries of the medium in the right direction", which I couldn't agree with less. It's ametuerishly written and the narritive buckles under its own weight. It's as if the people clamoring over Heavy Rain have never seen a real film or read a real book. In my opinion, it's celebrating mediocrity. And if this is what's eaten up and what gamers think a well crafted narrative looks like, we're in for another 10 years before game stories can be taken seriously by critical eyes.


And the story isn't the only negative part of Heavy Rain. The voice acting and directing is like something out of The Room. Lauren, Shelby's "sidekick", not only sounds extremely French, but delivers lines like a porn star. No feeling or emotion. She just robotically barks out the dialogue. The children are even worse. Why would a child raised in Philidelphia say things like "We cannjuss stan 'ere awday my daz well go an play!", "No chans I cun do it awrite juss yuu watch!", or "No thunks ahhnut hungry yuht."? It rips you right out of the experience because it makes no sense for American children to speak that way. And it could have been avoided by hiring native English speaking women to voice the young boys, like in all other games and in most cartoons. It just speaks of how little David Cage cares about making a believable world in his games.


Before I wrap this up, I will say what I did enjoy about Heavy Rain. The atmosphere was actually phenominal. The overcast skies and damp environments make you feel oppressed. If anything in the game was done perfectly, it was the ambiance. The game is visually striking in a lot of ways, honestly. The all white control prompts floating around you character are slick and fun to look at.


As far as actual game mechanics, the QTEs were surprisingly tactical and satisfying when you pull them off properly. I normally hate QTEs, but here they're put to very good use. It's more than just stick wiggling (RE4/5, Dead Rising, Deadly Pemonition) or button mashing (Scott Pilgrim), it's a sort of hand contortion that's oddly fun. Also, there are scenarios that are genuinely nerve wracking and tense. Shelby wiping fingerprints so the cops won't mistakenly think he's the killer, Madison dragging a wounded Ethan through a subway station while evading the cops, and most of Ethan's Origami Killer "trials" had me yelling "Shit shit SHIT hurry up OH GOD!!!" at my TV. Very very effective stuff. It's a shame more of the game couldn't be this exhilarating.


In closing, Heavy Rain is a game that has its merits as far as mechanics go, but ultimately, the main focus (the narrative and characters) are sloppily handled and the rest of the game suffers for it. In my opinion, this is NOT the critical masterpiece reviewers and gamers alike were talking about. But since nobody wants to admit to not being able to see the Emperor's new clothes, everyone is calling it a work of art. It isn't. It's extremely hit-or-miss. It's a popcorn flick at best. If you shut your brain off and just enjoy the ride, it can be an enjoyable experience. But the second you start looking at the story with any level of scrutiny is when the whole thing unravels at the seams. It's a case of "imagine what could have been". At the hands of a talented writer, a game like Heavy Rain could be astounding. David Cage is not that writer.


Let me leave you with an excerpt from a Joystiq interview with Game of the Year winner David Cage. Thanks for (hopefully) reading.


"When you're playing as Ethan, you get the choice of killing the drug dealer or sparing his life. I was curious as to why, when you kill the drug dealer, there didn't seem to be a consequence at the end. You get the code, but shouldn't Ethan go to jail?"


"Well, there is no reason for him to go to jail if the drug dealer is found dead. Nothing leads directly to him."


"Doesn't he throw up next to the body?"


"Yes."


"That's not enough to get him in trouble?"


"... Why?"