Heavy Rain, developed by Quantric Dream and available exclusively for the PlayStation 3, is a game that tries to reinvent the adventure games genre for a much more mature console audience. In it, the four main characters struggle to unlock the mystery surrounding the Origami Killer – a child murderer who downs his victims. A story of this caliber seems more apt for Friday night TV than something you’d see in a game, but does the narrative and combined game mechanics of this mature adventure misfire? Or is Heavy Rain the next big leap for mature gamers this console generation?
A Novel Approach
Ironically, Heavy Rain unfolds more like a novel than a video game. There are no forced objectives being pushed on the player through the user interface. Instead, you discover things naturally by exploring the environment or situation. Part of the suspense comes from never quite knowing where the clues all lead, or what will trigger the next part of the plot. Even if the story is more choose-your-own-adventure than say a Dan Brown novel, Heavy Rain is a game that’s affected by your choices. If one of the four central characters die, the story pushes forward with the other three. Each of the game’s four central characters slowly unveil their personal failures and flaws, transforming Heavy Rain into an edgier into more of a journey than simply a game.
The control conventions adopted to make Heavy Rain as an interactive game make sense, even if they can be arguably at odds with the weighty material the game tries to present. The controls here are entirely contextual. Opening cupboards requires a quick slide of the right stick, while opening refrigerator doors or closets looks more like a motion from a recent fighting game. All of your interactive options are relative to what’s you’re facing in the game. Complex character movements require multiple buttons to be pressed at once or in sequence. This mostly applies to pushing, grabbing or pulling larger objects. Really tense situations require quick-time button presses, and the tension really kicks in when missing one could potentially kill your character.
Emotional Consequences
Heavy Rain really impresses when it’s showing off its’ emotional moments, and these touchstones are truly the high plateau of the experience. You’ll panic as someone dear to you is lost in a crowd of strangers. You’ll survive brutal challenges involving deranged and often near-suicidal choices. More often than not, Heavy Rain succeeds at making you feel something. It can be a tinge of hope, or a gut feeling of regret. It can be fear, or even failure. Yes, there are times when Heavy Rain falls completely flat, but the moments that work within the framework of the game are incredible.
There are other game conventions that have to exist to make Heavy Rain playable for everyone. I just wished they weren’t so awkward. For example, there’s a button to press that helps tell you what a character is thinking. It sometimes makes the voice over work sound bizarre. Some of the use of Sixaxis is also obtuse, but you can see that the designers were going for more player interaction and integration over a cheap gimmick. There are multiple endings to Heavy Rain, but good luck figuring out where the branching paths lie. There’s little to no explanation of where to replay and change the choices, thereby affecting the story.
Heavy Rain is the mature game older gamers have been waiting on for years. It tackles subject matter rarely handled in video games, and with solid production value and tone. Heavy Rain also has it’s share of awkward moments, areas where the game falls short of what you’d expect, but a majority of the experience is still fresh. Ultimately Heavy Rain is a step in the right direction for the adventure genre, even if it feels like baby steps, and an improvement on this concept will come with time. It’s still a worthy investment of your time, and a worthwhile gaming experience for 2010.
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