Review: Heavy Rain (PS3)

Videogames have aspired to be ‘like films’ for as long as I’ve played them. Back in the early 90s, Hollywood movies were exciting, sexy, glamorous, culturally accepted-everything that videogames weren’t. A lot has changed since then, of course, with videogaming staking a strong claim as the mode of entertainment of choice of the noughties, for part of the populace at least. Yet, for all the progress videogames have made at winning the hearts and minds of modern media-saturated audiences, many in the industry still have one eye cocked at the multiplexes, wistfully watching on in jealousy.

And whilst I’ve always found this penchant a little tiresome, Heavy Rain is, by my estimation at least, the climax of the quest that began in 1983 with the seminal Dragon’s Lair- at least until the next one.

Its legacy to gaming, however, is not entirely straightforward.

I came away from a recent Heavy Rain preview event in Dublin simultaneously enthused for Quantic Dream’s presentational flair and genuine commitment to overcoming the inherent incompatibilities between games and non-interactive narrative media, whilst being concerned about the apparent reliance on quick time events as a proxy for ‘genuine’ player control. A playthrough of the completed version hasn’t fundamentally changed that original snap judgement, but it does help me elucidate upon them. It must be said that the visual impact alone of Heavy Rain merits huge praise. Topping the bill here are the extraordinary character models, which blur the line between computer graphics and genuine acting far better than anything I’ve seen to date. Silky-smooth motions, naturalistic faces and even eye movements beautifully mirror their real-life counterparts, taking videogame characters ever further out of the uncanny valley. Heavy Rain’s environments are equally pretty, with atmosphere dripping from the game’s scenes with the same intensity as the titular bucketing rain that envelops the gameworld.

Aurally, Heavy Rain is similarly exemplary. In keeping with the movie-like feel of the entire enterprise, each arrangement is fully orchestrated, and each character has their own signature theme- usually, grave, portentous, and bellowing. Each is memorable in its way, and taken as a whole, adds marvellously to the experience of playing the title. Some of the themes repeat themselves a little too often for comfort, but that’s a minor complaint.

The inescapable conclusion, however, is that much of Heavy Rain’s beauty is skin deep. The environments, for example, whilst astonishingly textured and beautifully lit, are mostly static, with neither a discernable physics engine nor the ability to casually interact with the world around you. Sure, the game allows you to selectively interact with bits of it- you can, for example, open a drawer, use a microwave, turn on a television- but vast swathes of the game’s world are mere windows dressing. Perhaps Heavy Rain’s visual splendour is a victim of its own success. Having crafted an exquisitely detailed world, any deficiencies that would be small beer in lesser titles become magnified here.

But there’s more to Heavy Rain’s technical nous than visual and aural splendour. Quantic have clearly thought long and hard about the challenges of immersing a player in a dynamic narrative, and at every juncture the game offers a new approach to old game design conundrums.

Convention after convention has been tossed to the four winds. The game features no ‘Game Over’ screen- you literally cannot ‘lose’. There are no lives, no difficulty level, no HUD, no items, no weapons, no map, no cheats, no help, and no multiplayer mode- an increasing rarity in modern console gaming. All of this lends Heavy Rain a welcome purity and a uniqueness that is most welcome in a sea of me-too military shooters. Of greater interest in Heavy Rain are the additions, rather than what they’ve taken away. And it’s clear that some of Quantic Dreams’ gameplay innovations work better than others.

The ‘feeling’ and conversation bubbles that revolve around your character are a smart and effective way of avoiding breaking gameplay with pop-up conversation options. They also serve as a neat (and optional) way of getting into the mind of the game’s characters. Indeed, it’s just the sort of innovation that will inevitably be copied by others.

The context-sensitive ‘gestures’ are the other standout gameplay innovation and play a major role in the title. Rather than map specific actions to specific buttons, the game requires the player to input button presses that correspond roughly to what’s happening on-screen. For example, a door is usually opened by rotating the right analogue stick- or optionally, a shake of the controller might trigger your character to kick the door in. More complex movements require button-tapping or holding multiple buttons at once. The idea of making arbitrary button presses something more context-appropriate is undeniably intriguing, but their impact is dulled firstly by the fact that all the player is really doing is triggering canned animations, and secondly by the fact that a traditional games controller feels ill-suited to this particular goal. Whilst Quantic should be praised for attempting to provide an alternative to simple button presses, the simple fact is that traditional game controllers aren’t built for much else.

Too often, the gestures are a bit too fiddly, and add too little to the experience. At their best- like the ‘unfoldable’ animations where you, for example, apply a razor to Ethan’s face or lipstick to Madison’s visage- they feel quite tactile and appropriate. At their most superfluous, however, it’s almost like watching a movie punctuated by the need to arbitrarily pause and unpause the action at predefined moments. Ultimately, as a means of making the player feel more connected to the on-screen action, it’s an unsatisfying solution.

Yet, even whilst my inner critic tut-tuts at Quantic’s reliance on them, it must be admitted that Heavy Rain features the best implementation of QTE’s I’ve yet seen.

The game’s reliance on quick time events during action scenes (sorry, ‘Physical Action Reactions’) is more concerning, and reveals a creative deficit at the house of Cage. Sure, they’re somewhat more sophisticated than in most other games, with multiple branching paths available during fight sequences, depending on your button-mashing speed and accuracy. But that doesn’t change the fact that this is the same mechanic that’s been pilloried by critics and gamers alike since Shenmue brought them to the mainstream over a decade ago.

Yet, even whilst my inner critic tut-tuts at Quantic’s reliance on them, it must be admitted that Heavy Rain features the best implementation of QTE’s I’ve yet seen. This isn’t just because of the well-pitched difficulty, or the excitement of the unfolding action itself- most of all, most of all, the thrill that comes with these sequences can be attributed to the fact that there’s a genuine sense of urgency: your button-tapping performance actually results in important outcomes that can and will substantially shape events in the storyline.

Indeed, producer Guillaume de Fondaumiere told the gathered media at the Dublin preview event that the team’s key aims with regard to the storytelling were to create genuine, fully-fleshed out characters, eliciting emotional responses from the player, and the ability to dynamically alter the progression of the story through the player’s decisions.

Lofty goals indeed, but it’s difficult to argue that Quantic have failed on any of these scores.

Heavy Rain’s greatest legacy is its breadth of decisions that are left up to the player. Some are moral dilemmas, others are practical choices and others still are utterly mundane. It’s refreshing not only to see a title offer meaningful decisions, but ones that go beyond the tiresome and hackneyed binary choices that reflect a good/evil dichotomy. So, not only do you have the choice to kill or show mercy, you’re also afforded the opportunity to kiss or to back off, to confess or to clam up, to run away or to confront.

Although there are a thousand small ways in which the player can choose how the game unfolds- placing a box under a bed instead of on the table, sitting on the couch instead of leaning on a chair- there’s a much smaller subset of critical decisions that result in whole chunks of the game playing out differently.

Frankly, I don’t know how deep the rabbit hole goes in terms of the depth and complexity of storyline branching. Whether it’s intelligent coding or merely an illusion is irrelevant- the important thing is that I bought into the idea that the game adapted to my choices naturally, because it felt that way.

Yet, even taken on its own terms, all is not rosy in the Heavy Rain garden.

There’s a sense, for example, that Quantic have failed to fully capitalise on their best ideas. The ARI augmented reality gizmo that FBI agent and playable character Norman Jayden carries around with him is a great opportunity for some player-led sleuthing. Alas, the opportunity is missed, because the game is too often content to do the thinking for you, with the puzzle-solving reduced to merely looking at the available evidence, which triggers a cut-scene where Jayden figures it out himself. It’s this kind of handholding that risks making the player feel somewhat redundant.

I can only assume that Quantic wanted to avoid the player realising that they were being forced down a specific path. Yet, surely placing the player on rails, even for a time, is a better solution than simply packing up the tracks and forcing the player to instead passively watch proceedings unfold? After all, Capcom’s Ace Attorney series proved that even when there’s only one ‘right’ answer, allowing the player to piece together evidence themselves can be highly rewarding.

As a demonstration of how gaming has progressed as a storytelling medium, Heavy Rain is beyond reproach. As a demonstration of how gaming mechanics have evolved, however, Heavy Rain doesn’t fare particularly well. Heavy Rain’s failure to match its extraordinary presentation and thrilling free-form narrative with substantial advances in gameplay is disappointing, but by no means an unforgivable sin. Indeed Heavy Rain was never meant to be all things to all people- it’s low on instant gratification, and ‘twitch’ gamers will quickly become frustrated by the occasionally ponderous story and the lack of ‘meat’ to the gameplay.

Narratively, Heavy Rain is amongst the most compelling package I’ve seen in a videogame. Although its setting is difficult to neatly pin down- Scott Shelby’s private eye, for example, borders on the noirish, whilst Norman Jayden’s FBI agent belongs in the world of sci-fi futurism- the overall feel is a contemporary one, and the race-against-time dynamic of the child kidnapping-themed plot means that after a slow start, events move along at a fair clip.

However, Heavy Rain’s world is not memorable by virtue of the storyline’s complexity or originality- in fact, it excels in neither. Rather, it is the cast of weird and wonderful characters that make Heavy Rain’s narrative shine. From the likeable, kind-hearted but world-weary private eye Scott Shelby, to the mysterious, generous but steely Madison Page, Heavy Rain’s intriguing ensemble cast does much to keep your attention. Remarkably, de Fondaumiere’s stated aim to elicit emotional responses from the player rang true, at least for this reviewer- but I’ll leave you to be the judge of that.

At its best, the game is positively moving. One particularly evocative scene set in a geriatric hospital sees you trying to coax a name out of an elderly lady suffering from Alzheimers by stimulating her memory. It’s harrowing stuff. In fact, Heavy Rain’s narrative excellence falters only moments before the credits begin to roll, when the pressure to simultaneously deliver a context-sensitive and dramatically pleasing denouement results in a series of curiously flat and disjointed ending cut-scenes.

At the very least, Heavy Rain deserves to engender a furious debate over what makes a good videogame. Quantic dispose of action game convention after convention with abandon, and even though what they’ve put in their place isn’t always fully convincing, it’s difficult not to admire their blank-slate approach to game design.

Kudos to Sony for funding an expensive, ambitious project in a niche genre with no guarantee of commercial success. In fact, of all the platform holders out there, they’re doing more than anyone at the moment to promote the development of exciting new gaming experiences, of which Heavy Rain is a leading light. Reservations aside, Heavy Rain demands to be experienced, and although you may not love it, you’ll probably respect it for what it is: A beautiful, flawed gem, and a glimpse into one of many possible videogaming futures.