My anticipation level for Heavy Rain is hovering somewhere around the level of mindless hype last experienced when I saw Mario 3 in The Wizard. I loved it at E3, and I loved it at CES. I want this game badly, and my irrationally thinking brain has already elevated its arrival to second-coming status. I’m hype-drunk, and I’ve convinced myself that Heavy Rain has the capability to right most of the current wrongs in modern game design. Yeah, I know, outrageous – but give me a second to try and explain the usual lack of snarky doubt oh so prevalent in videogame criticism.
I’ve completely bought in to Heavy Rain being one of the first “truly mature” titles. Do you ever get the feeling that most of the games you’re playing are either catered to 90’s era Japanese adolescents or violence-hungry American teenagers? I enjoyed Modern Warfare 2 and God of War, but to say those game were telling a compelling story was sort of equating G.I. Joe or 300 with House of Sand and Fog or Saving Private Ryan, each excels at their purpose – but boobs and stupid violence do not a mature narrative make. Heavy Rain, from what I have seen, looks to use violence and sexuality for a purpose other than exploitation. Heavy Rain has emotional weight, and it uses its characters as means to convey a sense of pure tension and conscious loss that we otherwise haven’t experienced in interactive entertainment.
Videogames as a medium haven’t exactly been aiming high with outside-the-box methods of storytelling and interaction (mainly because the tripe handed out is enough to sell well, and few publishers want to attempt a financial risk with anything experimental). Condemned did some amazing things with the headset, and Metal Gear Solid has always found new ways to mess with the player, but Heavy Rain appears to take alternative storytelling from brief gimmick to an essential part of the game. I want Heavy Rain to be a game about emotional resonance and long term consequence, and everything I’ve seen so far is indicative that it’s going to go that direction. Games are usually all about empowerment – but what about loss, failure (not fail-states), depression, desperation, or emotional degradation? Not every game has to be an action movie, and the wide range of human emotion is largely untapped by modern software. Heavy Rain, as I am lead to believe, might take a few steps toward something else entirely.
I’m also quite optimistic about how the game is going to play around with nontraditional means of interaction. Yeah, it’s easy to say it’s all just a bunch of quick-time events, but I’m willing to give it a pass based on its ability to demonstrate that it can, in fact, contextualize the actions. Typical QTE’s are full of mindless button presses that completely disconnected the my hands on the controller from the action on screen, but the instances in which Heavy Rain has thus far demonstrated its mechanics have made me slightly more optimistic. It’s still a little hard to tell what the hell certain inputs are going to do before you do them, but the versatility and ingenuity experienced thus far has me on the positive end. Additional, Quantic Dream’s promise to make certain gestures as uncomfortable to perform in your hands as it is for your character to do on screen has me intrigued.
I once saw Quantic’s previous game, Fahrenheit (rebranded as Indigo Prophesy in the United States), as being likened to a giant ice cream cone that seems to instantly melt after you’ve only taken a few bites – a metaphor I didn’t disagree with. The game had enormous potential, clearly visible at that very first scene in the diner, but it was inevitably ruined by terrible a racial stereotype, a batshit insane series of plot twists, and not-quite-there levels of character interaction. It’s been nearly five years since Quantic churned out their first stab at this “genre” and I’m eagerly waiting to see how much they learned from their previous failings. Fahrenheit could have been an amazing, era-defining experience not unlike Ico or Colossus, but the execution came up way short of its ambition. The turnaround, along with lead designer David Cage’s relentless confidence, has lead me to believe Quantic has a better grasp of what they’re doing this time around.
I still carry a few reservations, as there are some areas that make me a bit nervous. Chief among those is the accents of the main characters. I understand that the game was made by Quantic, a French developer, but casting French actors and having them do “American” accents isn’t doing any favors for realism. Maybe its ethnocentrism, maybe it’s part of the uncanny valley created by the astounding visuals, but what little I’ve heard of Heavy Rain’s voice acting nearly broke immersion. It wasn’t bad, but it did have kind of an “I can tell a guy is reading these lines off of a sheet” vibe. In a post-Uncharted 2 world, that’s kind of disappointing. I’m also a bit skeptical of the direction the narrative can take; is it on straightforward with a few allowances for me to veer off the path, or can I truly change the middle and end-game based on my decisions? Lastly, I’m not entirely sure the game has mass appeal. People are ready for it, I’m sure, but trying to sell something so radically different might be a challenge.
Regardless, I am going to put this one in on Tuesday and probably not eat/sleep/shower/work until it’s finished. Look for our review next week!
