I love adventure games. When most kids were growing up on Contra and Metroid, I was solving puzzles in Loom and Monkey Island. But a good adventure game is a difficult thing to make. I’m a sucker for stories. I’ve sat through droves of terrible titles just to find out what comes next in the story. At their root, adventure games oppose everything modern gaming has become. They’re long, plodding, confusing, esoteric jumbles of point and click puzzle solving. But they continue to draw me in with their unique narratives and engaging stories.
I write that because, despite its claim as “interactive drama,” Heavy Rain is an adventure game. However, it manages to do what no adventure game has yet – remove all the excess that interferes with the story. This stripped-to-basics style of Heavy Rain allows for its greatest asset, its story, to stand at the forefront. And the story does not disappoint. Despite a few nagging plot holes, Heavy Rain is easily David Cage’s strongest effort on paper and arguably one of the most captivating adventure stories gaming has seen.
Since Heavy Rain’s impetus is its story rather than its gameplay, it needs to immerse the player completely. Unfortunately, the voice acting and dialogue come out like a soap opera rather than a movie. Heavy Rain manages to mend that thread with incredible character models. Between scenes, close-ups of each protagonist’s face show off Heavy Rain’s stunning graphics engine. Every hair of stubble or pore on Ethan Mars’ face can be counted. In game, the models move in remarkably lifelike fashion thanks to superior motion capture efforts. But the believability can sometimes fade when a character interacts with another. In one scene, two characters kiss and look like plastic action figures being mashed together. While these moments tend to be the exception, they usually occur when believability is at an utmost importance.
Heavy Rain puts you in the seat of four protagonists, all with different personalities, quirks, and motives. They all have one unifying objective, to find the origami killer and prevent the death of his latest kidnapping victim, Shaun Mars. The way each character goes about this task brings the real spark to the game, with each person implementing unique methods. Norman Jayden, an FBI detective, uses field analysis to draw conclusions about the case. On the other hand, Madison Paige tends to go undercover, often finding herself in seedy situations she must talk her way out of.
As you progress through the story, especially in the later portions of the game, you’ll engage in increasingly dangerous and riveting activity. At times, a character can even die. Instead of game over, you continue playing the rest of the game without that character’s involvement. While that knowledge ratchets up the intensity a few hundred notches, I soon discovered that killing a character may be the hardest thing to accomplish in the game. Heavy Rain came with preconceived notions about what was and was not possible regarding the quick-time-event action scenes. But these preconceived notions are nothing but a veil to cover up that nearly every scene ends exactly the same regardless of what you do.
Once this veil is uncovered, the game reveals its biggest flaw. When every action seems to have meaning, very simple decisions can carry extreme weight. But when you realize that your actions have almost no meaning, each scene just goes through the necessary motions to reach the next. For example, one part of the game has a character stumble upon an attempted suicide. I played through the scene with a sense of urgency, trying to save the poor woman before she succumbed to her wounds. But the second time, as an experiment, I tried to see what would happen if I let her die. Unfortunately I discovered that’s not an option. Instead, I stood around aimlessly for 30 minutes waiting for her to bleed to death, but could only advance the story if I eventually helped her and did everything exactly as I had the first time.
While this problem exists in almost all adventure games, Heavy Rain claimed to have actions that affected the narrative. But the only affect comes through your perceptions. And rarely do you even have the option of choice, instead forced to sit through a preordained set of commands to reach the next set of commands. If you miss a key story element, it resolves itself later as if you never missed it to begin with. The only thing this can affect is the game’s final sequence, which only has six different iterations.
In the end, Heavy Rain feels like it could’ve been so much more. Had it lived up to a fraction of what it claimed to be, Heavy Rain could’ve been one of those few games that changed the way people think about programming. Instead it’s just another adventure game in an oversaturated market. Since it’s almost entirely story driven, Heavy Rain seems like it would be much better suited as a film, miniseries, or even an episodic downloadable series (like the game’s upcoming prequels). After one playthrough, it will find itself on the shelf gathering dust. Heavy Rain isn’t a bad game, just a very shallow one.
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"Many video games catch not only great commercial attention but remarkable critical attention as well. We have seen games like Heavy Rain, The Last of Us Part II, and even entries in the Metal Gear series described as fantastic interactive experiences, even heralded in the same way as Hollywood's greatest films.
I would suggest that not only is this an unfair comparison but also a harmful one. Video games, by their very nature, are an intricately different medium and should be weighed against one another rather than another form of media," Phillip writes for GF365.
I think Hollywood films will becoming increasingly more like video games in the future, especially as the world embraces the "new normal" from the pandemic. It makes sense, as games like Spider-Man: Miles Morales showcase just how realistically we're reaching in graphical capabilities, as well as showcase extreme action sequences in spectacular ways. And as time goes by, it'll get easier and cheaper to produce such "art", as well as create new star "actors" that never age, never die, never complain, never gets involved in scandals, etc. Technology is amazing and we're only just getting a taste of what it'll eventually be.
No. For the money spent, a quality game provides far more entertainment value than a quality movie. Especially when looking at what is going on in the world, and how a studio can attempt to pilfer from consumers by charging 30 dollars for Mulan via streaming. Ridiculous. There is no comparison....games all day.
What exactly is the David Cage experience, and is it of value? We examine two classics, Fahrenheit and Heavy Rain, to find the answer.
Quantic Dream has announced a new video series to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Heavy Rain. Check out the first part here.
Have you played Detroit? While it’s my personal favorite, I fully understand many preferring Heavy Rain more. I’m glad you enjoyed Heavy Rain too.
Glad you enjoyed the game! Yes, Detroit is a masterpiece of a game, and their best work to date “in my opinion”
Wow, 10 years...and yet, still one of the best/most emotional/thrilling gaming experiences I’ve ever had.
So grateful to Sony for believing in Quantic Dream’s vision for this game, and giving them a chance. I’ll never forget David Cage saying “We want to challenge the player, but not with the controller, but mentally, with their decisions of “How far would you go to save someone you love” Well, they broke my emotional gamer heart lol.
My teenage son refuses to play this game, because I’ve told him in little detail the emotional impact it had on me all those years ago. Maybe one day he will.
Still have my origami crane they teach you how to make when you're installing for the first time.
it's been 10 years? wow, that was so fast, I feel like this console gen went fast as well although it hasn't. I really look forward to the PS5 this holiday season though.
When it comes to the script, even, I would have to say that it's just too obvious that a foreigner wrote it. This game was in development for four years and nobody at SCEA ever picked up the script and fucking read it? I mean... like when the kid (Sean) says "I don't want to play this game anymore" and he's talking about the swing, I'm like who in god's name let that one slip through during the script editing process? No child is stupid enough to consider the swing a game, and to be honest, whether or not that fact can be debated, it just sounded weird to me when he said it. For a game to have the kind of problems that could have been remedied by actually having a member of the TARGETED DEMOGRAPHIC (ie. native english speakers) oversee the development process would have to indicate that some serious gum is in the machinery of that company. In four years they never thought to hire native english speakers.. i mean not even to act, which for me is a no-brainer, but at least to just oversee the process! I mean, David Cage was writing and directing a game that was aimed (at least in large part) at North Americans and it seems as though no North American was ever consulted during the game development process! Why didn't SONY, a movie producing corporation, for god's sake, step in and fine tune that game's script? Did they not want to offend the creativity of David Cage? Jesus.
If they were to re-write every scene properly that game would be a masterpiece. It is so painful to see a game that, granted, was unique and entertaining, be held back from perfection because of what, at best, could be described as a lack of foresight and, at worst, arrogance.
I'm pretty sure "native English speakers" aren't North Americans. I also can believe that if games can have teleportation and overly large breasts without being questioned, this game can certainly get a free pass. I mean I'm not going to let an accent ruin my WHOLE gaming experience. It's kind of foolish to think so.
Also, giving it a 0 because it has no online is downright foolish as well. Most of the best games of all time had no online, period. If you're used to generic, repetitive, predictable games such as COD and consider that "action" then Heavy Rain isn't for you. This game certainly isn't boring. It needs your full attention. If you're sitting there blasting some sh*t music or talking to people while playing it has little to no impact. You have to get in the atmosphere.
i guess this new gameplay that try wasnt for you...i loved the game
to each his own.
heavy rain is a great game!