StrengthGamer.com: Heavy Rain Plot Holes Counter-Argument

Heavy Rain Plot Holes counter-argument to another site's editor's posting. A really nice article laying out both sides of the story and really clearing up a lot of questions within Heavy Rain.

[KILLERAPP]

Very good list from an awesome game…

[Hacker]

Awesome well that depends on whom your saying that too......i didn't purchase Heavy Rain because it was a QTE so therefor not awesome to me.

[FangBlade]

You didnt purchase Heavy Rain because you dont have enough money to buy a PS3.

[mrv321]

You didn't purchase Heavy Rain because your Jaded and don't own a PS3.

And it's not a simplistic shooter thriving off it's fan base.

[120FPS]

Well I did purchase it and behind all the fancy looks and decent story line, the gameplay is...... well there is no gameplay its just pressing buttons and shaking the pad about

[thebudgetgamer]

you just described almost every video game, i know where you're coming from though.

[GrieverSoul]

Question 15. How in the hell does Shelby fund all of this high-concept murdering? Not only does he own the warehouse complex, but he apparently helped set Paco up in business as a nightclub owner.

Holy sh**!!! Didnt anyone played the game?! Its that guy Paco from the Black lagoon that gives it to him in return for favors back in the old days! He helped Paco not on a money thing but rather in "I keep the cops away" thing.

[redsquad]

You didn't purchase HEAVY RAIN, ergo your so-called deconstruction of it's gameplay is invalid and flawed.
Bye...

[Xof]

Ever since the game's release, the chief criticism has been "look at all these plot-holes!" And the chief defense has been, "lolno, they're not really plot holes at all!"

Because, you know, the narrative quality and structure are both so utterly FLAWLESS. Honestly, the only game this gen that's handled storytelling worse than Heavy Rain was Dragon Age, and even then, we're splitting hairs.

[OSU_Gamer]

This guy can mentally fill those plot holes all he wants. They are still plot holes.

The game was still awesome though. Its allowed to have criticisms. God forbid the game is not perfect.

[Rocket Sauce]

Saying, "Madison's a journalist, so she knows everybody ever," is a big cop-out.

How hard would it have been to pass that information on to the player earlier in the game?

[nikkisixx2]

Their is always gonna be plot holes in a game if you search for them. But this is a good list.

[ALFAxD_CENTAURO]

Well, no plot holes anymore.

[cjflora]

Tons of movies have them if you go back and think about them. I mean The Sixth Sense is a highly acclaimed movie, but I can go back and list tons of plot holes or illogical things that occurred if he were "dead the whole time". <-- Sorry to anyone if this was somehow a spoiler after all of these years.

[earbus]

I will get this eventually i owe it to qauntic dream for giving the gift of omikron the nomad soul man i loved that game.

[Newtype]

I like how one of their first trophies praises you for buying the game to support a new game type.

[tiamat5]

Yes. It's amazing that people who go on and on about the plot holes are the same people who games play Halo, Gears and Alan wake without even blinking an eye. What was the plot in Halo? talking plants, halos in the sky to kill humanity for what again?, good aliens, bad aliens, little 12 years old holographic girl, dwarfish aliens, Master Chef goes to sleep after saving the world? Seriously?

[Xof]

Heavy Rain was far from the first attempt at interactive fiction. It's certainly the most high-profile interactive narrative out there, and certainly boasts the largest budget... but it's far from the first, and even further from the best.

What's amazing is that people who go on and on about how great Heavy Rain is are the same people who play games like Halo, Gears of War and Alan Wake, but never bother to delve deeper into the genre. People who assume that, if they've never played a similar game to what is set before them, they're dealing with something new and original.

Heavy Rain nails the "interactive," aspect. But the narrative quality is... terrible. There's no defending it. If Heavy Rain were a book, would you read it? Were it a movie, would you watch it? Of course not. But, somehow, if it's a game... that means we have to apply substantially lower standards? I don't think so.

Just recently, we've had a number of excellent games focusing on interactive fiction. I'd point out Clannad and Way of the Samurai 3 as two, stellar examples of how to properly allow a player to interact with a narrative, and to shape that narrative. The more games you've played--specifically, the more games you've played that offer genuinely branching storylines, the less you'll be impressed with the superficiality of Heavy Rain--it's a game of all style, and no substance. It's time for people to get over it.

[lastdual]

I find it embarassing that there are people out there who think Heavy Rain's plot was good. Sadly, that says a lot about gamers. Have these people ever read a novel, or even watched a decent film?

It's nice that HR is trying to do something new with the medium, and I respect the goals of the creators in that sense, but the game's terrible story didn't do it (or us) any favors.

[Canary]

I cringe just thinking of the children. Ulgh. It didn't help that Yakuza 3 came out a few weeks later, with much better realized child-characters. The contrast was... painful.

Also: Heavy Rain isn't really doing anything new with the medium. QTEs have been for... more than a decade, I think. I remember 'em in the first Dark Cloud. And "interactive fiction" is one of the very oldest genres out there. The Japanese have been pumping out visual novels and branching RPGs for decades, and over in the west we used to have these nifty little text-based adventure games.

It's not that interactive fiction is a new thing, it's just something that the west has forgotten. Like 3D space RTS, space sims, real-time strategy, and flight-simulators.

[Cenobia]

What are you people talking about? If Heavy Rain was a book or movie it would definitely be worth reading or watching. It has some pacing issues and would need to be ironed out a little, but I don't understand how its a terrible story. I find it interesting how you all say that, but don't mention one reason why you think that. What ending did you even see?

It has a genuinely surprising ending, great action sequences, and a ton of mystery. How is it a bad story?

@Canary
I'm playing Yakuza 3 right now and those kids are the biggest waste of time that I have ever experienced. They serve no purpose unless they all suddenly burn to death in a fire near the end. I must be an 2 hours to the end of the game and I'm still doing idiotic fetch quests for them. They may be better voice actors but they serve a much smaller and much more annoying purpose.

[Rocket Sauce]

Heavy Rain is just full of stuff that makes no sense. Like The psychiatrist who refuses to give the police information about his client because it wouldn't be ethical, then later admits he thinks the guy is a killer.

I know New Line has the rights to a Heavy Rain movie, but audiences will not put up with that kind of nonsense in a film unless there's tons of explosions and car chases to go along with it.

[Corrwin]

Let it go, people. Nothing to troll here. If you didn't like it, go play something else, but don't try and pretend other people didn't have fun playing it.

[Newtype]

Controlling the stripping and initiating the sex scene was fun.

[Canary]

Heavy Rain suffers from the same problem as Halo, and to a lesser extent Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X--too many new players. People played Halo, and it was their first decent FPS, so they thought it was zomg-awesome. The same thing with FFVII or FFX. Because it was their first good experience with a certain kind of game, they assumed they were playing the pinnacle of that genre.

It's even worse with interactive fiction, as most games of that vein are very low-profile. So, naturally, these fans who declare Heavy Rain to be a masterpiece (fans who simply haven't really been exposed to interactive fiction before) tend to irk gamers who've been around the block so to speak, and seen the sights already.

[Corrwin]

I though of it as the continuation of the point & click adventures. I'd love to see more P&C adventures done in a similar way.

But you can't help people for loving Heavy Rain, whilst the RPG and FPS were very much alive when Final Fantasy VII and Halo arrived on the scene, there haven't been many high-profile Interactive Fiction or Point and Click Adventures in a long while (even the big ones like Sam & Max, and Monkey Island have been done in low-budget, episodic, downloadable format)

[Redempteur]

it's not a matter of exposure ...heavy rain is a real step-up to their previous titles
i've played the nomad soul, indigo prophecy and heavy rain is really better .. And i've played adventures games before from grim fandango to gabriel knight 3 AND heavy rain while différent is quite a achievement.

it's not a bad game and you can enjoy it even if it's not your first adventure game too .

Heavy rain is not perfect but there is no need for downplaying the game when it did a lot of things right

[OSU_Gamer]

@Redempteur

I think HEavy Rain is a real step up in graphics and not much else. I'm not saying its a bad game, but for me it really wasn't original.

[cjflora]

As far as graphics go, I really wasn't impressed. Statically things did look great, but once you had things moving around and interacting it was kind of an eye sore. For example, when Ethan's tucking Shaun into bed the kid looks like he's laying down on a stiff board. I mean, for what little was going on in each scene I for some reason expected more physics or something when characters interacted with things. How about when people interacted physically with each other? I mean, watching someone kiss was just plain blocky looking. I don't know, maybe I just bought into the hype too much with the graphics, because I wasn't highly impressed. Things should have been much more fluid in my opinion.

[OSU_Gamer]

@Corrwin

You are really on the wrong site my friend.

[memphis2]

great argument. as stated from david cage. heavy rain chronicles was suppose to fell in the "plot holes" for each character and overall of the story. the problem is the heavy rain universe will never be complete due to he had to cancel the dlc "chronicles" because of playstation move. which i am really disappointed!

[ElementX]

I bet they canceled the Chronicles due to low sales. They probably never broke even.

[Neo Nugget]

Wasn't it due to working on Move support?

Huurrrrrrr.

[ElementX]

Sure they can claim that, but how long does Move support actually take?

[kneon]

It was over 1.25 million last I saw, that's not low sales.

[ElementX]

Heavy Rain was just stupid. I played through and thought WTF? more times than not. Only the fanboys will claim Heavy Rain is a masterpiece. Yeah, finding out who the Origami Killer is was pretty easy. I thought it was lame that you play the Origami Killer as a main character, trying to find out who the "killer" is. Talk about weak! They try to confuse the player be having the "killer" search for the killer. /facepalm Talk about cliche!

[Redempteur]

you missed the point .. shelby is trying to cover his tracks ..and that back fires a little when lauren shows up that's all . it's a revelations that works as proven in this article

[cjflora]

As soon as you said "fanboys will claim Heavy Rain is a masterpiece" you only outed yourself as a fanboy. Otherwise you would have just been stating your opinion, which you are entitled to. I liked, not loved, Heavy Rain. I could be called a Sony fanboy, but I can admit when I was a little let down by a game. I did like it, but feel that the hype left me a little underwhelmed. The story isn't great, but good enough. I never felt that "emotional connection" though that they were claiming they wanted so bad.

[memphis2]

wow really you have the most disagree votes on your own post and on my....you might want to rethink on what you said. in other words your a hater lol.

[Redempteur]

i agree with this article ..people tend to forget that time is an issue and as thus given the pressure the police is in ..there is bond to be some thing overlooked by the police on the sides
As for #14 i 've always forgiven kramer ( still not done PERFECT CRIME ) and there is no point of calling the police over this ..and even if he dies i doubt they'll find clues incrimenting him SINCE he got into the house one day earlier and got out so it's perfectly natural his fingerprints would be all over the place ...

[SeraphimBlade]

I'm glad someone wrote an article like this. A lot of the more frequently cited holes do have explanations, granted the game should have been a bit clearer on some things.
Come to think of it, I was trying to figure out why Shelby was getting rid of all the important evidence when he did. He might have realized the cops were going to come after him for the shootout at Kramer's. and wanted to cut his losses.
One thing I don't think there's an explanation for is how Jayden has info on people with zero criminal record and no government job. Logically, the ARI should be hooked up to the FBI database, which definitely shouldn't have a lower-class 10-year-old (the corpse he IDs in his first scene) on it... unless David Cage is a Kojima-level conspiracy theorist.
Also, why were there live chickens in a supermarket?

[Redempteur]

if think ari goes up a lot more than the fbi database ..
Jayden has accès on weather data , flower and plant data as well as a lot of others things .
As for the 10 years old data , he would make sense he has that kind of info since he's looking for a 10 year old boy.

Lol @the live chiken that's REALLY the plot hole i can agree ON

[Acquiescence]

How idiotic. When you've got a case absolutely crawling with media attention, it's probably not a good idea to gun down an unarmed man who is just trying to flee.

[tiamat5]

Xof that is the biggest pile of crap i have ever heard in my life. And look at the idiots agreeing with you and giving you bubbles. Things like Halo and Gears and Alan Wake are not worth getting into. They are the same shooters that have been made for the last few years with a story tacked on. I agree that Heavy Rain's story wasn't perfect but I would rather sit and listen to them then to listen to the one liner, juvenile,emotionless garbage that spews from these so called 'characters' mouths. When I played Gears i muted the television during cut scenes to avoid listening to them. If I was an English teacher I would give Heavy Rain a C+at best but all these other games stories I would have to ask if your 9 year old brother wrote it for you. Please don't lump together Heavy Rain's attempt at narrative evolution with sad attempts like Halo ODST and Alan Wake.I cared what happened to Heavy Rain's characters if they lived or died. If Marcus's whole squad or Master Chief died I wouldn't give a rat's @$$.

[RadientFlux]

The plot holes in Heavy Rain didn't bother me, as most movies/games have them.

What I found laughable was the sex scene near the end, because when one of my loved ones is in danger and time is important. I feel like banging a women I just meet a few days ago and then passing out.

[The_Zeitgeist]

Yeah I hear you on that.

[Rocket Sauce]

Oh yeah, that one works both ways though.

"I only met you yesterday and you're smelly and creepy and there's a good chance that you're murdering children, but I love you - let's hump."

[The_Zeitgeist]

I found the game to be pretty tight as far as plot goes. The only thing I kept thinking is why the hell wouldn't Ethan go to the cops with the phone that says the address. The city is not some giant country our anything. All you would have to do is narrow down all the streets with similar lettering and numbering and then search all the possible locations. To me that was the only big plot hole. Overall I think the game was on par with the script writing of a good thriller.

[xino]

Thanks for this, even though I knew the answers too. Hope readers will read this, and this finally shuts GameRadar's mouth up.

I can't stand them