Review | Heavy Rain
Format: PlayStation 3 | Genre: Adventure | Publisher: Sony | Developer: Quantic Dream | Release date: 26/02/10 | RRP: £49.99
It’s not a bad thing. As much as I yearn for it, I can’t have my procedural Holy Grail just yet. We’re not at that stage in the road. But what I can have is an experience that allows me some creative freedom while making sure that they’re watching me as I touch my artist’s brush to canvas. If games are collaboration, Quantic Dream are the stern museum guard in the corner looking extremely annoyed as some children touch an interactive instillation.
But games are collaboration. The developer places this thing in the player’s hands, and suddenly they have no more control over it. If that player wants to go around killing everyone and teabagging their dead faces, and if the game allows it, there’s nothing the developer can do. Once the game is out there, all control is relinquished. So you can either embrace that, or make sure that whatever the player does, you’re the one pulling the strings.
And that’s one of the big ways in which Quantic Dream have absolutely succeeded; no matter what happens, you can’t not play the story that Heavy Rain sets out. Short of wandering around in circles just for the hell of it, every action you perform serves the story in one way or another. You can attempt to subvert all you want, but if you want to progress you have to perform some sort of action, and that means advancing the narrative. You can turn Jayden into a completely useless detective, missing clues all over the place, but that will just become part of the story. Shelby might be terrible in a fight, and get his arse kicked daily, but that will begin to make sense. It’s your game, and you can play it how you like, just so long as what you like is what Quantic Dream has thought of.
That sounds negative, but it isn’t a bad thing. Remember Batman from last year? It was a game that provided you with the tools, and more importantly, the incentive, to play the game like Batman. And it worked. You could biff and pow your way through the game looking like the most graceful, deadly thing to come along since that girl in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and it would make you feel that awesome. Heavy Rain performs a similar action, but to a much, much higher degree.
It doesn’t give you the option of being bad. Or, to be more clear, of being bad at the game. Only the most flustered, frantic person is going to fluff the quick-time sequences with any degree of regularity, and the difficulty settings will allow for anyone, of any skill level, to succeed.
What it does is allow your every failure to feel like a success. You mess up a fight, and it makes it look as fluid and scripted as a victory, and so you accept it as wrote. It performs the trick of making you feel as though the path that you’re following is the only path, and while that is it’s greatest strength, there’s a good chance it could cause problems.
It’s no secret that I’d played the game before I got my hands on the retail version. In all of the scenes I’d played beforehand, there was a very clear, but limited, path open to you. Do you stop the robbery by fighting the robber, or talking him down? Or perhaps you just let him carry out his robbery and hide in the corner like a big fat baby. Basically, you do what you think is right, and all the other options blur into insignificance. You act the way you do because that’s how you’re inclined, and I think most people are going to be playing the game to win. When really, that’s the surest path to losing.
I’m a sucker for tragedy. I prefer the bleak and depressing over the happy ending. The idea that you can lose characters was a huge draw for me, and when I blindly completed the game by acing each of the quick-time events, I was somewhat disappointed that I’d played the game in such a way that I’d saved the lives of everyone involved. But, importantly, that was my fault. I had the power of life and death in my hands at all times, and it was by ignoring that choice that I’d failed to create the story I wanted.
[Continues...]
Wow, that was an amazing(ly long) read. This reminds me of Jim’s “Counting for Taste” article on RPS — just how much “game” is Heavy Rain? I actually had a talk with a friend on something he said about the game — “infinitely replayable,” he called it. Though I haven’t played it, I said that it seemed more replayable in the sense that books and movies are rereadable and rewatchable rather than being “replayable” in the traditional sense of a game.
Now if only I had a playstation triple and could play it.
1. Be frustrated at MS not Quantic Dream. MS built an inferior system with same last generation DVD, 5.1 sound, no HDD standard – instead of pushing gaming forward. This is the result.
2. $299 for a long list of quality exclusives like this.
3. Thanks for the read. I plan to start playing it this weekend.
I don’t think Phill’s placing the blame on anyone, wiseguy. It’s nothing to do with console capabilities; it’s just that he feels this is a game that deserves to be played by as many people as possible, and its being limited to release on one format prevents that.
What he (Lewis) said…
Amen – the fact this isn’t multiplatform is nothing short of ridiculous. I hate to sound like a dictator, but I’m leaning towards a world of one console, as time goes on.
1. It has everything to do with console capabilities.
2. People can buy better products if they want better games. It’s really simple. Nothing to get frustrated about.
3. What multiple formats prevent is high quality games like this. You have it backwards. So if he wants more games like this he should be recommending people buy the higher quality consoles instead of misdirecting (unintentionally or not) that the problem is the game being on a single format. It would have been watered down to make it fit the limitations of the 360 and the publishers contracts that games be equivalent. IOW a race to the bottom. Go peddle that nonsense somewhere else.:)
I think you’re reading more deeply into the comment than was intended. You’re right: Heavy Rain is obviously very carefully tailored to the PlayStation 3’s processing power and control mechanism. All Phill – like myself, and Christos – is saying is that it’s a tremendous shame that people who don’t own a PS3 (can’t afford one, aren’t interested in its other games, whatever) won’t get the chance to play such an exceptional and exciting game.
If there was one platform there would have been no Wii motion controller that has expanded the market.
Not sure how any intelligent consumer can see less innovation and fewer choices as a good thing.
However I can see how corporate shills with monopolistic desires would be excited to push the idea of one console on the gullible. Under the current market they can’t get control with multiple consoles. So push for the idea of one console where they can.
Let’s get rid of Pepsi because we only need one pop. It’s so frustrating having choices. And really what’s the difference between Root beer and Coke. Is it really that significant. Let’s just have Coke while we are at it.
Nothing short of ridiculous is right.
No I understand and appreciate what your saying.
My point is I don’t think I would ever hear you say it’s a shame we can’t only have a Yugo instead of 6 different Hondas because some people can’t afford one or the other. It’s a ridiculous premise that I’ve only seen raised in consoles. Not phones, not cars. NOWHERE else would a person suggest thats’ a good thing. One Cheese?
The point is NOBODY would get a chance to drive that EXCEPTIONAL Honda because it would be a Yugo if one company controlled the market.
If they want to drive something exceptional then they should have the choice to vote with their dollars as to which product is exceptional and which is not. One console removes that choice.
[...] You can get it from here. And in a rare moment of fairness, here’s Phill Cameron saying why he dug the hell out of Heavy Rain which is an exciting game for the PS… wait! We’ve been duped! It’s a Trap! EJECT! [...]
[...] 4, 2010 by thomasdowd Phil Cameron over at Resolution Magazine has a lengthy review of Heavy Rain up that I pretty much agree with. Phil’s a little more effusive in parts than I am, [...]
Thanks for the review. You’re a good writer.
The reactions I’ve heard and read about this game are interesting. I haven’t played the game myself (which renders what follows quite hollow, but bare with me), but from what I’ve seen and read in reviews, Heavy Rain comes off as the most self-absorbed, pretentious piece of marketing strategy this console generation. Fahrenheit took that place last generation. I say marketing because this game has been hyped for about three years now, with the gaming press saying that Heavy Rain would redefine gaming, playing into the hands of the PR industry (hell, is there even a difference between press/journalism and PR?). And people are eating it up with a spoon, because, as it seems from my point of view, being told that “this is art, this is mature, this is unique”, a lot of gamers are going “ok!”.
If you construct a game around the premise of story, and that story gets mangled by the gameplay and looses its potentially “emotionally engaging” moments, how can that be considered art at all? What has been said, and did you really have any control, and if so, how did the game acknowledge that without falling apart? And here I come back to what I said about PR and journalism: how can you review a game like this without discussing its story, behind the mantra we’ve come to know as “spoilers”?
You mentioned whether you reviewed the content or the story, and kinda landed on acknowledging that the two can never be separate, which was very insightful. Yet you still come back that dichotomy over and over again. If the game is the story you make (like a lion in a big cage, right?) through decisions that either are smoke and mirrors, or completely mangles any credibility the story might have had, what game are you playing? Or more importantly, does it say something about the human condition; can we call this art?
There’s a difference in between being an “intelligent consumer,” as you so deftly put it, and being someone who’s simply sick of platform exclusives.
I am no fan of monopolies – in fact, a quick search of my name or articles, some even on this website, would have told you as much. My point was simply that it would be nice to have a console that, in a more utopian environment, was owned by everyone, and everyone published on. I wasn’t seriously suggesting we wipe out Sony and Nintendo, but there’s a line between diversity/choice and constant bitching about a console you hate simply because you chose one you’re feeling more than insecure about.
While you’re in the anti-corporate mindset, why not simply research into why one console might be a better idea in a future environment, rather than running with the idea that RIGHT NOW would actually work? I know it won’t, and I’d wager most people would agree. With one console, do you think massive – and imho, illegal – failures to meet customer rights, such as the RROD, would have existed for as long as they have? We live in a world where niche products are labelled “diverse” and are rife with customers suffering financially due to the possessive nature of platform manufacturers over new IPs, and where the only true unbiased platform – the PC – is still largely ignored because the idea of paying the amount X to keep a PC upgraded is ignored in favour of paying five times the amount, yearly, to buy new consoles and games on varying platforms simply because consumer choice stopped BEING choice once it became a weapon.
It’s all well and good to take up the mantle of the righteous consumer, but when you’re not willing to think any deeper than “those evil bastard CEOs” and research the opinions of those you challenge so self-righteously, it does beg the question: is one console not ALSO a choice, and by your response, are you not monopolising the ideals of those sick of controversy?
“Which renders what follows quite hollow”.
:P
A tremendous read, thanks for that.
But ‘innovative’? Weren’t the ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ books knocking about 40 years ago? Granted, you’re twirling a stick to represent fiddling about in your ear or something rather than turning to page 123, but it’s still the same principle.
Mind you, there’s something to be said for transferring the concept to this medium. It would be great if this proved to be as popular (if not as prolific) a medium of storytelling as film or books.
[...] Heavy Rain: http://vi.deoga.me.uk/2010/02/review-heavy-rain-ps3/ Resolution Review of Heavy Rain: http://resolution-magazine.co.uk/content/review-heavy-rain/ 1UP Review of Heavy Rain: http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3177883 Edge Review of Heavy Rain: [...]
I haven’t played the game yet either, and have been guilty of ’soapboxing’ about it myself, but asking a raft of speculative questions that you don’t even know are relevant… well it’s a bit silly. The proof is in the pudding, and I’m excited to play and find out for myself sometime soon.
well, we all know how valuable the opinion of people who think that “graphic quality = game quality” is.
If you think of games as you might books and music rather than cars and phones, the objection becomes a lot clearer. Sure, there are format issues in other mediums – VCR vs. Betamax, CD vs. vinyl, etc. – but games are uniquely tied to the platform they are targetting; there are no PS3 bootlegs for XBox. What this means is that people are limited with regards to what they can experience based on how much they’re willing to spend on consumer electronics, which is a boorish pragmatic consideration when faced with something that can change the medium.
And frankly, I think you’re putting far too much emphasis on the quality of the platform. Rarely is it the case that the technical differences between platforms have anything more than an incremental effect on the final product (with the exception of actual qualitative differences, like Wii motion controls, or online stores making smaller games viable). I don’t think the correlation between what is possible technically and what is possible artistically is as strong as you think.
[...] something grand. I’m not sure how presumptuous that is, but if things like Sleep is Death and Heavy Rain are indicators of the future, this is the best time to jump on the band-wagon, so to [...]
[...] But first, because I’m a shameless self-promoter, please, indulge yourself in four and a half thousand words that I had to write about the game in question, w… [...]