Despite a stunning visual style and presentation,it's a pretentious wonder marred by a predictable plot,weak characters
David Cage is another amongst such visionaries. His last game Fahrenheit (known as Indigo Prophecy in NA) was an ambitious title. Bringing movie-style cutscenes and interactive features loaded with generous doses of Quick Time Events (QTEs) to give the adventuring genre a totally different perspective and an appeal to a wider audience. It was one of the freshest ideas in years and if it weren't for its lackluster execution and pathetic second half, the game would have been hailed as one of the finest.
Six years later and Quantic Dream comes up with Heavy Rain, a game promising to bring forth a "film-noir murder/mystery" story for mature audiences. Boasting of realistic motion-capture graphics and facial animations, Heavy Rain harbored a lot of expectations to not only build upon the concept introduced in Fahrenheit but to actually execute it effectively.
In stark contrast to Fahrenheit's tense opening sequence, Heavy Rain begins slowly. Instead of delving the gamers face-first into key moments of the plot, it chooses to introduce its four protagonists one by one slowly while developing their personalities and background. The first two hours continues in this relaxed manner bedazzling you with its visual style as well as its surprisingly powerful way of making you feel uncomfortable. The sequence where you play as Madison in a lonely apartment is a testament of that. By this time you're sure of one thing – Quantic Dream hasn't lost their knack for film-noir visual style treatment to their games.
Heavy Rain tells a story of a city haunted by a mysterious serial killer called "The Origami Killer" who leaves behind small origami pieces at the crime scene. The game's story is divided into "Skits" and Chapters, each chapter initially focusing on each of the four protagonist's hunt for the Origami Killer.
The four lead characters-- Ethan Mars, a distraught father already depressed by the unfortunate death of his first son and now faced with rescuing his second child, Shaun from an imminent death after Origami Killer kidnaps him. Norman Jayden, a FBI agent addicted to a fictitious drug called Triptocaine is probably the best and my favourite amongst the cast and is tracking Origami Killer for his own reasons. Madison Paige, a journalist and Scott Shelby, a private eye detective round up the main protagonists all of which have their own reasons behind their quest to search for the Origami Killer.
The game also has an innovative feature where the death of any protagonist doesn't mean a game over. Instead the story will continue to progress albeit a bit differently in that character's absence. This leads to the story branching out differently at various points terminating in multiple endings. While this does lead to some problems (mentioned later in the review) it adds much more value to the replayability.
Just like in Fahrenheit, control scheme for Heavy Rain will please some while annoying others. It adopts a tighter sensitivity going for realistic movement rather than exaggerated. The result is your character will move more slowly and less haphazardly. Even actions like opening a tap involves "intuitive" controls which require you to rotate the analog as you would to open a tap. Like in Fahrenheit, these controls end up being a stylish and mostly an effective idea to implement old elements of point-and-click adventure games.
New to this game are the SixAxis "motion controls". Certain actions on-screen require you to move your SixAxis in a particular way to perform the action. For example, when you have to brush your teeth, you actually have to move the SixAxis controller in a manner you would to brush your teeth. This gets on your nerves from the very first time and appears to be not only a poor excuse to implement PS3's SixAxis controls but also a cheesy gimmick as an excuse for actual innovation. For those with a very short attention span, the first two hours which feature a large chunk of such SixAxis motion controls will test your patience.
The game progresses via cutscenes most of which are interactive and require you to follow the sequence of control commands better known as Quick Time Events (QTEs). This time the QTEs have been greatly improved from Fahrenheit seeming more dynamic and less obstructive. Now the QTE commands only appear where the command would actually effect the action and don't obstruct the whole screen like they did in Fahrenheit. As a result the action sequences appear more intense and involving without you losing the track of action on-screen. Quantic Dream adds a bit more spice to these QTEs by blurring them during situations where the characters are under pressure or tension. Certain QTE sequences involving Norman Jayden, the Triptocaine-addicted FBI agent have QTE commands dazed out when he is on a "high". Sequences involve him (and thus you) fighting to avoid the urge of succumbing to his addiction is another example of this unique, innovative outlook towards QTEs.
Largely known for his "direction" skills, David Cage still amazes during the game's thrilling split-screen set-pieces. He also puts a great deal of importance on camera angles during general conversations adding more excitement and "movie-like" touch to it. Continuing on its aim of presenting decade-old adventure elements in a unique manner, Heavy Rain features a "thought box" which is a rough outlook of the thoughts going in character's minds. Long-time adventuring fans will easily recognize this as an equivalent of "clicking the sprite" to know a character's thoughts in old point-and-click PC adventures. Most of such thoughts are largely related to the current situation the character finds him/herself in while few other thoughts add a bit more into their largely-shallow personalities.
Shallow, you say?
Yes. While Heavy Rain manages to nail the gaming part of "interactive movie" almost perfectly, it's the basic core of adventure games – plot and characters, where it stumbles and in a grand fashion too. To begin with the plot is incredibly weak and shallow. Halfway through the game and few twists through, almost anyone can easily tell who the actual Origami Killer is. For a story that claims to be a "murder/mystery", the mystery element is totally lost by the time you're five hours into the game. For those who're still puzzled, the game throws off few lackluster "decoy elements" and "deus ex machina" along the way to keep you off figuring who the serial killer actually is. These are not enough to hide away the fact that the core mystery is so predictable. The entire charm of a murder/mystery is lost the moment you know who the culprit is. Here it's far before the game wants you.
Apparently the developers have seriously underestimated an average gamers' I.Q or they've totally overestimated their story's capability.
Either way, the plot falls flat on its face and fails to keep you engaged beyond the half-way mark. The dozens of aforementioned "decoys" and "deus ex machina" don't make it easy for the game. As the game moves towards it's end, instead of answering things, the questions keep piling one upon another as ditching logic and simple common-sense (much like it's predecessor Fahrenheit did in it's second half) the game goes for confusing it's gamers. There's almost a moment just before the ending that you actually HOPE Quantic Dream will come out with a grand ending that shocks you and answers all the questions simultaneously.
Unfortunately, there's no such masterstroke and without spoiling anything, I'll just say the ending is a disappointment of epic proportions. For many gamers like me, who got a sense of who's the serial killer long back, the ending won't come as a surprise. Instead you'll be frustrated at the dozens of loopholes and unanswered questions the ending leaves in its wake. The fact that the storyline branches at numerous points doesn't help its cause as well. Many of the endings of say one storyline branch ignore established facts in another branch leaving you as the gamer to ponder which is true and which is false. That unfortunately will remain an unsolved mystery.
Unless you meet an immature ending, the actual ending is largely the same but with variations. The ending was supposedly meant to be poignant and dramatic, but for me the mere "motive" of the serial killer had me going into a face-palm followed by uncontrollable laughter. Suffice to say, if you've watched enough murder/mystery movies, you'll be doing mostly the same by the end.
The fact that much of the main character's personalities are largely two-dimensional doesn't help the game either. Amongst the bunch, Ethan and Madison are easily the weakest. While their introductions in the prologue did establish their background, their personalities are incredibly weak and the trials and tribulations they go through don't draw sympathy from you either. The fact that they're voiced rather poorly by today's gaming standards doesn't help. Just like Lucas-Carla angle in Fahrenheit, Ethan-Madison romantic angle looks terribly forced and unnecessary. When someone is as desperate as Ethan is to save his son, you can't imagine why he would want to get involved with a woman who was a stranger a few moments ago. You can't help but be skeptical about this being Quantic Dream's excuse of adding a sex scene into a game.
That leaves Scott Shelby and Norman Jayden. Both are likeable for large parts of the game. They don't try to be over-dramatic to draw emotions from you cheaply. They just act naturally and you like them for who they are. Unfortunately, much of the game's "emotional quotient" is with Ethan and this meant that at least I never found this game emotionally overwhelming. As mentioned before, the voice acting is largely mediocre having a distinct French and British accents for characters who're supposed to be Americans. The music is pretty efficient choosing to remain minimalist for large parts of the game to emphasize on the game's "noir" style.
Heavy Rain does a brilliant effort in presenting decade-old genre elements in a fresh perspective and unlike its predecessor; it actually combines and executes them effectively this time. Every scene is a visual treat to the eyes and many sequences will involve, engage and thrill you like few other videogames can. Unfortunately, as much as I would love to laud it for its remarkable achievements, Heavy Rain is marred by a highly predictable plot that loses its mystery (and thus its charm) by the time it's half-way through as well as an ending that will make you go in fits of laughter for its sheer cheesiness and goofiness. A story that ditches logic and then goes to great lengths to put you off from guessing its predictable end while ignoring the numerous loopholes it leaves in its trail. Characters draw a mixed response from you-some likeable due to their personalities, others annoying and hate-worthy for their personalities (or their lack of it).
The end result is a game that will entertain and annoy you in equal amounts. Unlike the studio's past titles, Heavy Rain nails the "interactive movie" part almost perfectly. Unfortunately, this "movie" has one predictable storyline. Gaming community, in general is a lot more forgiving than movie-goers towards poor plots and under-developed characters in presence of a better presentation as it has been proved by this game's "universal acclaim". In that sense, Heavy Rain can count itself lucky to be called a "videogame".