Review: Heavy Rain

A Noble Quest Gone Unfathomably Awry

I’m going to start this review off with a simple, embarrasing admission. I’ve recently played Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2. While I thought both games were fantastic, both shared a common, unfortunate trait: an extreme dearth in the nipple department. Through sexy burlap boob-togas or futuristic kennels for galactic sweater-puppies, the love scenes in these games were approximately as spicy as a trip to the Old People Buffet(tm). So it was, after finishing Mass Effect 2, that I found myself looking for another game to play. Heavy Rain had just come out, and I’d been hearing two things about it. One, it was supposed to have an absolutely incredible amount of story and character development in it. Two, I was promised boobs. Lots of boobs. I was sold. Mostly because of the boobs. It’s not like I’ve never seen or do not have occasional access to actual boobs. There is simply a certain happy place that my inner 15 year old goes to when I cause computer generated boobs to appear. Even when they are barely recognizable.

Upon purchasing and loading the game into my PS3, my first thought was that it looked rather like Playstation Home. Everything was bright and cheery. The guy I was controlling, Ethan, looked and sounded kind of vapid and mild, and I was doing a lot of useless crap (which was fine, it was the “tutorial” part of the game). That being said, it was kind of relaxing. I had two sons, one of whom had a birthday that day, and I was helping my wife set up for the party and playing with the kids in the backyard. Supposedly he was turning 10, but he seemed quite a bit younger. I can’t remember my dad carrying me on his shoulders and giving me airplane rides when I was 10. (Then again, I was about 150 pounds when I was 10.) That aside, it was sweet and happy. I had a nice job, great kids, and a hot wife who didn’t want to have sex until later because there was way too much stuff to get ready. Life was good, but I did want to get poor Ethan laid.

In the next scene, we’re shopping at the mall, where one of Ethan’s kids promptly runs off. I run around trying to find him, and the experience is real enough to me that I almost have a freaking anxiety attack. I’m suspecting that since this part in the game, something crappy is about to happen. I am right, but I am utterly unprepared for the sheer magnitude of the dump that life is about to take on Ethan. I chase him around in a huge crowd, barely missing him several times until I see him walk outside. I run for the door and emerge from the door only to find him already across the street, which is quite busy. He is so happy to see me that he bolts back across the street toward me, right into the path of a speeding car. I try to save him, but I’m too late. He dies, and I’m in a coma for awhile.

Then it gets even happier!

Fast forward two years. Your beautiful wife has left you, you live in a shitty apartment, and your remaining son is distant and doesn’t really like being around you anymore. To drive home how crappy your life is now, you get to spend the evening with your son while he tries to watch TV to avoid talking to you. You also get to prepare a microwave dinner for him and make him do his homework. All the while, Ethan is sulking and flopping around his house like some kind of moping savant. Sadness is dripping off every surface in the apartment. The potatoes in your son’s crappy microwave dinner have been marinated in it.

Then things get really bad. Yes, really. It gets worse. Your only surviving progeny gets kidnapped by a serial killer. Everybody thinks you did it. Including you. Ethan can pretty much win any thread on FMyLife.com at this point without even trying, and I’d been playing the game less than a half hour. Holy shit.

In short, I came into this wanting to see boobs, and Quantic Dream gave me an advanced parental worst-case scenario simulator. I wanted to go wake up my real-life son and hug him until my arms fell off. At the time, I was seriously wondering if I could make it through the rest of this game. There comes a point for me when something catastrophically bad happens in a game, and I either choose to quit or to single-mindedly play the game until I’ve seen the in-game bastard responsible pay for his crimes. The first time I experienced this was Aerith’s death in FFVII. The second was Nanami’s death in Suikoden II. This was worse than both. And by the gods, I was not about to give up this time. Thus began a week of Very Little Sleep.

I am pleased to say it was worth it.

And Now, The Rest Of The Review (Now With 75% Less Panic Attacks!)

Gameplay in Heavy Rain comes in two flavors: walking around and manipulating objects at your own pace, and QTE action sequences. There’s a little bit of a learning curve, as you use the R2 trigger button to walk, the left stick to look around, and the right to perform actions. When the symbol for a button or motion appears, you do what it says to perform an action of some kind. It gets easier with time, though I can’t say I found it particularly intuitive at any point. The developers seemed to relish making you perform mundane everyday tasks in their interface. I found myself doing everything from making scrambled eggs to changing a baby. It was a little tedious at times, but it did help immerse me in my environment. The action sequences are where this interface really shines, partially because they deliberately don’t make it easy for you. The fight sequences are intense, and (depending on how well you do) can get pretty long – but never boring. There are no health bars here, you just keep going until something happens. If you need to dodge or block, a little icon for what you’re supposed to do appears on the incoming threat (and may be shaking if your character is freaked out), and most of the time it’s moving quickly enough that your brain needs a few extra processing cycles and you’re prone to messing up just from mental overload. I’ve been in martial arts for most of my life, and I was impressed at this game’s ability to capture the feeling of mentally shorting out under attack. Part of it is that there’s no ninja whirlwind kicks or swords or any other fantasy combat going on. It’s about real people, most of which who don’t know anything about fighting, trying to survive an attack. It’s riveting, and the way it’s handled feels much more satisfying than doing a QTE sequence in a game like Shenmue or God of War. One thing I didn’t care for, though, was that occasionally they would put the camera at some awful arbitrary angle for effect. While they may have been trying to do this to simulate your character’s fear and confusion, if I’m two feet away from my goal and you suddenly switch the camera in such a way that I wind up getting lost it pisses me off. Fortunately, this doesn’t happen often.

The story, though it kicks you in the emotional nutsack in the first hour, delivers. There are a few little plot holes here and there, but nothing too serious. You play four characters in this game, and for the most part they are believable. Everybody has flaws, and you’ll frequently find yourself choosing between what’s “right” and what you “have to do”. You’ll see the occasional stereotype pop up, particularly in FBI Agent Jayden’s asshole partner, but it never goes too over the top. Even better, the story can change drastically between playthroughs depending on what you do. It was a lot of fun finishing the game and then talking to my friends who had also finished the game, comparing our experiences – which, I might add, were drastically different. Even in playthroughs where all 4 main characters lived, how things ended up between our stories didn’t even resemble each other. I’m not sure exactly how far you can diverge from the in-game storyline, but given that your characters can die, I would assume pretty far depending on when a particular character bites it. As it was, I found myself playing an entirely different character for the climax of the story than my two friends, and it made sense for how my story progressed.

One minor thing that bothered me about the game was the voice acting, though not in the usual “it sounds like they’re mindlessly reading off cue cards” kind of way. It was like their localization team didn’t bother to consult anyone when they did the English version of the game. Don’t get me wrong, they did a decent job. It’s just that most of the characters had a very noticeable French accent, except for private eye Scott Shelby (played beautifully by Sam Douglas), who spoke like a full-blooded Yankee. I’m not quite sure where the story is supposed to be set. Matter of fact, the setting was fairly vague other than it being in an urban area. Now, I’m not usually one to complain about an accent. I understand that here in America, we are extremely myopic about language, and if you’re going to be here you oughta speak AMERICAN. I’m just impressed people learn a second language, much less the official language of NASCAR. But, I digress. At times during the game, it got to the point where the voice actor knew how to deliver the line emotionally, but it was like they were tripping over the language. The fact that it was delivered well kept my suspension of disbelief in check, but just barely. When a woman looks at you and says “how would you feel if your son’s body was found in a wasteland?”, my first impulse is to ask if there had been a nuclear war I didn’t know about. Then I ask the woman if she needs to go to hospital. It’s a minor thing, but in a game that works best when the player is immersed in the environment, little speed bumps mean a lot. I wish they’d hired all British or American voice actors for the English version, or at least had an American guy around to go “that sounds funny where I come from”. At the very least, make it consistent. I’m curious to know what Scott sounds like in the French version.

The graphics for this game range from decent to completely amazing, mostly depending on the use of lighting. Brightly-lit characters in this game show their flaws, and they look flat. Light them dimly and introduce some smoke or rain, though, and I found myself occasionally forgetting I wasn’t watching real humans. Also, after recounting the bitter fruits of my quest for videogameboobs above, I would be remiss if I did not mention that I eventually did receive my just reward. Playable character Madison Paige offers you at least three opportunities for such things in-game, and they are wonderful as they are a virtual approximation of the assets of British model Jacqui Ainsley. I don’t know who was responsible for Madison’s butt-physics, but I want to make sure this person is nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Heavy Rain Is Well Worth The Emotional Trauma

All said, I think my favorite thing about this game was the level to which it sucked me in when it counted. There were several chase and fight scenes where the game grabbed me by the face and wouldn’t let go. Like, heavy-breathing-and-butt-on-the-edge-of-the-seat engaged in what was going on. it occurred to me that if I was watching an identical sequence in a movie, I’d probably be kind of bored – but this game makes it exciting. The music and the visuals and the pacing were all laser-targeted to make you extremely invested in what might have otherwise been another mediocre copycat QTE gameplay experience. If you’re looking to find a reason to play Heavy Rain, this is it. I’ve never quite experienced its like. I want to again. It has a few rough edges, but they are absolutely not worth passing up playing this game.