I saw many, many games last week at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Most of them impressed me in one way or another – some with great visuals, others with unique gameplay — but Heavy Rain is an entirely different beast, simply because I would not define Heavy Rain as a game.
I’ll try not to delve to deeply into the connotations of the word game, generally used to describe play or sport, but let me say this: Heavy Rain is not your typical “video game.” This new experience is better described as interactive cinema, but that, too, is misleading; Heavy Rain is not simply “playing a movie.” No, it is unlike anything that came before it, except perhaps Indigo Prophecy (also known as Farenheit), Quantic Dream’s previous project. While the technology powering Indigo Prophecy wasn’t powerful enough to fully realize Quantic Dream’s valiant goals, the PlayStation 3 is a prime platform for Heavy Rain, and the only console capable of meeting the company’s grand ambitions.
“Hold on,” you say, “that sounds great, but what exactly is Heavy Rain?” Heavy Rain is a psychological thriller that asks players a complex question: “How far will you go to save someone you love?”
Indeed, I’ve provided more questions than answers, as did the title’s E3 09 demo. In the demo, I stepped into the waterlogged shoes one of the game’s four deeply developed characters, Norman Jayden. Norman, an FBI agent with a drug addiction, was, in this scenario, looking for a junkyard rat known as Mad Jack. You see, Jackie-boy had some info on a serial killer — nicknamed The Origami Killer — that Norman needed, prompting him to head down to the scrap yard to dig up some dirt.
In a short cinematic, Norman’s car pulled into the bleak and dismal junkyard, and then stopped. The camera shots changed every few seconds, all focused on the car, but nothing was happening. Confused, I waited another five seconds. Still nothing. It was then that I spotted a small prompt on the screen – a round-edged square with an arrow pointing right within it. A rightward flick of the right analog stick later, and Norman had opened that car door. It wasn’t a cinematic at all; this was how Heavy Rain looked and played. Clearly, this was no ordinary game.
Norman, arms crossed in a torrent of rain, stood outside the car. To walk forward, I held down R2, and Norman began to amble across the scrap yard. As I held down L2, various thoughts and emotions, all mapped to the face buttons, floated slowly around his torso. By pressing one of the buttons, Norman voiced his thoughts on that subject.
Guillaume de Fondaumière, the Co-CEO of Quantic Dream and Executive Producer of Heavy Rain, explained that at any time, a characters’ emotions can be seen in this manner; it’s how the branching dialogue and action works. The system is, in essence, a slick replacement for a menu or HUD (heads up display). There’s a twist, however: as a character gets more and more stressed, the words become blurry and shaky, making quick decisions dangerous – just like in real life. You will often, however, be forced to act quickly in perilous scenarios.
After a branching but unproductive discussion with Mad Jack, it was time to do some snooping around. With a rotation of the analog stick — again, every action is context sensitive — Norman donned his ARI (Augmented Reality Interface) glasses. This transformed the scene into something straight out of CSI. After examining a few objects, I found a blood trail on the floor, which led to an acid bath with a skull in it.
Before I could make another move, a shiny, metallic gun barrel probed the back of Norman’s head. This began the “gameplay” portion of the demo. As Norman grappled with Mad Jack for control of the situation, I partook in a series of quicktime events. These segments are fast and furious – mess up one too many times, and it’s all over; you’re dead. That carries an incredible amount of weight, because, when a character dies in Heavy Rain, he or she is gone forever. The story simply goes on, albeit altered. Fondaumière refused to elaborate, but insisted that there are no “game overs” in Heavy Rain, even if all four characters die.
Initially, I was successful in stopping Jack from murdering Norman. I subdued Jack, and intimidated him with a few gunshots, which made him divulge information he refused to reveal earlier. Then, while all seemed to be going well, Norman’s drug problem kicked in and I passed out, much to Jack’s delight and amusement.
I awoke in a car, handcuffed to the steering wheel, heading slowly but surely into a massive grinder. A crane, visible in a separate camera shot at the bottom of the screen, was bringing me to certain death. Another group of quicktime events was initiated, and I was able to kick open the glove box, retrieve a gun, shoot the cuffs, and dive out of the car just in time to survive. Mad Jack, however, wasn’t too pleased with my daring escapade, and intended to eliminate me. Much to my disappointment, he did just that – I botched one too many of the prompts during combat, and the situation ended with Jack pulling my unconscious body through the pools of rainwater, laughing maniacally.
I was informed that this outcome was just one of many that could have resulted from the demo. Some different actions might have had a minor impact on the scenario, while others could drastically affect the entire narrative and the world as a whole.
When I finished my hands-on time with Heavy Rain, I sat there dumbstruck, jaw firmly on the floor. Admittedly, it sounds less convincing in writing, but that’s understandable – in an experience as immersive, graphically stunning, and unique as Heavy Rain, nothing short of playing it yourself will do. Until then, trust me when I say that Heavy Rain is, without a doubt, the most exciting title I had the opportunity to play at E3 2009.