I finally played Heavy Rain after months of reading about it in various online publications. I started and ended the game feeling...weird. Not that this hasn't been written about, but the level of realism present makes the game feel creepy. Since the early days of games, pixels and computer graphics acted as representations of people and places. Even as graphics have advanced and become more realistic, there is still a representational element - still a clear limitation that detaches the characters from real humans. Here, the characters, rather than serving as representations people, are more like a brand of pseudo-human, looking near-photo-realistic, but moving and acting clunky, wooden and bizarre. This leaves the player with an icky feeling of simulation. I feel like I'm in some sort of zombie Matrix, where humans have been replaced with robots acting like humans (which, I guess, since it's a computer game, is what the characters actually are).
The tense, intended-to-be-emotive music and the uber-suburban setting/plot aren't helping either. The house where the game starts seems ripped off of the set of a poorly designed drama for young adults who want some sort of teenage-dream of cool penthouse-for grownups.
The game's controls, arguably the central element, are a mixed bag. They don't really stray that far from quick-time, FMV games like Dragon's Lair, but the objectives are different. The game has the player press a series of buttons for any number of mundane actions - tooth brushing, door opening, sitting down, etc. The idea, I imagine, is to create a sense of immersion - you can do anything, not just exciting things. However, much of the time, the game forces you to act out these mundane actions. It has a certain novelty, but winds up making the control scheme feel more like work than fun. Especially when you are literally doing the character's work. The game, of course, builds to allow the player to do more exciting things, but small details like pulling money out of a wallet or locking the door are still required. I would be more forgiving if this level of detail actually gave the player freedom to do anything, or even a large number of things, but much of the time, I was wandering around in whatever room or setting I was placed, waiting for an icon to show up indicating that I could do something. What is intended to be immersive, again winds up feeling bizarre.
Things do get better in the control department, however. The action sequences are are some of the most suspenseful I've played, but these sequences get repetitive as well (another mysterious stranger enters, gets in a fight with the protagonist, who must utilize any number of found objects until the stranger gets away.) Overall though, they are well done and are perhaps the most effective part of the game. Still, for a game so heavily built around the ideas of immersive storytelling and moral choices, why are the fight scenes the only parts that are engaging?
This brings us to the story and cinematics. Heavy Rain has been described as having "intriguing plot twists" and a narrative that rivals that of "any" (ANY!?) Hollywood movie. IGN named it Game of the Year for 2010 and described it as "a thriller that had just about everyone on the edge of their seats." I don't know what game these critics were playing or what movies they've seen, but I think when people say that Heavy Rain's story is up there with the best of Hollywood, what they mean is that it feels like a piece of TV or film drama - in other words, its story is, shall we say, of the cinema. This does not make it the best. I'd place it somewhere near the level of I STILL Know What You Did Last Summer. It's incredibly cheesy and horrendously directed. I can't imagine sitting through this as a movie, let alone proclaiming it the best, or even good. And why...WHY...does dramatic music swell up randomly every 4 minutes. I just picked up a pencil. DA-DA-Duuuuuum! I just walked to the other side of the room and sat at the computer. DA-DA-Duuuuuuum! The music has little sense of purpose, and the moments when the music is well-suited to the situation are sullied by the fact that so often, the same music is playing with little to no purpose.
Since I've just went on a long rant about my complaints about the game, I'd like to take a step back and look at it a little more dispassionately. It's hard not to say that it's not impressively ambitious and, in some ways, innovative. Its success will hopefully inspire more develops to at least invest in a higher quality of writing and story, even if this game failed in those departments (in my opinion). Heavy Rain, if it has any impact on development, will likely move games in a direction that I don't like- towards a more narrative, film-mimicking approach. To my mind, this is not what games are good at doing and I believe developers should be looking for ways to exploit user control to create unique experiences only available through games. Still, that's just me. For narrativists, this may be just the game they are hoping for, what Flower is to me: a game that strives in just the right way to push all of gaming in a more serious and thoughtful direction.
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