Review: Heavy Rain

19 Mar, 2010

Those of you clinically dead or have living under a rock these last few months may not have heard of Heavy Rain. Thankfully, the rest of us have. And now that we’ve all had a few weeks to acquaint ourselves with the twists and turns of the HR universe, what do we really think of the game?

And yeah, I said ‘we’. I said we because everyone and his dog seemed to have picked up Heavy Rain, and with some many differing opinions and comments here at GGS HQ, we figured we’d slam them altogether for you as something of a meta-review. That way you get to seem several different opinions, and we don’t kill each other fighting over who gets to make the review of the year so far. Good, eh?

I shouldn’t have to tell you that there are spoilers ahead. But I’m going to anyway:

THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD PEOPLE!! Read on, and it’s at your own risk etc. etc.

Right, let’s get down to it, shall we?

How does it play?

Sarah J. says: Honestly, I’m not someone that normally gets overly excited about new releases but Heavy Rain was an exception. Like everyone else, I’d played the demo and was itching to get my hands on the full copy to see if it lived up to all of the hype.

I’m going to be brutally honest here – the first two or three chapters had me wondering why on earth I’d forked out the money. The controls felt awkward and the camera angles were dodgy, at best. The first point of real frustration was when Grace asks Ethan to get out the plates. Um… where? You’re shown a quick glimpse of the cupboard they’re kept in but because of the awkwardness of the camera, it took me ages (and several scoldings from Grace) to find them.

To be fair though, once I’d gotten through those first stages, the controls, though still vaguely annoying, didn’t seem so much of a big deal as the story pulled me in.

The action sequences were suitably fast-paced and stressful and I felt a real responsibility towards the characters I was making decisions for.

Steve says: Heavy Rain plays like nothing you’ve seen so far in this Gen. For approximately three billion years, I have been waiting for a sequel to one of my favourite games for the PS2, “Fahrenheit” – or “Indigo Prophecy” if you live in Americaville. At last it finally arrived! Well not really, but it’s the same type of gameplay experience.

This game has been referred to as being an “Interactive Movie”, but I can’t help but feel it’s so much more than just a video with button bashing. The freedom it gives you when making movements changes my opinion of the game completely. Yes, you do just walk up to things and then press buttons or move the right stick while they carry out various tasks, but every single thing you do makes an impact on this story. It really does feel like once again you are cradling the lives of these people in your hands.

I don’t have anything against the Quicktime events in this game at all, primarily because they actually work and respond when you ask them to – you would expect it to after all. I was playing it on the hardest difficulty and, not to sound like I’m having a boast, I managed to only make very few mistakes – one of these mistakes resulted in the death of a main character, but still… only a minor error.

Even the Six-Axis works. This is the first game that incorporates the motion sensing capabilities, that didn’t have me yelling at my controller for making me do the wrong thing or crash a helicopter into the sea – I’m looking at you GTA4…

Vikki says: I’m with Sarah on this. The first two or three chapters? I understood their purpose; I understood that it was supposed to ground me, to help me connect to Ethan and the people he cared about. But initially, pouring Ethan a coffee didn’t do much to enamour me, and I found walking around his weird-ass Ikearific house boring and, if I’m honest, utterly underwhelming. Things brightened up when the wife and kids came home, but then – again like Sarah – I get into a domestic because Grace directs me to pick plates from the living room that are actually in THE DINING ROOM (argh), and the kids are oblivious to me because it took me seven hundred years to figure out how to get out into the garden.

The crux of all my initial issues is the control scheme and the camera angles. The former was clunky and confusing (I still struggle differentiating between the hold-on prompt and the button-mash prompt even after two subsequent playthroughs) and as for the latter . . . well, the number of times I’d accidentally changed direction because of a dodgy camera area are without number. On several occasions I missed QT prompts simply because I couldn’t bloody see them thanks to the angle on the screen. Annoying? Yes. A dealbreaker? No. Although the plotline with holes like swiss cheese just might be. But more on that later …

How does it look and sound?

Sarah J. says: Graphically, the game is stunning. The characters are realistic in their movement and actions and the environments you visit show an amazing amount of detail. The voice acting was flawless and the musical score really added to the mood and atmosphere as the story unfolds.

Steve says: The game looks amazing, I cannot fault it graphics wise, not that I’m fussy about graphics but what can you be critical of? The visuals really set the mood and give you the guidelines of how you are supposed to feel at this point. For example: Ethan standing on his balcony in the summer air during scene one, I honestly felt relaxed, happy and I could almost feel the breeze.

The wide camera angles in the home provide a sense of freedom and happiness in his life, allowing you to see everything around you while you explore. In contrast to this, the Mall scene is still in the bright and serene style of visual, however you pick up a sense of dread and urgency as Jason – or as I call him, Stupid Annoying Kid – walks off on his own into the busy Mall. More toward the end of this scene really because the screen goes blurry round the edges to signify his frantic panic, the camera angle is tightly fastened to Ethan’s back so basically you are limited to exactly what he can see and I can just relate to this so much because I’m sure everyone got lost in a supermarket or somewhere as a child – or is that just me being a Stupid Annoying Kid too?

The rain obviously makes an appearance in this review, usually I find that rain tends to sup the Frame Rate out of games, but this game keeps the frames flowing even when you also have an oil refinery in full swing in the background and a very busy motorway with heavy traffic splashing water.

The sound is mostly great, also a mood setter and provides key ambience to the scene, such as the birds singing and trees rustling during the first scene and the roaring of the traffic and heavy rain when we see “Agent NAAmen Jayden FBI” (as he pronounces it), investigating the crime scene for the first time.

I did pick up on a few annoyances when it came to the sound though. I found that quite a few times the sound would cut completely and then pop back in a second or so later, I’m really not sure why it would do this, but it also tended to do it right after I un-paused the game too. That was mildly irritating during the start of the game, but it either stopped, or I just stopped noticing it later on in the game.

The voice acting… ahh… well again I say it is mostly good: Shelby, Ethan, Madison, Agent NAAmen Jayden FBI and even that slimebag Blake were impressive. Then we move onto the confusing matter of the other less important characters. Why do some of the other characters that aren’t too important have a slightly odd accent in them, even though they are supposed to be American?

If you don’t know what I mean by this, just listen to Lauren. At times she will sound like an all American girl, but the first time you meet her you believe otherwise. She comes to the door and says “It’s Fifty Bucks” but she pronounces it as, “Eet’s feefibucks”, I didn’t give it much thought in the Demo because I figured she was Russian or something, but then I heard her talking American the rest of the time with a slight twinge of other accent in there.

Okay so maybe she can be explained, maybe she is from Russia? Maybe she immigrated with her family as a young child? I’ll go with that yeah. However, at the risk of entering Spoiler town, I wonder about the young Shelby. When you play as him you hear reams of dialogue from both his thoughts and his actual conversation with his brother, I’ve never heard anything like it… He has an American Dad, an American Mum, an American brother and an American older self, but somehow though he sounds like the least American person I think I’ve ever heard in my life – exaggeration I know but I was confused about how they could have casted this voice actor for such a prominent cast member. Infact, I think I would have sussed that the kid was Shelby before it told us, if he hadn’t sounded like Niko Bellic on helium.

Vikki says: This game both looks and sounds delicious. But we knew that. Each screen released in the lead-up surprised me a little more, and if I hadn’t have already owned a PS3, this is the title I would’ve bought it for. With breathtaking attention to detail I haven’t seen since Silent Hill 2, the game effortlessly portrays clean, contemporary living spaces as wonderfully as it does dirty, grimy urban hellholes, and each scene – sunlight or rain-specked – has an innate beauty that is truly staggering. If anything, the dreary rain – whilst undoubtedly acting as a reminder to the horrendous outcome ahead if you don’t act fast enough – adds a beautiful, clear sheen to the environment. As for the character modelling; well, it’s spectacular, even if there is the occasionally awkward gait (seriously: who takes a slow meander through a mall when their kid is missing?). With such a magnificent score that lends a heavy, heartfelt ambience so subtle it’s easy to underestimate how good is really is, it’s incredible how they could’ve got it so fantastically wrong when it came to the voice-acting.

It’s poor. Very poor. GODSMACKINGLY poor. How could a team so committed to cutting-edge visuals and stunning soundtrack let the game be unravelled by such sub-par voice work? No, of course the actors didn’t have to real Americans – but actors who could pull off a convincing American accent would’ve been good . . . not to mention have helped to maintain the immersive experience QD spent pains getting right everywhere else.

Replay Value?

Sarah J. says: It goes without saying that this game has enormous replay value. Each scene has a number of choices that your character can make which impact on what scenarios will follow.

After speaking with other people that have finished the game, I realize that there are quite a few scenes that were left out of my version, and vice versa. Obviously I’m going to have to replay to see if I can get those scenes!

Steve says: I am already on my second playthrough. The first, I tried to play it as I would do in real life, I was nice and showed compassion to the victim’s family etc. But now I am flipping it completely and being a terrible person – “Oh so now your son is dead you’re just going to let all these other kids die? Selfish!” *You have received a trophy, Private eye*… Awesome?

I think this game will have immense replay value, I saw at least ten minutes of completely new dialogue when I said the line above during Shelby’s first meet with Lauren. It just shows you that you could potentially have an entirely different experience from just choosing to press Circle instead of X and I love that. Also there are 22 endings I believe and I do not think I will ever get bored of trying to get them all, because everything I have done so far in my second playthrough has changed what I see entirely – Also for some strange reason I feel the need to get all the trophies in this game… That has never happened before.

Vikki says: Director David Cage said he didn’t want us to play through again. Insisting that, like life, our actions in HR don’t warrant a second chance, he wants us to live with the choices we make. I smell shenanigans. The vast array of interesting, easily-achievable and diametrically-opposed trophies suggest that this game has copious replay value, and even if trophies don’t do it for you, the gazillions of ending scenarios will. Having played through two chapters at the Eurogamer Expo last year I already knew that there were multiple outcomes, but I completely underestimated just how different those outcomes could be. A game where all of the leading characters can die? That has to be worth a replay.

What did you like best?

Sarah J. says: The story – the way it grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go. I enjoyed the involvement I had in the way the story progressed and the feeling of responsibility I felt towards the characters. I liked how my play-though of Heavy Rain is different to yours.

Steve says: I know it may sound odd, but the thing I love most about this game is the choice of cast, they aren’t all Vin Diesel, buffed up Hardmen with tattoos and a renegade attitude, they are just normal people. Ethan, a devoted parent, torn apart by his son’s death. Madison, a Shy, Insomniac Journalist, looking for a story. Shelby, a fat, middle aged Private Investigator and Agent NAAmen Jayden FBI, an FBI agent with an addiction to Tripto and the best virtual reality glasses in the entire world.

These characters make the game what it is. Four normal people being sucked into a situation that’s far beyond anything they have ever encountered. Even the loading screens impress me, the extreme close ups of their faces show blemishes on Agent NAAmen Jayden FBI’s chin, Sun spots on Shelby and enflamed blood vessels in the eyes of sleep deprived Madison. I feel I can relate to these people better because they aren’t super heroes, and I really admire that.

Vikki says: The emotion. It was raw and unflinching and at times utterly unbearable. There were times when I was so torn by the choices before me I didn’t know what to do. It’s been some time since anything – book, film or game – has made me feel sick to the stomach with anxiety like that.

What annoyed you?

Sarah J. says: The controls were the letdown of the game. Even though they are one of the things that sets this game apart from others, the controls can get very repetitive and annoying.

Another pet peeve is that when you are given a number of choices through visual prompts, it’s not obvious what you’re about to do. For me, this contradicted the whole idea behind making your own choices as, in some parts of the game, you are not given enough information and just have to leave it to luck. There was one important incident that I completely screwed up because of this – I thought my character was going to do one thing and he did something else entirely! Oh, the frustration!

Steve says: Aside from the fact that the sound made me make this face, T___T, the only thing I can say that annoyed me was that there are no retries. I know that half the beauty of this game is that it’s true to life in the sense of, if you make a mistake, you live with it Sonny Jim. But I strive for perfection in my games, so if I make a mistake on a Stealth game like “Hitman” and I’m found out, I will restart the level no matter how far I am through it and if I’m killed to pieces down to 1 health in “DOOM 3” I will retry from my last quicksave.
You don’t get this option in Heavy Rain. So on my first playthrough, I was doing so amazingly until one of the main characters died right near the end. I was actually devastated because I had spent all that time saving them from peril and making sure they were there at the end, only to miss one button prompt and have them die in the most pathetic way, right next to the exit.

If you are obsessive about your storylines being perfect then this is a Mood Killer – Even though it annoys me, I still think it’s better with no retries though… if that makes sense?

Vikki says: The plot. It was thinner than rice paper with holes like swiss cheese. Ethan blacks out and comes to with an origami figure in his hand – uh, what? Madison rushes off to the mad doctor’s house to look for Ethan. Um, how did she make that connection again? Maybe it’s the multi-scenarios, but on occasion we reeeeeallly had to stretch believability, and for a game that prides itself on its strong, powerful narrative, this really could’ve been tightened up.

Same for the voice-acting, camera-controls and the clarity of the QT prompts. But I already covered that, right?

I was lucky enough to not have encountered a single glitch, but I’m pissed off on behalf of the people who did experience them.

Does it live up to the Hype?

Sarah J. says: Despite some of it’s shortcomings, I’ll have to say yes. It was unlike any game I’ve ever played. It (for the most part) delivered everything that was promised. Yes, the controls could be annoying at times but the overall experience of the game more than made up for it.

If you own a PS3 you should play it – whether you buy it, rent it or borrow it from a friend, it’s an experience that you shouldn’t miss out on!

Steve says: I believe Heavy Rain lives up to the hype that it generated, I have waited so long for another Fahrenheit style game to be released and after all this time I thought I would be disappointed with the results, but no. It’s an amazing game with a great story and huge replay value, even the initial install sequence teaching you how to make your own Origami Bird is something that adds to the reasons of why I think this game is incredible. The best part by far is that later on in the story, Quantic Dream didn’t turn a seemingly normal plot into a story about aliens and fighting in mid air… That’s right Fahrenheit, I didn’t forget!!!

Vikki says: I’d been waiting for this game. Hell, I’ve been salivating for it. It had me from the moment I saw the artwork of that delicious origami figure with the blood-soaked corner, and the more we saw and heard, and the more information dripped out about the story and gameplay, the more intrigued I became. A week before release, and I was wondering how – and if – the game could possibly be as good as seemed.

I think Cage played a dangerous game. Could he have blown it? Could he have oversold it? I actually think that he very nearly did. Had there been much more press in those last few weeks before release, there’s a chance it would’ve turned me off for good. Hype is one thing – overhype is something completely different.

Was it good? Yes. Was it a good game? Hmmm. Depends upon your definition of what a game is, doesn’t it?

What did you think of Heavy Rain? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.