(originally published in Brazilian Portuguese in https://www.gamerview.com.br/reviews/heavy-rain)
Heavy Rain is a punch to the guts of conventional narrative. A punch to the guts where you need to hold the two mouse buttons and push down while pressing W or S or Left Shift, but still a well punched punch in that thing we usually understand as a game or multimedia story.
Following the view of four different characters in interlocking chapters, Quantic Dream invites the player to an experiment that had everything to revolutionize the way we view electronic games, but is hampered by weird design choices and immersion problems.
“Jason! Jason ?! Jason !!”
As soon as the game starts, we control a man in his underwear at his house and in the next twenty minutes we will go through situations that do not usually appear on our PC (or PlayStation at the time of its launch). Controlling Ethan Mars, we will wave the mouse to drink milk right in the box, take a hot shower, pee, put the dishes on the table or even play with the children. While this latter action is a breath of creativity and lightness that could inspire other games, Quantic Dream’s obsession with other interactions is questionable.
The weirdness of Heavy Rain happens again in a pivotal moment of the narrative. It’s no spoiler anymore, nine years after the release on the PlayStation 3, to reveal that one of Ethan’s children will disappear at the beginning of the game. The cries of “Jason? Jason!” became a meme and were incorporated into the imagery of electronic games, while poor Ethan tries not to lose sight of the boy in a crowded mall. It is a moment that distresses any parent who has ever gone through a similar situation or had nightmares about it, or anyone who has been on the opposite side of the coin and gotten lost from their parents in the supermarket. However, this is also a moment that distressed me in the sense that I literally managed to position my Ethan on Jason’s side and yet the character insisted on claiming for a son that the game was doomed to get lost. This kind of interaction breaks the immersion, you feel shame for the developers, a sensation that will regretfully set the tone of various parts of the game.
This illustrative anecdote is a synthesis of the strength and weakness of Heavy Rain. The title of Quantic Dream is not afraid to tinker with adult themes and fears typical of parenthood, while building a plot of suspense and tragedy that holds the player in the chair. On the other hand, design flaws insist on emptying the impact of some scenes and remind us at all times that we are facing a game, which tries at all costs to distance itself from the language of cinema and to justify itself as an interactive experience. The impression we get is one of insecurity of the developers.
Each of the four characters in Heavy Rain, the desperate Ethan Mars, FBI agent Norman Jayden, journalist Madison Paige and private detective Scott Shelby, is magnificently rendered, with an extraordinarily detailed close-up of their faces functioning as a loading screen. This obsession with realism does not just translate into impressive graphics and motion capture, but it is also present in the relatively well detailed personality of these characters and their motivations.
Ethan oscillates between intensity and lethargy, like a father shocked by the tragedy that must act to avoid something worse. Norman Jayden has an authority and a knowledge that he can not prevail in front of a rotten police system. Madison Paige demonstrates the courage and the fiber to go as far as she needs to help, even if she is dragged into the mystery by chance. In turn, Scott Shelby also has its flaws and goes from one end to the other, from the good Samaritan to a truculent risk to those who stand in his way.
Their four stories will intersect and Heavy Rain is prepared not to put any of them at the center of the narrative. Officially, each is disposable and the history can continue even if the player causes death or imprisonment of one of them. In fact, it is impossible to complete the game with the four living and the outcome will be determined by the decisions of the player, for good or evil. The player needs to decipher the mystery of Origami Killer, a serial killer who kidnaps children and drowns them, and time is running out for Ethan’s second son, Shaun Mars, held by the psychopath.
Interactivity at any cost
David Cage, the all-powerful designer of the Quantic Dream, is a visionary. Since Omikron — Nomad Soul, the developer’s first title, he seeks to break down barriers between real life, gaming and cinema. On the one hand, we have angles and atmospheres that seek a parallel with the films. Here we have mocking visions of the conventional gaming camera, split screens for side events, rain acting as a ubiquitous element that evokes Ridley Scott’s work in the 1980s and 1990s (and Heavy Rain served as propaganda for the graphics power of the PlayStation 3). On the other hand, we have the “gamification” of gestures and actions typical of daily life, in an attempt sometimes genial, sometimes pathetic, to reinvent the quicktime events and redefine what is expected of an adventure.
In his great moments, Heavy Rain will force the player to save a woman from suicide, take care of various injuries, cut a finger off, play seesaw, drive against the counter and fight extremely fluid body combats with mouse movements or keys pressed at the moment right. At other times, the player will wonder what the function of changing a baby’s diaper, heating a food in the microwave or climbing a muddy gully is in the grand scheme of things. Certain interactions seem to be there just to lengthen the duration of the game or to test how far it was possible to go in that search for interactivity.
There’s no way you can not smile when you see the happiness in the eyes of a digitally flawless child when you make him “fly” around your shoulders. It is not every game that provides something at this level of casual intimacy. On the other hand, I found myself wondering why my character needs to press two buttons on the mouse to have a coffee and how it is possible to err on something you should do in a daily basis.
I have not had the experience of playing Heavy Rain on consoles, but I can attest that the commands on the PC are alien. At crucial times, when a character’s life was at stake, I found myself holding the mousepad with one hand so he would not move, while using my other hand to wiggle the mouse at the speed or pace required by the situation. Elsewhere, I was frustrated that I could not do things as simple as opening a door.
Strange Valley
Going back to the game’s graphics, they bring a verisimilitude that flirts with the nuisance. It’s hard to believe that Heavy Rain is nearly a decade old. However, this proximity to the real has a price: the gaze is distracted by the inaccurate movements of the mouths and the ears suffer from the inconsistent interpretation of the actors. I’m still undecided if part of Norman Jayden’s personality weakness influenced the actor or whether the actor’s monotonous job influenced my perception of the character.
These clashes between the real and the unreal break the immersion contract. Despite the dedicated motion capture performed by Quantic Dream, which allows for impressive combats using interactive scripts, it is not possible to predict all variables and often the characters look like “Robocops” on the scene, with the body going in one direction while the head goes to another, or pose in uncomfortable postures awaiting a player intervention. For an adventure (?) that is intended so revolutionary, in many scenes the protagonists behave like Guybrush Threepwood, looking statically at the infinite.
Despite so many flaws in its gameplay aspects, sure for being a so daring goal of the developer, Heavy Rain is an unforgettable experience, a must-have for anyone who wants to get out of the usual from other electronic games. This sensation is amplified by the masterful soundtrack that surrounds the player from beginning to end, without directly interfering in the narrative, but acting precisely as a moderator of feelings.
Regardless of the end you get, Heavy Rain will hit you hard in the guts. Questions will go unanswered, such as Ethan’s lapses in memory or Madison’s ability to always be in the right place at the right time, and the epilogue starts threads for a sequel that will never exist. Still, in this city ravaged by crime and incessant rain, you will contemplate David Cage’s ambition and yearn for his next works, Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human.
