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dkirschner's Heavy Rain (PS3)
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| [May 23, 2014 09:01:00 PM]
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Heavy Rain reminds me a lot of Indigo Prophecy, which makes sense as it’s another Quantic Dream game. But that’s both good and bad because like Indigo Prophecy, Heavy Rain was damn cool for at least ½ the game before spinning out of control into some nonsense by the time it ends. At least Heavy Rain didn’t delve into the supernatural, so the nonsense of Heavy Rain is only due to the branching storyline and the super lame twist about who the killer is. Writing this will be difficult because I want to explain why I think what I do about the killer, but I don’t want to provide spoilers…so I’ll just be vague and/or quiet.
So the controls are mostly great. I loved the interactive movie-ness that they created. You must move the right stick in certain directions and patterns, and press and tap buttons in sequences or like QTEs or context commands in order to interact with objects. So like a half-arc turns water faucets and characters will splash their faces or wash their hands, pushing up will pick things up, tapping triangle when prompted may make a character force open a door and so on and so forth. It sounds boring to talk about, but in the game it works really well and is very engaging. The movements are often quite naturalistic. I liked both the mundane aspects of the game, like exploring rooms, and the action sequences. The controls and the actions that you perform, between the mundane things and the more action packed things reminded me of a hilarious mix between LA Noire and Octodad (sometimes characters were almost that difficult to control. I don’t know why you just can’t move with the left stick like every other game).
You can also hold L2 to get options to hear characters’ thoughts. This was had the weird outcome of causing all the characters to seem scattered and confused. As you push all the buttons to hear their thoughts in a situation, for example, as you’re wandering around your apartment, you may hear like, “I am thirsty. I should get something to drink,” “I have to pee. I should go to the bathroom,” “My wife will be home soon. I should get some work done,” “Oh no, I was supposed to wash the dishes,” “I wonder if my son is having fun at his birthday party,” etc. All these random thoughts always make characters sound scatter-brained or schizophrenic or something, like they’ve always got a million conflicting things going on in their heads. I didn’t like it. It’s worse in the tense scenarios because, for example, you’re running from the cops and the character will think, “Gotta keep running,” and “I should just turn myself in,” and “It sure is raining hard outside,” and “I’m so tired from running!” and “I wonder if Madison got away,” and “Shaun! Where is Shaun!” Like 10 different random often contradicting things always going through their minds!
So the big part of the game of course is the narrative. Overall, very cool. I liked the murder mystery, the 4 playable main characters, their particular jobs and types of interactions and interwoven storylines. Despite all I didn’t like about the game and the story, I have to say that it was really neat. One thing I disliked about the story was all the Saw-like nonsense going on, like the killer laying sadistic traps. How the killer got SD cards through an electrical grid or scattered glass in air ducts for you to have to crawl through, or how the GPS knew Ethan was driving on the wrong side of the road, or how the killer recorded the voice in the GPS in the car that had been in the garage 2 years ago…and a bunch of other weird omnipresent and omniscient killer stuff. Oh and other Saw things like you have to cut off your finger, inject yourself with poison…Right.
I guess one thing that is sad about Ethan’s plight is that after going through each trial, the SD card is usually somewhere he could have found it without going through the trial. Like after he shoots the drug dealer (or whatever happens if you don’t shoot him), the SD card is in the gun. After he drives down the wrong side of the road, the SD card is in the glove compartment accessible with a key in the GPS. After he chops his finger off, turns out the SD card was under a loose floorboard. If he were calm enough to take apart his environment, he’d probably find some of the SD cards without shooting a man or chopping his finger. I felt bad for him.
After completing the game (and my girlfriend was watching me play most of the time and was really interested in the outcome), we went online and looked up all the various endings and things that could happen to different characters. I was surprised at how many endings there were, and I was also surprised that there was only one real killer. Since I really thought it was someone else, I was sure there would be an ending where that someone else was the killer, but in fact, there is only one, although that someone else can be jailed for it. I was also surprised to learn that, for example, hiding in the refrigerator in the burning apartment building was a legitimate way to survive the explosion and escape the building. I hid in the fridge as a joke.
Anyway, interesting stuff, worth a look.
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dkirschner's Heavy Rain (PS3)
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Current Status: Finished playing
GameLog started on: Sunday 4 May, 2014
GameLog closed on: Saturday 10 May, 2014 |
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