The casting demo once sent shivers down everyone’s spine, detractors never believed in the power of the PlayStation 3 till Killzone 2 created the sense of war that was oblivious to many action aficionados who had been bred to for Emergence Day. And then came Heavy rain which was touted to invoke such strong emotions that they would truly start feeling for the characters, another feat that was deemed impossible on any other platform.
David Cage is known for weaving adventure masterpieces which was clearly evident with the work that was put into crafting Indigo Prophecy. Instead of looking to divulge into a sequel with next generation technology, Quantic Dreams decided to explore the intricate relationship between a father and son by adding a serial killer twist to it. As exciting as it may be visually, “Heavy Rain” comes across as a truly disappointing title whose plot fails to mesh and the interactive experience that the developers were looking to craft comes half baked in trying to flesh out the emotional narrative.
The game plays through four different viewpoints whose fates are tied up to the dreaded Origami Killer. This elusive psychopath has been murdering victims in the most peculiar manner by killing them and leaving a small origami figurine besides it. As most people may guess these killings have a significance of the title to the game revealed in the course of events that tries to complicate the mystery. Though the plot may have its share of holes in them but the whole sense of connectedness also feels lost in the entire experience. The game follows a dialogue system that has been seen in a lot of adventure games and plays out through what each character is thinking about at that particular moment.
For instance, an argument can be provoked or avoided by the character if the player feels so during a sequence. Now this method works in the process of interacting with the NPCs of the game but more often it feels disjoint. Say a sequence starts with a scripted event labeled as A followed by a choice made by the player labeled as B which results in a scripted sequence C closing the short chapter in the narrative. The problem that arises while portraying such a sequential narrative is that it is completely disjoint. The action that the player has chosen in B has no co-relation to the scripted sequence C. It only ties up in a miniscule manner somewhere as a part of the larger story. In the initial few sequences of the game this disjunction is not so apparent but as the game progresses trying to balance out multiple characters at the same time this problems starts to become apparent.
Serial killers are clichéd subjects to depict in a video-game, the only way they have been showcased is being psychotic and ultraviolent. Rarely do we come across a serial killer who probably has a normal life which was scarred due to some incident in the past. Though this may sound like a description for Showtime’s Dexter, this is exactly what David Cage and Co wants you to think when involving you with Heavy Rain. This does work to a fair portion of the game but it starts to fall apart with differing narratives making the experience loose and leeward instead of being tight and engaging. Essentially Heavy Rain is QTE marathon fest, every inch of the game is laced with small events which require the player to mash a few buttons timely to complete a segment within it. This can be as basic as getting up from a chair, taking a shower or as complicated as performing a pole dance. Most of the sequences work absolutely fine with the PS3 controller but the ones which require the player to move his controller up and down/left and right feel a bit off the mark. We inevitably used to struggle with every sequence which required us to perform these specific movements.
Now the jaw dropping visuals are not quite ‘jaw dropping’. Only the central protagonists have an ostentatious amount of detail applied onto them, everything else that is present in the game looks dull and boring. These include animation movements for NPC characters and their facial expressions which look stiff than being animated from any angle. Graphical whores who will want to see the amount of polygons put into each character model can do so at the beginning of every characters narrative where the face of each character they are about to engage with is shown up close. Most of the models looks eerily similar to each other. We mean Ethan looks a lot like Madison who shares a lot of similarities with Norman Jayden, the FBI agent. The only character model which is truly worth an applause is that of Shelby, the old man looks and feels like no other middle age character in a video game seen till date. His flabby skin and wrinkles are detailed in such a manner that one may actually believe into bumping into a real life individual like him someday.
The rest of the game is full of flat texture work, inconsistent lighting effects and frame rate issues that make the game chug. These frame rate chugs are often witnessed in any scene that has more than three characters on screen as the same time which is really a shame considering that no other systems are actually a part of the game. The game also feels a bit coarse in English, it looks as if the game was designed with an foreign language in mind which also prevents communicating the emotional idea to the player concerned. The sound used is above average and the melancholy of the sad and depressing tune does will start to get on your nerves after a point in time.
The Final Word: This game suffers from mediocrity complex. If players recall the glorious experience they had with the Longest Journey and expect a similar experience to chart out in Heavy Rain, they are bound to be disappointed. Even Indigo Prophecy was a much better adventure/drama game that Heavy Rain is. This one is full of fluff with very little substance. In case you are dying to play an adventure game get hold of Quantic Dreams previous efforts on any digital distribution or give a shot to Longest Journey and its sequel.
Graphics: 7/10.
Gameplay: 5/10.
Sound: 7/10.
Budget Pocket: 4/10.
Overall (not on an average): 6/10.