Heavy Rain has a lot of talk before going out especially from the
critics. Five years is the time that was granted Quantic Dream to get
his new creation after the excellent Fahrenheit. The opportunity to
change course of history, but also console, Heavy Rain is one of the
first PlayStation 3 exclusives of 2010. Narrative feat for some, denial
of video games for others, this heir of Fahrenheit left no one
indifferent in its development and the ambitions of its creator may
have helped push up the sauce. Developed by French studio Quantic
Dream, the title is halfway between cinema and video game, a mixture of
genres difficult to achieve, we suggest you explore. Highlighting the
immersion and emotion, David Cage multiplies the winks to film his
models by giving us an interactive story based on not only a tragedy
but also the reactions of its virtual actors. But beyond the promises
and rhetoric that is really what the title both in form and in
substance? Here is an opinion among many others having the ambition
that opened the door to a new vision of video game.
Very much inspired by many cinematic thrillers and TV series, the plot
of Heavy Rain will immerse you in a race against time following March
Ethan trying to save his son kidnapped by the origami killer. Together,
Madison Paige, journalist, Normal Jayden, FBI profiler, and Scott
Shelby, private detective, conducting the same survey. Their fates will
intertwine to reveal progressively as the ins and outs.The first
four-day challenge will suck you into the fracturing mind of a nascent
killer. You need to know your prey to catch him. Keep your eyes open,
even as his malign influence starts to impossibly spread… and most
important of all, don’t fall under his spell…
The second challenge is where you start helping. Detecting. Protecting.
Collecting and analysing evidence. Using your brain. Building a
profile. Talking to witnesses. Using subtlety, tact, imagination. The
killer must be found. You can be an important part of that. So don’t
mess up. The third and final challenge is the endgame. If you’ve proved
your worth, you’ll be propelled to the highest levels of the
investigation. But to succeed, you’ll need to re-enter the killer’s
psyche. Gaze into that abyss again. You’ll need to break all the rules
to find your suspect. There are multiple suspects. Which one is guilty?
Make your decision, and live with the consequences. Because in the end,
it’s your call. The clouds are gathering. The sky is darkening. The
rain is about to fall…
Characters:
Ethan Mars:
Ethan Mars is a young architect, living on the east coast of America.
Two years ago, he lost his eldest son in a car accident that left him
in a coma. Once a successful and happy family man, Ethan is now
grief-stricken and depressed; separated from his wife, and distant from
his other son, Shaun. Still suffering from the after-effects of the
accident, Ethan is thrown into a nightmare when he discovers that Shaun
may become the next victim of the Origami Killer. He will be forced to
confront just how far he is prepared to go to rescue his son – and in
doing so, he may be able to finally find redemption from the guilt and
grief he feels.
Madison Page:
Madison Paige is a young photographer, living alone in the city.
Suffering from crippling insomnia and nightmares, she often finds
herself checking into local motels for the night – seemingly the only
place she can rest and relax. Though she has no apparent connection
with the Origami Killer case, she will soon find herself unexpectedly
drawn into the investigation; when she does, she will show courage and
commitment, placing herself in great danger to find out the truth.
Norman Jayden:
Norman Jayden is a dedicated and thorough FBI profiler, sent into this
unfamiliar city to support the police force with their investigation
into the Origami Killer. Jayden specialises in utilising an
experimental device called ARI (‘Added Reality Interface’), which
allows him to investigate crime scenes and analyse evidence in a unique
way. With the local cops resentful of both his methods and his very
presence, he struggles urgently to piece together the evidence before
it is too late, and another victim is discovered.
Scott Shelby:
Scott Shelby, 45 years old, is a former cop who turned private
investigator after 20 years with the local police department. Two
decades on the streets have left him tough and cynical, but despite his
sometimes hard demeanour, he has a sense of honour and compassion that
shines through under pressure. Shelby has been hired by the families of
previous victims of the Origami Killer, and he is now conducting a
parallel investigation into the case, searching for clues and leads
that the authorities may have missed.
Walkthrough:
Unfortunately as many games for PlayStation 3 Heavy Rain begins with
the installation rather lengthy data on the hard drive of the console.
This break is forced, however, used to put the player involved, since
it can either let the console is running with him along a little
tutorial for creating origami. Origami is a techniques of paper folding
with which some artists manage to recreate various forms. An origami,
there are also a very gifted in Heavy Rain because it is the serial
killer around which the entire set of Quantic Dream revolves. Killer
origami has been used for several years to let one of his creations in
the hands of his victims. These are indeed numerous enough for a
private detective and an FBI agent embark on his trail, in addition to
all local police forces. Just remember that the four characters, so
Ethan, but the old Shelby Scott Detective Norman Jayden super FBI agent
Paige and Madison photographer insomniac leave their own ways to solve
the mystery of the killer who shortened the suffering of its victims by
drowning in the rain.The goal is simple: move in an environment and
interact with him. The R2 button is used to move the left stick
directing the gaze of the character and controlled the law allows most
activities, all contextual. If one adds the ability to hear the
thoughts of our characters, we toured the possibilities offered by the
game Norman has the ability to use his magic glasses to find evidence
just by scanning the ground (a tip easy to save the player thoroughly
researched but tedious environment), which makes him a slightly
different from the other three.
The first chapter puts you in an idyllic environment in which you play
as Ethan in March. Ethan Mars was a happy man. Married with two
children, he led large-train in a splendid villa with curves, worthy of
his talents as an architect. His life promised to be as bright after
all bothersome until a tragic family event plunges rapidly depressed
and snapped his hopes of orderly life. Quasi-full, his life becomes in
a few months horribly empty boundary neurasthenic, he has no taste in
anything and goes contrary to every pin, resigned and fatalistic, it is
very simple, we almost wanted to slap. The arrival in town of a serial
killer, the killer origami, but will force the man to put his life in
hand. The psychopath attacks exclusively to children and each victim is
found in a vacant lot, drowned in the rain, a small animal, paper in
hand. As a good father, Ethan could naturally be satisfied to confine
his offspring with him until a sunny day, but unexplained attacks of
schizophrenia, along with memory lapses disturbing, pushed him to
consider his own guilt …
The animations are robotic, the game suffers from some framerate drops
and the interactions between models are often approximate. It does
almost nothing in the game and set the table, take a shower or cleaning
up his office probably does not fascinate many people. Worse, the
introduction of the story takes some time, so that you’ll have two
hours to get to know the full figures. Especially since the beginning
of the game is not particularly conducive to the operation of a
revolutionary gameplay announced in its variety and its implementation.
One has the feeling of moving from QTE (Quicktime Events) in QTY, the
overall pace is quite flat, again broken by the need to be well placed
to perform an action, often trivial.Despite a feeling of freedom in
certain environments, make no mistake, Heavy Rain is not a game like
the others, and although you sometimes have to make choices, you must
follow the story was written. If you try to leave the area "useful" to
the chapter, your character will turn around, sometimes facing an
invisible wall. However, this is not a fault per se, since in Heavy
Rain, tells you a story, where you can interact.
Players of Fahrenheit have obviously recognized this apparent dramatic,
previously operated by Quantic Dream’s previous title, it will not be
alone. Since then Lucas, Ethan is in fact not the only heroes of Heavy
Rain, which allows players to direct four different characters during
the adventure. All are linked, directly or indirectly, origami killer.
Scott Shelby, gruff but wise, is a detective hired by the families of
victims to find the serial killer, Madison Paige, the charming
journalist, has published many excellent paper on the case and it
therefore provides the means by attempting to be at the forefront of
the investigation. Norman Jayden, finally, is an FBI profiler sent to
the scene to establish the sociological profile of the suspect and
assist local police, who obviously sees a dim view of the crutch
imposed by the feds.
Throughout the game, many questions will arise. The killer is he
stopped in time? If yes, by whom? Particular character survive it? The
strength of Heavy Rain is just not an answer to fix each of them, but
many depending on the player’s actions. There are also some passages of
play that we discover, or not, depending on the success of certain
actions or deliberate choice. We have indeed been able to attend
several variants of the same chapter (Heavy Rain account fifty), and
three different purposes as a direct result of decisions changed at
various times, for some variant of it completely.This singularity, not
new but perhaps deeper than usual, shows a real sense of being the only
maker of everything that takes place in Heavy Rain, or almost. Almost,
because there are also points that make what must happen will happen.
Needless to want to kill a character from the start by missing
voluntarily QTY example, he chose himself, and this time without any
control of the player to turn back if his life is in danger. The game
is also very fragmented in the sense that we can not even get a look at
the floor above that of the apartment of Detective Scott Shelby.
The action then becomes trivial as important as the switching of
certain moral choices as to shoot a suspect or take a little back. The
idea is to fully immerse the player giving the impression of change in
a familiar world or at least one of the protagonists. The problem is
that all gestures coupled with contextual actions is clearly defined
within each chapter. In sum, you can not do what was thought by the
developers. Indeed, the player’s involvement in the destiny of his
characters is constrained by the whim of the director to the extent
appropriate, often to perform a specific action to advance the story.
In this regard, we may be surprised by the imbalance between the action
sequences based on QTE scenes and more laid during which we can shift
his heroes and interact with the elements. In one case, all benefit
from a staged film, a cut graph of dynamic frames and real adrenaline
rushes while in another, the player will resume the hand and will face
the sad Actually, that resulting from real gameplay.
Heavy Rain, on the other hand, takes its time for you to enter fully
into the plot and characters, ultimately arriving at making you love
them whatever happens. Scott on tired old veteran, Ethan’s father
disillusioned journalist Madison sexy and tortured as Norman, the
super-agent stuffed with steroids. We are sincerely touched by the
attitude of these people, always very human despite their flesh pixels.
As such, note the always surprising modeling faces, contributing
greatly to make us believe in this coherent universe anyway. Finally,
Heavy Rain impresses with its new approach to adventure game. Far from
being part of any existing code, title Quantic mix happily references
film noir as point & click, providing for those first few hours, a
new approach to the detective story. Just hope the sequel to the
sublime every hope that these first hours arouse in us.
Rushing into a thriller realistic video game is even more a challenge
they expected to achieve and environments worked. In that way, Quantic
Dream has done a lot of work we propose to environments rich in detail
and with tons of special effects and light. Whether interior or
exterior designers have made a lot of work for visual realism but with
a cinematic touch. This quality is also found on all animations
overwhelmingly motion captured. Difficult then to make more credible.
It’s the same on closeups of faces when we manage to identify the
actors who lent their voices and their bodies to different heroes. Side
votes, the VF is excellent with good actors / doublers giving life to
these virtual characters. The music can increase the intensity or
stress situations. In short, technically Heavy Rain is a very good
level.
Each chapter on the sixties that has the game, we put in command of one
of these characters for a few minutes. Once the stage finished, we move
on to another piece of the plot, and another character, even for a
relatively short duration. The chronology is generally respected, and
the flashbacks are very rare, but zapping permanent departure gives the
impression of complete four separate adventures, quite distant from
each other. The whole point of the thing, one suspects, held in the
contact points between the paths of these four protagonists, the
convergence of increasing over the game, which will clarify some gray
areas scenario. The method, commonly used in literature and film, has
the merit of the plot in the foreground, not to reduce everything to a
single hero, while giving a real depth to the characters, their
motivations and their own weaknesses. Most importantly, it allows
Quantic Dream walks to the player as they see fit, choosing scenes
skillfully to make him play and with what the protagonist. The
narrative gains in quality and obviously gives, in addition to staging
worked for a particular video game, a character very film at all,
especially in the second half of the game where the challenges really
start to unravel.
Every action, however anecdotal it may be, is well illustrated by a
pseudo-kinematic and requires a very brief statement from the player,
or even for initiatives somewhat foolish, like drinking coffee, sitting
at his desk or racing wear, let alone open a door or makeup, step by
step. Any action is valid by pressing a button or by making a simple
movement often the right stick … and almost everything in the game is
a pretext for action. The game plays with it sometimes, asking for
example for preparing scrambled eggs, each movement is well decomposed
(take a stove, lighting the fire, make and break the eggs, wait a bit,
serve on a plate … ): it is awarded a trophy if success is to go. It
often happens that the screen is split, so 24H to give the player
different views of the same action. This artistic choice allows for the
most part enhance the immersion and oppression that we might feel in
certain situations. In addition to this, it is possible at any moment
to hear the thoughts of his character. A good way to know what he feels
and what to do in the rare cases where you may be blocked, the puzzles
that the game offers is not bad though. Note still the distinct phases
with the FBI agent Norman Jayden, which provides equipment ARI to
fantasize over a geek. It is simply a pair of glasses can bring out all
the evidence (fingerprints, traces of blood …) in its range. What a
fool once the entire arsenal of experts. ARI also provides a review of
all evidence and records collected by Norman in the game, and some very
nice features that will keep unveiled.
The result is a game that goes smoothly for ten hours without ever
giving the player wants to reload his party and without giving the
feeling of having missed something, since the story continues as if
nothing was, even after the fifteenth QTY missed in a row. Of course,
it is sometimes necessary to take (oh, for about ten seconds at most) a
character from point A to point B so that the fabric will continue, as
it is necessary to turn the pages of a book to continue reading. But
even if the game requires the order of chapters, the character you play
and of course the place where we walk, it takes into account the least
of our acts, or been chosen, and was at once feel real player in the
plot, can influence the fate of its heroes and change, even in shots
QTE, the storyboard of the countless cinematic sequences performed with
the game engine as if it Aerith had been saved at the time, actually.
Concretely, this means of course that it will be possible to influence
key elements of the story and reported as such, but also go through
more subtle connections. It may also, in almost the entire game,
missing objects or dialogs that another player would have thought
essential, or even refuse to commit a particular action which seemed
capital.
In sum, if Heavy Rain is very comfortable with his story based on a
series of contextual sequences, it is much less in travel subject to
the whim of the player. The characters have a tendency to drag the leg
and it is not uncommon to pester to get from point A to point B in
order to recover before the next action context. Shortly instinctive
and it’s very close to a playability in the Resident Evil, this
contrast more with the rest. Nevertheless, these passages used mostly
to connect two points of the scenario, we will soon have to focus again
on the story. Even more so at times it will take quick decisions to get
a confession or not, finding the trigger, etc.. At this stage, Heavy
Rain takes on the allure of adventure game very quickly even if the
narrative takes its automatic rights. However, the turning of us clips
of choices to guide a conversation or to release a volatile situation,
we appreciate the parole usually resulting in a unique denouement
essential to the proper course of history. Nevertheless, these choices
will emerge a few branches to propose a rereading partial or total, of
Heavy Rain.
Most Interesting:
- The
character animation is very credible, the motion capture is for many
the fifty actors and stuntmen have been mobilized for anything. In the
nightclub scene for example, take a few moments to watch the audience
dance, you understand. However, there is a degree of rigidity of the
characters in their journeys. - The facial animations are beautiful, but not always able to convey
an emotion, because of some problems of "contact" between the
characters at times … we would like to believe that we are not facing
a video game and thus feel the emotions of the characters, but some
defects animation remind us to reality. - The soundscape is masterly, with themes that stick well to
different environments. Some themes may be somewhat repetitive, but
nothing too serious. The dubbing is very convincing, we feel that the
actors have invested, and we recognize the passage several familiar
voices in film or television. However, the lip sync in French is not
always on top, unlike the English version.
Whether with Madison carefully concealed past, Ethan wanting more than
anything to find her child, the private detective Scott Shelby from a
story of Philip Marlowe or its opposite, the FBI agent Norman Jayden
linked to the life and death its work, the involvement of players will
be involved in these destinies. Ultimately, you should just accept the
fact that that involvement goes not partitioned by the reproduction of
reality but rather by the choice of narrative working for the return of
the Sixaxis and the QTE. Love him or not, Heavy Rain is willy-nilly a
nice little interactive movie if not a game great. In short, put you in
the dark, turn up the sound, and dive into the dark atmosphere of Heavy
Rain.
Heavy Rain combines exploration, dialogue and dramatic action scenes
with a powerful and compelling narrative. Taking control of four
different characters, each with distinctive backgrounds and
motivations, you will take part in the race against time to find a
killer. As you play the game, your actions and choices will have a
tangible impact on the fates of these characters, and the way that the
plot unfolds. Your every decision can have significant and unforeseen
consequences – making the gameplay experience uniquely dramatic and
engrossing. To take an extreme example – if one of your characters dies
during the game due to your actions, it isn’t ‘Game Over’. Instead, the
plot continues using the other characters, and that character’s death
becomes part of the story – influencing the attitudes of other
characters, and affecting what leads and paths can be taken. Heavy Rain
is a game that focuses on drama and emotional response, not violence
and repetition; on making difficult decisions in the heat of the
moment, and dealing with the consequences…
Tips:
Heavy Rain gameplay is based almost solely on QTE, these actions are to
quickly press a button within a specified time limit. There was already
quite a few passages of its kind in Fahrenheit, but Heavy Rain is
really still a notch above. Thus, we must first distinguish between
QTE, which must run in a limited time, and contextual actions such as
taking an object or open the door that the player is free to do so.
Both use the right analog joystick, the front buttons (cross, square,
circle, triangle), the trigger and the Sixaxis function. Their use can
also vary, as support fault once, several times, pressing gently or
maintain several keys one after the other. And the game does not
hesitate to combine any still fairly consistent happily. What is
regrettable, however, is that the QTE are a little too generous at the
time given, and a little too easy, especially since the game never ends
with a Game Over. Nevertheless, Heavy Rain loop mainly on reaching
sufficiently varied, which is already an achievement for a title based
solely on the same actions from beginning to end.
PROS:
- A nice atmosphere and a great staging
- Charismatic characters
- Arrive to provide a plaster of QTE without tiring the player
- Quality soundtracks and music
- ARI
- Intrigue well done
- A real influence on events
- Rather nice
- Directed by careful
- Easy to grip
CONS
- The QTE to really anything and everything
- Clumsy handling
- Serious rhythm problems
- Some inconsistencies in the script
- No real challenge in the QTE
- Lip sync sometimes missed in VF
- Some environments too fragmented
- An increase deceptively spare moments by jumping eyes
