Heavy Rain (2010)

If David Cage can make a living in the creative arts, so can you. This shit was comedy from start to finish; a masterclass in unintended hilarity on par with The Room.

Some of the extended fight scenes/QTE-fests felt like they were lifted straight out of The Naked Gun. Actually moving characters around the spaces they inhabit is dire. The voice acting is consistently abysmal, but how much of that is down to English-speaking actors receiving direction from an incoherent Frenchman remains unclear to me; the result is hysterical either way. I also couldn't stop cackling whenever Fux Molder pulled out his stupid sci-fi glasses and blue alien vial of super cocaine. He's the best.

I couldn't stop playing it though. It was compulsive. I had to know what stupid gonzo bullshit was going to happen next, so it isn't getting a 1. That, and I appreciated the ability to listen to people yap in various different positions in the room.

But the fact that Heavy Rain was held up as a high watermark for narrative in gaming when it came out might actually be the funniest thing about this whole endeavour.

Played as part of the Millennium Challenge 2026 (2010).

3.5/5

Heavy Rain is such an interesting, wild, wildly inconsistent game. Sure you've probably seen the memes by now, but I still highly recommend playing this game. Similar to other Quantic Dreams games, this is essentially a choose your own adventure quicktime movie. Each chapter has you playing as one of four playable characters trying to find a child abducted by a serial killer before he dies. You'll walk around asking questions, pressing prompts to hear the characters thoughts, then interact with items or individuals moving the control sticks and pressing buttons in a way that the developers are trying to mimic real life movements. This results in some really clunky controls, but weirdly adds to the charm of the game and adds an unintended difficulty. Fights or chase sequences success or failure will depend on how quickly and accurately you can push the correct buttons or move the sticks the targeted way. There aren't many other games that play like this, for better or worse, which makes this an interesting game to play.

The story has a lot of twists and turns, as well as some massive plotholes that make no sense other than to keep building drama and tension. Apart from that, it does have a lot of really tense moments where it gives you but a few seconds to make some major decisions which can kill off that character. There are a total of 4 characters you play through during this game in various chapters, and you absolutely can get all four of them killed which leads you to the worst possible ending. Knowing that, you are always on the edge of your seat when things get intense.

This is far from a perfect game, but it sure as hell is an entertaining one!

I knew all of the David Cage memes going in, but still thought I would enjoy this. At first I did, but for all the wrong reasons. The game was unintentionally hilarious, with questionable voice acting and writing. There are are some neat themes in this story, but nothing is executed well. In a desperate attempt to make the game exciting, most chapters end up with some contrived fight scene or chase scene.

There are plot twists along the way, but I assure you that none of them make any sense. Now, I know that makes me sound like a Youtuber that discusses plot holes for 5 hours in a mediocre film, but I promise you, the story makes no sense. This is difficult to complain about without spoilers. Why does this take place in 2011 but someone has VR sensor futuristic glasses? The killer's motivation is laughable, and who the killer turns out to be is just silly and blatantly lying just for cheap shock value.

Oddly enough, the controls and camera are bad, which shouldn't really be a factor in an adventure game, but here we are. Some chapters were fairly well done, and I can see how this paved the way for better titles like this. And I did like this enough to get all the endings and get all the Steam achievements, so that's something.

I can only imagine that 'director' David Cage sees himself as some kind of Spielberg of video games. Unfortunately for mr Cage he's closer to being the Tommy Wiseau of video games. His* interactive narrative experience, Heavy Rain, is full of human Emotions™. I say human, but the emotions on display here bear little resemblance to normal human emotions, instead coming across as bizarre imitations of human behaviour, hence the Tommy Wiseau comparison.

Storywise, Heavy Rain is a fairly generic thriller about a serial murderer who is dubbed the origami killer because he leaves little origami figures at the scene. The crimes always take place during periods of ' heavy rain' and start with a kidnapping. After a few days the kidnapped victim, who is always a kid, turns up dead. In the game, because remember this is meant to be a video game, you play as four different characters; an FBI agent investigating the murders, a private eye investigating the murders, a careless father looking for his kidnapped child and a woman who's tits you get to see. So far so unoriginal but here's the twist (and I don't think this is a huge spoiler), one of the characters you play as is the origami killer! In more capable hands this could work, but this is David Cage we're talking about. The events that occur during the killer's* chapters are often contradictory or at odds with the fact that this person is the killer. In fact, as you'll see if you get to the end, some events will be flat out different to how they played out originally. If this was a film, as David Cage clearly wishes it was, then it would be an illogical mess full of plot holes, because as it turns out, Cage isn't a particularly good director. Nor is he a very good writer, resorting largely to melodrama and clichés. It's quite amazing how much angry yelling, screaming and crying Quantic Dream have shoved into Heavy Rain.

JAAAAAAASON!

Cage is obviously a fan of Hollywood movies and Heavy Rain is clearly influenced by any number of thrillers. There are two notable examples of films that Heavy Rain is ripping off. Sorry, paying homage to. The first is the Saw franchise, as the father in Heavy Rain has to carry out a series of sadistic tests for the killer's amusement* in order to help track down his son. The other that I noticed, is Minority Report; yes, the Tom Cruise sci-fi thriller has been pilfered. Most notably is the fact that Tom Cruise's character also has a missing son called Shaun, and there's even a scene where he desperately looks for him, yelling his name (seriously go look it up, it's uncanny how much Heavy Rain apes this scene). The FBI agent in Heavy Rain also uses an interface very similar to the one in Minority Report that Cruises character balletically manipulates, and it's just as much of a gimmick in the game.

So if Heavy Rain fails as a work of cinema then how does it fare as a 'video game'? Those sarcastic air quotes might be giving the game away; Heavy Rain is barely a video game, even when compared the QD's previous game, Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit). That title at least started off feeling more like a traditional adventure game as you tried to cover your tracks whilst simultaneously investigating a crime. Heavy Rain is a series of 'scenes' in which you perform quicktime events and interact with your environment using control gestures. It's amazing how many mundane and pointless things you can interact with in each environment, but the goal of each chapter or scene, no matter which of the 4 characters you're playing as, is to find the interaction that progresses the story. Sometimes it's literally just a waiting game. Or a walking game, but I hesitate to call it a walking sim as it's clearly more of a talking sim.

The closest it ever comes to being a game are the chapters were you control the FBI agent. Yes you're essentially just interacting with all the objects you can to progress the investigation but it at least feels like there's some deduction going on and you're not just a passive observer. You can also miss clues or come to the wrong conclusion which can ultimately effect future events including the ending, and even the fates of the main characters. The various choices in the dialogue can also alter future events to some degree. It's actually quite impressive how many permeations there are, even for little things, but ultimately the killer is always the same person and this feels like Cage's interactive story, not my video game play through. Saying that, there are some quite harrowing choices you have to make which are quite shocking in the immediate moment but would generally be replaced in my memory with something stupid a few scenes later.

So I wouldn't recommend Heavy Rain for its gameplay because it barely has any, and the story isn't gripping, or clever enough to recommend it either, full of plot holes and hilarious melodrama as it is. Actually that hilarity might be where my slight recommendation comes from. There are elements in the story and the gameplay that are so bad they're good and it can be quite a laugh to see where things are going. Plus the press button to JASON,/SHAUN will never get old and is practically a meme at this point.

*This is a Quantic Dream game but David Cage very much likes to be front and centre when it comes to knowing who is the driving force behind Heavy Rain. His name is all over the credits.

*This is only revealed towards the end of the game, but as I said a more competent team could have given us some way of working this out as we play but it pretty much comes from nowhere.

*Although the reason is never really made clear. Indigo Prophecy

5/10

I love this game. I love it. It is so hard to take seriously, but it is one of the few games that can make me lose my shit... At Ethan screaming "Jason".

Heavy Rain is simply about a killer named the Origami Killer kidnapping children. And it's all about solving that mystery. There are a number of endings that you can get and I somehow got one of the better endings even when I purposely did the dumbest things to get a laugh out of it.

The writing is horrible. Which is why I loved it. All the lines are delivered very flat. Very little emotion. I love it. Now there are 4 main characters. I need to mention them because they are unintentionally hilarious.

Ethan - A man who loses his son, gets divorced, and gets his son, Shaun kidnapped. He also can't open doors... Or do much of anything (According to my girlfriend because the controls are unresponsive).

Scott - A Private Detective going to families of Origami Killer victims in search of clues to the identity of the Origami Killer. He suffers from extreme asthma

Norman Jayden - A FBI Agent working with the police to find the Origami Killer. He uses specialized glasses to help him find clues. Which unfortunately gives him an addiction to a drug called Tripto.

Miranda - She's a Woman. She literally is the stereotype personified. Frontal Nudity, damsel, etc.

Heavy Rain makes me laugh so damn much. I can't take it seriously. I love it

3/5

Would Recommend

Pros

• The action sequences were intense
• It's a great game to rib each other while making decisions.
• I liked the vibe of the story
• Some of the ridiculous gameplay

Cons

• The controls are terrible
• It's riddled with plot holes
• A weaker story
• There were also a few story points that make no sense

Well, I have to say I am pretty surprised by the reactions I've seen for this game. For some reason I always assumed that it was one of everyone's favorites, but it seems like some people hate it and others love it.

This game was actually one of the PS3 exclusives that prompted me to get an old PS3 - this year - so I could play through them, because, let's face it, having a 200 game backlog on steam isn't nearly enough. And now, this game has inspired me to find a site where I can log games, because letterboxd is just for movies.

My experience with this game is certainly an interesting one, I was pretty much in love with the game through the first act, basically until the trials start. And then I got lost in the first trial, the one with the glass, so I ended up failing that trial, it was at this point my experience of the game started to take a hit. What I really wanted to do was make Ethan go to the police, give them the Origami figures, tell what he knows to Jayden, and let them sort it out. I didn't want to play the Origami killer's games, maybe because I failed the first one, but for whatever reason, that's what I decided I want to do.

Since the whole game is, in a very big way, built around the trials, this is kinda difficult, even if you don't want to engage in the trials at all you have to go to the locations for the Origami figures, and with dramatic music swelling walk into the door and - if you're me - walk straight out. I didn't really feel like I had to make any of the hard decisions the game was built around, whenever the creepy voice told me to do something I was just like, yeah - nope. This had a bad effect on me because I started not really caring about Shaun anymore because the game wouldn't let me do, what seemed like to me, the most logical thing Ethan should do, for a very long time. So, I would say for a quarter of the game I am emotionally swimming against the current of the game. (Although I am still having a great time with the other characters, especially Jayden but also Scott and Madison).

There's [this clip][1] where JJ abrams and Gabe Newell are talking about the differences and commonalities between games and movies and JJ abrams points out that you can sometimes ignore what's going on in the game and act in a way which goes against the direction, or tone it's trying to set. I felt like exactly this was happening for me (in the first quarter) because of the strategy(?) I chose to play the game with.

However, finally, there's a turn after the 2nd trial where the police corner Ethan and Madison tries to help him escape. This is where the game gets the closest to the JJ Abrams clip for me, because the music is swelling, the camera angles are cutting fast, you are supposed to be feeling pumped after just cutting off your finger, and now with your newly founded partner you are clearly supposed to want to get the heck out of there so you can be a renegade and go and save your son because you're the only one who can.

But I knew this wasn't true, Jayden has ARI Glasses which, with the right clues could probably put together the whole case very quickly, and Scott was also making a lot of progress with his investigation. So I really saw the trials as the worst way of getting Shaun back, there were very probable ways of getting him back where I don't have to play SAW.

So when the this whole scene is coming to a climax, I have moved Ethan to the front of the door, put the controller down, and almost laughed as the music kept swelling and swelling over and over again, while the police threatened and threatened to knock over the door. Because I am thinking, "please arrest my ass so I am forced to tell you everything I know and so I can get the Origami to Jayen!"

And then the police eventually do arrest me and I'm finally in jail. Only for what to happen - Jayden to let me out! Like holy crap did that feel like a punch in the face. The very person I thought would want to ask me for clues literally lets me go. So I continue to ignore the trials, I continue to lose my connection with Shaun, right until maybe the last quarter of the game. It might be when we hear the story about John Sheppard. Now I ams super interested again, and feel a stronger connection to Shaun, like now I am going to save you, whether its as Jayden/Madison I am going to save you - but I am not going to play along with the Origami killer no matter what.

After this, point, I think I start liking the game more, again, because my strategy starts paying off, Jayden finds out who the actual Origami killer is and where Shaun is located, because of good detective work, which is what I wanted from the beginning. Scott and Lauren's investigation is also leading us right to the killer, and this is all without Ethan having taken the trials seriously. My favorite part is when Madison tells Ethan where Shaun is - so now we have two people going there, and this includes Ethan, all without cutting his finger off, or killing himself.

I also loved the plot twist! The fact that Scott is the Origami killer REALLY caught me off guard, toward the end of this game, it was starting to look like Knives out, almost anyone could be the Origami Killer, except Scott had just not crossed my mind. He was such a wholesome dude guy, he had an inhaler which really made me feel a connection with him, and he just seemed to always be doing the right thing. I most suspected the psychologist to be the Origami killer, forcing Ethan to do the killings. But Scott, it caught me freaking off guard and it felt like a huge gut punch knowing that one of my favorite characters, who I save scummed multiple times to get through fights, was the Origami Killer. I guess I was kinda surprised though when he started killing Gordy's men in cold blood.

So anyway, I loved the ending, plot twist and what I got from it. I got the happy ending, which was incredible to me because I thought that I was going to see Shaun die because I was so cynical about the trials. So I really felt glad that the game acknowledged the choices I made by the end!

Random Stuff:

I loved the controls, the way you slowly move people up and down with the analogue sticks was awesome.

I loved loved the ARI glasses. I don't know why but I always expected this game to be super grounded. But then these Minority Report super awesome EDITH glasses show up from the year 2500 and I really fall for it, everything about them is so well designed, and it just made me get really into Jayden as a character. Plus this was all before I knew the glasses could turn into a perfect VR headset and change the room around you, this looked so cool, that it took Jayden and Arri from a 10/10 to an 11/10. It just really impressed me for some reason.

So yeah I am surprised people could hate this game, I didn't experience any plot holes, I'm sure they are there, but I didn't notice them while I was playing. I was really engaged throughout, the character switching worked super well for me and I thought it was really cool. I was more engaged at some points then others, but overall I liked it a lot and it is a very solid game.

[1]:

This dark, psychological neo-noir thriller from Quantic Dream is exemplary of the storytelling potential of the gaming medium. And, despite some problematic gendered character depictions and the rescue mission set-up, in which the player must solve the mystery of the Origami Killer to save a father’s kidnapped son, this game is worlds away from the Save the Princess trope popularised by the 8-bit era. More relatably, it is a father’s overwhelming love for his son that drives forward the rich, emotionally powerful narrative.

The game’s protagonists are ordinary people placed in extraordinary circumstances, and the game pushes you to the darkest recesses of your conscience in questioning just how far you are willing to go for a loved one. Each pivotal decision you make is designed to screw with your conceptions of right and wrong – like the best art should.

With unflinching realism, there are no immediate 'Game Over' screens – if you 'die', the story carries on regardless, increasing your emotional stake in the game and impelling you to think seriously about every choice you make.

Influenced by the work of director M. Night Shyamalan (with an apropos 11th-hour twist that some felt was a betrayal) and featuring real actors, Heavy Rain is quite possibly one of the most cinematic works committed to a console – whether you class it as a game or an experience.

I've chosen this as an example of a game I feel has elevated the medium to an art form. Please check out my blog, Inky Squiggles, to see the others!

How far will you go to save someone you love?

Heavy Rain is a game that will really test your character and decision-making skills. The choices you make and the actions you take will surely affect the outcome of the story. The game will try to get you to empathize with the four characters having four different personalities and four distinct roles in the plot.

The gameplay is simple. You guide the characters to their actions by simply making the decisions through the choices and the buttons popping out on the screen. I must admit that the controls are way too ugly and complicated as compared to Until Dawn of Supermassive Games. There's just too much going on with the DualShock controller! But I guess that's how unique and challenging the developers wanted it to be.

The plot was very well directed. Totally didn't see that twist coming! Although, the narrative has some points for improvement. Some of the dialogue were inconsistent with the choice/action you wanted the character to take. The character's thoughts (yes, you can view the character's thoughts and feelings) are also very confusing and contradicting sometimes that it confuses you to which decision should you truly go with.

I also enjoyed the music and the art in this game. Great details! They are a perfect masterpiece for the interactive-drama genre this game has. However, going deep in the story as I get so indulged I tend to ignore those things.

As I said, this game is a test of character. Setting aside that it is just a game, if you play it having empathy for them and see/feel things in their prospective. Then this game shall also help you understand yourself better. The outcome will somehow reveal your personality as it is a reflection of all the decisions you've made throughout the game. Well, at least for the first play-through. Try not to cheat or watch guides to truly display how you are or how you think you will be as a Father (Ethan Mars), a Friend (Madison Paige), an Employee (Jayden Norman) or generally as an Individual (Scott Shellby).

If you enjoy mystery with a little mix of drama on the side, then I'm sure you'll love playing Heavy Rain!

I remember loving this game when I was 12, which is probably why I didn't notice the fact it has some of the worst writing I've ever seen. The poor voice acting really adds to the fact that the dialogue would make you think this was written by an alien trying to replicate how humans act. The characters are underdeveloped and the story is predictable. The controls are uncomfortable and make basic aspects of the game frustrating.

The most positive aspect of this game to me is that it's one of the few choice games where it seems like choices actually matter, and if you enjoy the game it probably has a lot of replay value. The mystery is also somewhat enjoyable although not challenging.