Heavy Rain (2010)

This is for the HD remaster PC version.

Higher resolution textures give the acting a greater weight. Some weird pop ups that were far and few. Played with a non-gamer who was enthralled by the story and panicked when the characters were in perilous situations. This is a great blend of movie/video game as an artform. Still worth playing on emotional impact alone. Despite some control flaws and minor annoyances the story is the most important part of this "game" and I had fun again even after 11 years of playing the PS3 version.

Chapter 30.
Another Shelby chapter. Those are the worse. I'm are dropped into some situation with no previous information of where are you or, most importantly why are you there. At least this time it makes more sense. Unlike any of the other investigations, which were prompted by something that happened off camera without me knowing about them, going to an old typewriter repairman does follow logically from what happened before. Lauren is with me and, as per usual, is little more than window-dressing.

But no one is here. There's nothing to do but go around looking at the creepy clocks inside glass-top counters. But hey, maybe the guy I'm looking for is on the back, like 5, meters away.

"Hello, old buddy! Let's toast for this belated reunion! Would you like to use your fingerprint-filled fingers to drink from this clear glass filled with brandy? Oh, and it would be lovely if you put your greasy hands on that phone over there. And bring me that magnifying glass too."

Then by just looking at the envelope this guy knows mark and model of the typewriter used to write the address. Really, the game should've been about this elderly man with supernatural typewriter-identification abilities. In any case, now we have a lead! After 30 hours and so many hours the investigation is finally moving somewhere.

"A full list of every client who bought or repaired one of these machines? Why, yes, of course! It's not as if you would need a police warrant to get that kind of private information. Let me go to the back while you stay here and not move. I'm sure nobody would dare to kill me during this millisecond-length extreme close-up of Lauren. Ups, I was wrong! I'm dead!"

What? How could someone just entered the shop, silently killed the guy and scaped withouth leaving any blood trail or anything like it in less than a second? At least the murderer must be covered in blood, right? And deffinetly not just standing there, exactly where he was before with no visible sign of having killed anyone, right? RIGHT?

But there's no time to think about physical possibilities. Now it's time to clean up fingerprints. Oh, boy. My fingerprints are all over those shiny, easily fingerprinted objects! But no worries, I remember what I touched, lets quickly go back and clean everything. Quickly and clumsily, because I need to fight the stupid camera and horrible controls. Telephones ✔️. Magnifying glass ✔️. Cocktail glass ✔️. Music box ✔️. Glass counter... mh, I don't get a prompt to clean. Front door ✔️. Ready, let's leave.

Close-up on the glass counter with all my fingerprints there. Next scene: I'm being interrogated by the police.

What? Fuck... I'll try again...

My favourite podcast is The Flop House, in which three friends watch a bad movie and then talk about it hilariously. At the end they rate the movies as "bad bad movie", "good bad movie" or "movie I kinda like".

If Heavy Rain were a movie (and to be fair, it almost is) it would fall squarely into the "good bad movie" category. It's filled with nonsensical plot developments, scenes that go nowhere and characters who act and talk as no human person has ever acted or talked before and with motivations that make no sense or are completely absent. It even features as much gratuitous nudity as your average B-movie.

With that mindset I think I'm starting to enjoy this game immensely. It's hilarious. How a detective knows out a thief and then instead of calling the cops, decide to have a long conversation with the shop owner and then just leave the unconscious guy laying on the floor. How the same guy decides that it's completely reasonable to leave a baby alone with a depressed mother who just tried to commit suicide and is still drowsy from loss of blood. How a mother says that a suspicious letter that arrived the same day after her kid was kidnapped and her husband disappeared "is probably nothing important". And I could go on. Everything in this game is as intentionally funny as it is pretentious.

A throwback from when the gaming industry was in love with quick time events. "Click and move to open the door". "Ah, you did it too fast, try again but slower". "Move your mouse up and down to drink juice". "Hold RT and RB to bond with your child". Really, about 70% of the challenge comes from the clumsy controls and the god awful fixed camera. It made me realised that my controller is probably busted because I failed multiple times at brushing my teeth. It also made me miss the Game Cube controller, with its distinct buttons (with the Xbox controller: "press X, quick!" "Wait, which was was X again?").

Also, talk about in-accessibility in games -oh boy. This game has you pressing multiple buttons at the same time like nobody's business.

The story is intriguing enough although chock-filled with with obnoxious clichés. The gender issues are particularly glaring; I'm ~3 hrs in and there's been only three female characters of note, one is a prostitute, the other is presented in her underwear, and both are shown being abused*. The dialogue is mediocre at best, cringeworthy at worse delivered by bland and wooden voice acting.

Beneath all that frustration, I like the return to the Fahrenheit-style game of controlling multiple characters with different motivations. Also in Fahrenheit fashion, it nonchalantly introduces some weird sci-fi stuff out of the blue, which is bold, but I respect it.

* To add to the feeling that the writer has few if any contact with the female gender, there's this ridiculous scene in which a female character goes to the bathroom to pee and she puts on her panties without wiping herself.