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Heavy Rain [split topic]

Started by turnstyle, February 05, 2010, 12:46:18 PM

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mcbpete

It's an episode of Law and Order:SVU with the gameplay of Parappa The RapperTM
(I quite liked the demo all the same)

falafel

So far doubts have been confirmed, except slightly iffy voice acting clunky dialogue are forgivable in that this thing really, truly is quite absorbing. As the lady, I just got
Spoiler alert
chucked onto a bed
[close]
in the middle of a QT sequence and found myself shouting
Spoiler alert
DONT RAPE ME
[close]
at the telly. That's got to count for something.

falafel

Haven't been able to pull myself away from the telly all day. Just completed it. Brilliant, really brilliant. In terms of story it's roughly on a par with one of those thrice-yearly Hollywood thrillers: you know, the ones that have loads of big names and which they were clearly hoping to be awesome but then end up getting suspiciously quiet releases. Not because they're bad; just because they aren't much different to that other thriller that came out a couple of months ago.

In gaming though, that pretty much means it's got the best plotting, pacing and emotional motivation ever. The voice acting has been criticised; but the problem probably lies in the script, which is admittedly laughably prosaic at times. They have a good crew of actors doing the best jobs they could with the vast amout of material, and the dialogue could have been much less polished consdering the scope. Also I didn't get the problem reviewers had with the accent because my ear isn't quite so geared for Yank. Apart from the guy that kept saying 'origarmi' like a Cornish farmer.

No, what makes the game transcend all this is the constant sense of consequence. You can't let it wash over you the way your average thriller does. There are some very very bleak possible endings to this; I suspect it wouldn't take a lot to get everyone but the killer put 6 feet under. So when you have to fight for your life, you really do. And when you fail to talk someone round or clumsily miss out on a piece of evidence, you feel it, and you know it bodes poorly.

The QTE stuff is integrated to a degree of consummate seamlessness that it is difficult to describe. It hardly ever felt like random button pressing. One interesting example: at one point you have to
Spoiler alert
squeeze someones bollocks to make them talk.
[close]
The position you end up contorting your hand into as you go about this... Well, there was an emotional connection, to say the least.

I want to play it again. Now. It really is unique. I had my doubts, but couldn't have hoped for much more. A bit more, maybe. One thing it lacks is poetry. It lacks that in spades. Not actual poems - you know what I mean. It's a massive jigsaw puzzle of a game. It uses every Hollywood cliche in the book. It reduces psychology to a series of easily explained actions and reactions. But how many games even go that far? I love it.

mcbpete

Hang on, you finished this in a day - Mmm, is it that brief a game then ?

falafel

#34
I'd say it gave me eight or so hours? That's really not too bad by most standards. It's different to most games in that it's 99% narrative. Put another way, there's still more narrative in here (and far more interesting, varied and compelling narrative) than there was in MGS4. Plus it's going to be different on every play through. There's a lot to learn about each character, and you want to see what happens if you kill off X or Y characters, because what happens later on depends heavily on who is still alive - and that's just the most obvious way to influence the action; there are many more. If you imagine, not a film, but a TV series that unfolds in accordance with your own actions: that's about right. You can't really compare the length to other games, it doesn't work like that. Fifteen minutes of Uncharted 2 involved me hanging off the side of a train shooting people. It was awesome but it didn't really move the story forward apart from getting from A to B. Nothing like that ever happens in HR. Every action sequence is also a piece of story. That's what makes it special. If you add the replay value, it's a very very very dense and complicated piece of work. Maybe not quite art but a remarkable piece of craftsmanship.   

Lee Van Cleef

Quote from: Nik Drou on February 08, 2010, 07:16:33 PM
I'm still not quite sold on Heavy Rain.  I've not played the demo, but if the gameplay really is just a series of prompts/quicktime events, surely it'd get old fast no matter how David Finchy the plot and script are.

Reminds me of when one of my friends at university got his mitts on Shemue after waiting forever and being so pissed off that it was as slow as his social life.

wheatgod

HEY I'M DRINKING A COFFEE

I'M WALKING OVER THERE AND OPENING A DOOR

WALKING DOWN A CORRIDOR NOW

OH MAN THIS IS FUN

Slaaaaabs

The best part about the demo is the fat, asthmatic private eye. Proper unique player character. I completely glazed over when it came to the CSI shit with the hilariously out of place magic glasses. I made him fall down that slope so many times.

chand

Just completed this, and it was really engrossing, played it virtually all of yesterday and wanted to finish it this morning. I ended up really caring about the characters, and will probably play through it again, because in my playthrough
Spoiler alert
Madison died
[close]
, which I really didn't like.

Lots of minor gripes with it, but it was still fascinating to play. Some of the decisions you have to make seem genuinely tough, such as
Spoiler alert
deciding whether or not to kill the drug dealer, which in most games is a no-brainer
[close]
. It was really great though, I didn't see the identity of the killer coming, but when I did lots of things started to make sense. I don't want all games to be like this, but as a relatively rare kind of diversion it was great.

Slaaaaabs

Quote from: chand on February 28, 2010, 02:49:03 PM
I don't want all games to be like this, but as a relatively rare kind of diversion it was great.

I'd like to see story heavy games use this kind of interaction in cutscenes (Kojima especially), but yeah as a whole game it should be a rarity.

jutl

I've just completed this. It was spoiled for me by the obviousness of the killer's identity and the generally far-fetched and silly plot. If 'serious' computer games can only aspire to be as well-written as a made-for-TV movie, albeit a horrendously expensive one, then I think we probably ought to jack it in now and stick to platform games and Tetris. Surely a decent plot must be the easiest bit to get right?

I'm not at all convinced by the mechanics of the gameplay either. Too often it's not clear what a particular button press will do. Some of the technology is impressive - like the crowd scenes - but overall the idea of taking one of the shittiest gameplay mechanics out there (QTE) and spunking unconscionable quantities of cash on it seems somewhat unsound. When you've completed it, sell it quick, before the second hand price plummets to a fiver.

edit to add: oh, and the sexism

edit to add: oh, and the racism

jutl

Talking to myself, but...

I was having another think today about why this game seemed so poor to me. This was brought on by the assistant in Game looking at me aghast as I traded it in for FF XIII. I told him that I couldn't see myself playing it again, and he was genuinely shocked. Reflecting on this later I realised that all through playing the game I had been impatient for the story to resolve. In a more traditional game, the process of unfolding the story (or just progression) seems dictated by the player's actions. In Heavy Rain, it felt to me like I was just helping a pre-determined plot grind on. It was like being forced to hand-crank the projector at the cinema.

Lee

Currently on my second playthrough... Despite a couple of major changes in the way the plot developed (Ethan not getting arrested for a start - although no-one's died yet) I'm a little disappointed at how closely it follows a main basic structure. I was hoping there'd be far more deviation. Maybe I've just been playing it safe for now (I'm trying for the Four Heroes trophy at the moment), I don't know. The internet does tell me however that there's a whole trial I completely missed first time round, so that's something to look forward to.

That aside, it's a very interesting piece of gaming. Whatever criticisms are said about the graphics, I think they look about as real-to-life as anything I've seen on a video game. OK, the vomit's a bit dodgy, and every now and again there's a pop-up glitch, but to me they actually look like real people. The pharmacist and loading screens in particular. Makes you wonder how it would have looked at 1080p.

I'm finding there's a lot more tension in the way the gameplay is structured. With something like Bioshock or Resident Evil 5 you've got a lot of different choices on how to approach an enemy - weaponry, running, etc. This only gives you once choice - and if you fuck it up, you have to face the consequences. I can't recall a game that's ever forced you to do that. I remember Hideo Kojima giving an interview years ago where he said he'd like to make a game where, if you die, that's it, game over. There's no checkpoint, you can't restart, you've died. I think this is probably about as far as that idea can go (without annoying a lot of people and their wallets anyway), and it's very interesting to see how it works. Albeit it's not a hard game (I'd imagine the only people who'd struggle are those new to the Six Axis pad) but when you do make a mistake, you really know it. That's rare.

HOWEVER, that glitch around 80% through that brings you a black screen, forcing you to restart the console, is incredibly sloppy. I can't believe that's not been fixed by now. If you're going to put that much effort into making a game, at least make sure it works properly. Christ.

I'll probably have more to say tomorrow.

Lee

So Jutl and I are both apparently speaking to our individual selves, but anyway... it seems update 1.02 has been released. From what I can gather many of the earlier problems have been fixed (including, crucially, the loading screen blackouts that were apparently linked to trophies), but some users are having a variety of new problems. If this is true, I really don't see how Quantic Dream can rescue the situation. Even if they create a new patch, their reputation will be shot. But let's see how it plays out.

Little Hoover

I had the same dissapointment about the lack of deviation in Farenheit, which is why I've been sceptical about this game, because I'm not convinced Cage has moved on much from the mistakes made in that.

chand

Quote from: Lee on March 22, 2010, 12:08:40 AM
So Jutl and I are both apparently speaking to our individual selves, but anyway...

I played this through in a weekend and enjoyed it, I think it's a difficult game to really talk about. I understand exactly the problems people have with it, I think it's just one of those 'your mileage may vary' games. I'll never convince anyone who doesn't like it that they missed the point or anything like that; it plays like I expected it to play and I knew what I was getting before I played it. Plus it's a virtually impossible game to discuss without spoilers.

Lee

Seems like this patch has fixed the loading issues (and possibly some of the audio glitches that happen when coming off pause), which is a big relief. Surprising though, considering QD claim they were unable to replicate the errors people were having. I detect bullshit.

So, the game... Having completed the second playthrough, it does become clearer how the plot can shift depending on your actions. Next time around I'll try killing off a few people, see how that affects play. Note I say "play", rather than "the endings". It's great to have a game that does away with strict linearity, but only if it offers a decent selection of outcomes. From what I can gather HR can play out in around seven distinct ways. (By comparison, GTA4 gave two 50/50 options towards the end of the game, neither of which particularly affected gameplay.) Quite how this works out I've yet to discover, but I'm looking forward to it on my third or fourth playthroughs.

Now the major glitch is fixed, let's look at some of the lesser problems. The graphics can glitch on occasion - not just with pop-ups, but I've also started to notice the picture deinterlacing at points, getting those strange horizontal lines across the screen. I've no idea if this my television or the game, but it can get fairly irritating, especially during action sequences. The aforementioned audio glitches were also very irritating, as it would cause speech to go out of sync on occasion, but at first glance it seems the 1.02 patch fixed this. But again, this is stuff that should have been resolved in QC, rather than just releasing the game and waiting for the punters to complain.

I continue to find the story engaging, even after two playthroughs, and I'm still finding new things to discover. I'm not very good at this whodunnit lark, so I was kept guessing right until the reveal. And while the script is largely solid, there are a few clunks. The one that immediately springs to mind is during the final epilogue when
Spoiler alert
Lauren spits on Origami's grave and says "I have nothing but contempt for you".
[close]
I mean really, who actually says that in all seriousness? Last time I heard the line in a piece of media was in Double The Fist, and that's a sitcom. I also find the choice of actors very odd. It's set in Philadelphia, right? So why hire a bunch of British and French actors? However good they are (and with the exception of one of Norman's early lines, which slips into a very strange trans-Atlantic Hughie Green-esque accent, they do put in solid performances) why make life more difficult for yourself by getting a non-American cast to play a completely American set of characters? It makes absolutely no sense.

And then there's the plot holes. Why is Ethan holding origami figures? How do
Spoiler alert
Norman and Madison know each other
[close]
? How did
Spoiler alert
Origami find Ethan and Shaun
[close]
? What's with Madison's night visions? And Norman
Spoiler alert
seeing ARI tanks during the epilogue
[close]
? All very frustrating, but these are things I didn't find myself thinking about until after playing the game, so during play there was clearly enough in the plot to keep me engaged without having these holes in mind. Maybe some of these will be cleared up with the additional chapters (the first one, The Taxidermist, given away with the HMV special edition, is released on PSN on 1st April), but surely the idea with bonus packs is that they are just that - bonuses, as in stuff that should be considered as an addendum, rather than part of the main story.

So the game is flawed. But I still found it very enjoyable. It may basically be an elaborate version of Parappa The Rapper, but I liked that game too. Thankfully Heavy Rain is far more thought provoking, and there aren't many games that make you really think, so I have to give Cage credit for that. The only one that comes immediately to mind is Manhunt 2, although if what I've heard about Modern Warfare 2 is correct, I gather that poses some moral dilemmas as well. I have no issues with the gameplay, in fact as I've said previously I think it's one of the most tense games I've ever played, and when the graphics work they're the most realistic I've ever seen. That said, if I'd have known about all these issues before buying the game, I might not have bothered. But the demo was very compelling.

Space ghost

Little crossover type thing here.

PS3 game Heavy Rain private detective in the movie Deralied

The detective from heavy rain has a cameo in a film from five years ago.

Spook.

LotusFlow3r

Yeah i enjoyed it. The Soundtrack was a total win.

The game has flaws obviously, especially in the plot and dialogue. Some pacing was awful too like that of the endings.

Critics raved about it and that had me confused, yes, it is technically a new genre but, let's not forget, Shenmue was doing a lot of Heavy Rain, 10 years ago.

In terms of story, yeah, the way it is done and told is above all else BUT, it is most definitely not the most intelligent nor best story in a video game as some critics are saying.
That title belongs to Silent Hill 2, i don't think any game will come close to the intelligence or artistic merit of that game again. Only because the games industry is becoming twitch audience oriented, much like the movie industry. Hope im wrong though.

Silent Hill ended upon the fourth installment anyway and the team split. I'd say Team ICO are the ones to watch for story and originality now.

falafel

I was prepared to agree with you there until you started talking shit about Silent Hill 2, pretty much the most laughably overrated game in history.

Otherwise, yes, HR is far from perfect, and as jutl predicted it is now cropping up in it's millions on the pre-owned shelves. But it's still unusual and good fun.

Lee

Just got the first DLC chapter.... and completed it in under an hour. Not worth £3.19 then, especially when for double that you could buy Flower. It adds nothing to the main storyline, and you don't even get any trophies for your troubles. It is literally one chapter, split into three checkpoints, with five different outcomes. Honestly, this is so easy I completed it last night at 3am while sleep deprived.

And they've changed the actress playing Madison. Yet another bizarre casting choice from Quantic Dream...

falafel

I'm pretty sure it's the episode they showed to journo's about nine months ago. So it's not new content, really, more a tech demo released after the fact, which is fairly lazy. I would expect any future DLC to tie in to the main plot somehow... Might be technically difficult with all the branching. I wouldn't mind one where you play the killer for a bit, maybe in the run up to his first strike. That would be pretty tough.

wasp_f15ting

I really disliked this game..

Did anyone else get really pissed off with the fake American accents?

The game started on a bad footing straight from the start where you start yelling "JASON JAYSON JAYSON" Eurgggh..

My full impressions here; http://bit.ly/dCDW88