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A Journey into Heavy Rain
By Edge Staff
September 3, 2008
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“As you know, eyes are incredibly hard to do: the minute movements they constantly make mean you can tell whether something is human or not. We created a technology to motion-capture that from actors.”
There is a school of thought which suggests that, if they are to move forward and become taken more seriously as an entertainment medium, videogames need to have more recognisable creatives, that the people responsible for making them need to raise their profiles.
We need more Miyamotos and Molyneuxs and Bleszinskis, goes the theory, to provide better parity with the Spielbergs and Lucases and Camerons of Hollywood, and then the wider world will begin to gain a finer appreciation of what the medium represents. As a man who has gone so far as to put his own likeness into one of his own games, David Cage, the writer and director of Heavy Rain: The Origami Killer, would probably appreciate the sentiment. The head of French studio Quantic Dream took it a step further than most by putting himself right at the front and centre of the stage for just over a minute at the beginning of the demo version of his company’s last production, Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy).
It was, in some respects, Cage’s own Hitchcock moment, giving him the opportunity to talk to camera and directly address the audience, temporarily breaking the game’s spell and reminding you that there is a human being behind it all, pulling the strings. During this sequence, Cage imparts nothing to the player that could not be communicated via other, more traditional videogame means, but it is partly for this reason that it makes such a curious impact. Some called Cage an egotist for doing such a thing. Others celebrated this bold attempt at playing around with the fourth wall.
Cage’s fascination with narrative forms, it turns out, is more like an obsession, and with PlayStation 3 exclusive Heavy Rain he and his Paris-based team are attempting to rewrite some of the rules of the graphic adventure game in bid to bring it back to life for a modern audience.
There's promise to this, but from playing Fahrenheit through and the comments above, I have a lot of trepidation over the content. As a fan of some of the old Sierra-Online and Lucasfilms graphic adventures, I was thrilled to read about Fahrenheit's development, Cage's proclamations about reinventing the adventure game, of emotionally involving plots and engaging characters. My expectations thus set high, on playing the game, I was initially a little disappointed, subsequently irritated, and finally scornful. Whilst the plot and setting had some promising ideas (the cold, a strong depiction of parts of a city, an attempt to involve you in the lives of very different characters), I thought that the execution was woeful. The puzzles were not great, but that did not bother me so much. No, it was the appalling plot - either utterly predictable, or later on, completely absurd/stupid considering earlier attempts to make the environment and characters "real". It still might have been salvaged by good writing, but the dialogue and characterisation were abysmal. I don't think I've sighed, moaned and ground my teeth more to a game. Which was sad, because the stated intentions were brave and laudable.
Apologies for the rant on an old game. It is just that from the scene (admittedly exterior to the final game) described, the same bloody awful dialogue and plotting is in evidence. Cage has admirable ambition, but he appears to have the storytelling and characterisation subtlety of a Sixth Former attempting Frederick Forsyth. Very, very, badly. Look, there's a stuffed woman in the bath!
“He’s stuffed them. Looks like I finally got my story, because at any time the guy may come back, and we’ll be in a difficult situation. Uh-oh…”
Or:
‘Gotta survive. I’m not gonna die. I’ll find a solution. I always find solutions’.
Or, Cage himself:
“Hurry, Madison, you need to leave! Of course, the damn engine never starts…”
Please, hire a decent writer! How can one claim a more mature, adult audience if the key points of engagement for the audience with the plot and characters - suspense, dialogue, dramatic immersion - are continually undermined by writing that makes you chew your own teeth? I'm not calling for The Wire here (though, you know, that kind of quality would be nice to aim to), but just a little subtlety and avoidance of the bleeding obvious would immeasurably enhance an otherwise painstakingly put-together experience. Again, sorry for the whinge, I just do not want to see something that is otherwise crafted beautifully spoiled by an aspect that should be (relatively) easy to approach.
There's a second, more fundamental point that I think this article brings up, which is the familiar one of realism: do we really want games to have this kind of slick, high-definition sheen as the ultimate goal of realism? Looking at these stills, if anything, the proximity to "real" (i.e. photorealism) makes it look even weirder, less natural than Mario. There's plenty to play with in this weirdness, but I'm not sure that is what the makers want to do... Anyway, a digression on a digression. I admit this half-thought is more inspired by nostalgia for the surreal carnival that was Grim Fandango.
Regardless, I hope this game turns out to be smashing, really I do. I'll give it go.
Also, "Fat Rain": would see/play.
With this kind of story involvement, it's definitely a game to look forward to.
Interesting though to see games move to this amount a realism, resulting in viewers becoming even more aware of minor flaws which parallel "regular" movies... or things that can be perceived as flaws but actually took more work to implement in a video game than when shooting them with a camera - such as believable hand held shots. The only things that took me out of the experience a bit is the lip synq and some of the collision...
Has no-one involved in Heavy Rain seen Bowfinger where Steve Martin makes a movie called Fat Rain where aliens invade earth by hiding inside big drops of rain: hence Fat Rain!!!
indigo prophecy/fahrenheit was/is one of the really great games of the "last-gen" systems, so I'm one of those really looking forward to Heavy Rain pushing even more boundaries as its dev cycle continues. Some folks may gripe about it not being cross platform, but concentrating all efforts on the PS3's strengths will definitely make for a better game in the end, I say.
I'm a great fan of Fahrenheit. It was nice to take a break from my usual gaming habits of running, jumping, and shooting stuff (in the mindless button mashing sense, I know Fahrenheit had more than it's fair share of said activities ;-) ). It's just a shame it won't be coming out for PC, at least not at first. Hopefully "exclusive" means "exclusive for the first six months to one year", like Mass Effect was... Even though Mass Effect was for M'soft's console. I can but hope though.