Little did I know as I wrote yesterday's review of Heavy Rain that both I and the missus were to finish our respective games during the evening, but let me tell you; it was certainly a singular experience. However, both our endings, and the way we got there, were different in big ways. First off, the missus actually lost the game, if you can use such a term when discussing this particular game, and I won it, even though you don't really win (nor do you lose). "What do you mean?" You may ask, and the question is fitting.
When thinking about video games we're accustomed to thinking in more or less black and white terms. You play, solving puzzles, quests, killing bad guys and saving maidens in distress, but if you run out of lives you're presented with the "Game over" screen. If, however, you manage not to spend all your player lives, and you manage to make it through to the ending and beat the game, you normally get some kind of end-game video sequence or something to that effect. Heavy Rain, however does not work that way.
While playing you get attached to your characters, you sympathize with them, and you want them to prevail. It may not happen right away, and you probably will not know when it has happened, but it will, and when it does you are emotionally invested in the game and your characters. You lead them on their way through the adventure to confront the darkest recesses of the human mind, and as you play on you begin to feel invincible because you're meant to survive and to succeed (and because some parts of the game are deceptively easy). After all, who would let the main characters in a psychological thriller die, let a killer go free and kill a ten year old boy?
Well, as the missus found out, it is possible to get your main characters killed - all of them, and if you do the resulting chain of events is such a heart wrenching affair that you will be devastated. She was saddened, angry, disappointed and surprised all at once, and she was, in fact, so affected by this outcome that she simply went to bed - leaving me to, with slight apprehension, play out my game. But was she presented with the ubiquitous "Game Over" screen? No she was not, because this is not that kind of game. Instead, we were forced to sit through a long end-game sequence in which the origami killer was never identified, in which all the main people were dead, in which an innocent man were given the blame for the murders, and in which the origami killer's latest victim died because no-one who could save him were left alive. We were both at the edge of our seats, and I think I saw tears form in the corners of the missus' eyes. Absolutely devastating.
At this point I guess you're wondering whether or not I am exaggerating for effect, but no I am not. The game really is that effective as long as you are capable of being emotionally tied to something, which most of us are, and it is that effective for a couple of reasons. First there is the obvious emotional connection you surprisingly quickly form with your characters. Secondly it is that effective because you are never given any second chances - what's done is done, and there's nothing you can do about it except start over from scratch. And third, there is the inherent sense of right and wrong that we all share. Killing people is wrong, most of us would agree with this, and thus most of us would agree that killing children is worse still.
We all want murderers to get caught and put to justice, and even though our opinion of what would constitute justice in any given situation might differ, we all share that one conviction; murderers must be held accountable for their crimes. When they are not we are reminded of the frailty of life and ordered society, we are reminded of the potential for evil in humans, and we are reminded of the all too real fact that many killers go free because there is simply not enough evidence to convict or apprehend them. These are all issues we are not used to being confronted with in games, and thus it is doubly effective in particular because you yourself have orchestrated the chain of events that led you to that particular conclusion.
So what about my game? Did I win?
Well, yes - and no. I think it is meaningless to talk about winning or loosing this game, because no matter what you do the game will eventually end. It may not end the way you want it to, or the end result may not be entirely to your liking, but you will get an ending. I won in the sense that I managed to save the origami killer's latest victim, and I managed to identify the killer - I think, but for many of the people involved in the story it was a hollow victory. The origami killer had still killed eight little boys, and so there were eight families who had closure, but their child was still gone. Obviously there is nothing that can be done to avoid this particular issue, but their sadness sticks with you - as does their relief and satisfaction at being given at least some justice for their children. So was it a happy ending? Well, as far as such things go in a story like this, yes it was.
However, I was still left with unanswered questions at the end of it all, and I am sure I will have to play through the game again, but differently, if I want to have them answered. There are many paths to take towards the ending, and as you play the story through different branches the story will unfold in different ways. I am sure I will do so, and I am sure the missus will also want to give it another go in order to get her own closure with the origami killer and provide justice for the parents of all his victims. For my part though, I noticed there is a DLC available that I will play through before giving the main game another go.
In closing I will say that I remain convinced that this game is a must-have for everyone who owns a PS3 - it truly is a remarkable experience.
tirsdag 3. august 2010
mandag 2. august 2010
Game review: Heavy Rain
I may be late in reviewing this game, but I've been late in buying and playing it as well (having six months old twins will cut into your gaming time). So, as I was finally able to pick it up and start playing it, and having read a good number of previous reviews, I had very high expectations for what is touted as an interactive drama more than a game.
While I bought the game primarily for the missus, I was the first that really got my teeth into it - playing a good few hours all in all while she slept or was otherwise engaged. However, now it is proving impossible for me to pry the controller away from her whenever the time for potential gaming arrives (mostly when the twins have been put to bed for the night). None of us have as of yet finished the game, and as it gobbles up time in a pacmanian fashion (I just invented a word) I suspect we still have many game hours to go. So these are my impressions of the game for those of you who, like me, are late to get into it.
As this game is driven by its story and the way you shape it, I cannot reveal much about how the story progress, and thus this review will be about impressions and experiences with the game. While the game installs you are treated to a neat little time-sink to while away the tedium of watching the install bar crawl from left to right. Being a full blown geek I have always loved these kinds of things, and it brought my mind back to the original Command & Conquer on the PC which, as far as I know, was the first game to do something similar. C&C provided you with information screens during the install which let you familiarize yourself with the background story and various units while awaiting the install to complete. Heavy Rain provides instructions for folding an included origami piece yourself, and if done correctly and quickly enough, you should be finished earlier than, or at the time the installation has completed.
As the game opens you are stuck in the role of Ethan Mars during a sunny day at his and his family's home in the sprawling suburbs. This is the prologue, and while it seems daunting and perhaps a little tedious at first to go through the motions of waking up and doing the various morning toiletries with appropriate motions and gestures with the controller, it serves to familiarize yourself with the interface as well as set the mood for the game. Some reviewers have complained about the inclusion of "shake controller to towel off after shower" sequences, and "shake controller to brush teeth" operations, but I thought they were more than appropriate. I will even go so far and argue that these sequences are necessary.
The game is marketed as an interactive psychological drama, and as such the characters in it are the most important aspects of the story (obviously in addition to the story itself). And in order for the characters to be believable, they need to have realistic lives, and that is what the toweling off and shaving sequences do. They add to the immersion in the game, and they provide an effective illusion that these are real people, with real lives and real life problems and obligations that need to be handled. There's only one thing, which I still maintain, that is a small let-down; the voice acting. This game has taken a lot of time and money to develop, and it would definitely have benefited from hiring in some decent talent to do the voice-overs. This is, however a small niggle, and it is one that you'll be able to overlook as the game sinks it's teeth into you and pulls you in.
Playing the game involves makings gestures with, or hitting declared buttons on, the controller according to available options shown on the screen. Some items are interactive, and these show an action icon whenever you are in position to perform it, requiring you to make a gesture with the right stick. Others relate to the way your character respond in conversations or to his own thoughts, and others still are so called quick time events, or "press X right now in order not to die" events.
Normally I would state loudly that I thoroughly hate QTEs, and that I hate them with a passion, but not this time. In Heavy Rain they are necessary, and they are the driving forces of the game as you will only have a limited amount of time to contemplate your response to certain events, and only a split second to contemplate your response to others. The game, however does not care if you find yourself regretting your reflex reaction to an event - it just plows on mercilessly, giving you no chance to go back to try again. Both I and the missus ended up shooting an innocent man in a reflex reaction, and we both would have undone that action if we could have, but the world of the game did not care about our bout of remorse and simply drove the story on, leaving us to our self-inflicted psychological trauma.
This is another of the game's numerous strengths as it breaks new ground in storytelling within games - it gives you no direct control over when to save your progress. Instead, it function by a well-known principle of checkpoints. You play through a certain segment of the story, whereupon you are treated to a loading screen and the game has saved as the new chapter opens. In some games the "reach next checkpoint to save" rule is nothing short of aggravating, and something that has quite possibly kept many from finishing certain games, but in Heavy Rain it is highly effective as a tool both for telling the story as well as keeping you invested and immersed.
You have to open yourself up to the game and world within it, and if you do you will form emotional bonds with the characters that will in many ways leave you feeling as if it is the game that is pulling you along, rather than you driving the game towards the end. There are not many games that are able to incite such deep emotional responses from its players (the scene when Aeris dies in Final Fantasy VII comes to mind), but this is one of them. You want the characters to prevail, you want them to come out on top and you want only good things for them - in spite of all their all too human flaws. But alas, the world does not work that way. The world can be a dark and scary place, filled with danger and people with nefarious intentions that hide in the shadows just waiting to sink a blade into your chest for a pocketful of change. The game will remind you of these things, but it will also show you that there are good things to be had in the world, that in spite of all the misery the sun still shines behind the clouds.
Playing the game you will alternate by playing it through four different people, who all have different stories to tell and different motivations, and whose lives will, or may, intersect. For instance, in my game I had two of the different characters meet briefly in a situation brought on by the main story, whereas in the missus' game this didn't happen because she had reacted differently to a certain earlier problem. These variations both gives the game replayability, as well as lending it a level of open-endedness in that you as a player can directly influence how the story progresses and how it will end. The main story behind always stays the same, but the way you navigate through it will be shaped by your actions and your inactions.
So what is the story in the game? Well, the characters all live in an un-named city that is being terrorized by a particularly clever serial killer dubbed "The Origami Killer". I can not say much more about this without revealing too much of the plot, so I think I will leave it at that. As the game deals with some very mature issues, there are instances of nudity and very coarse language, and as such, this is not a game for children. It requires a mature mind to fully grasp the story and the implications of that story on the simulated people within, thus this is one instance where the age rating on the box is appropriate.
However, the way the game deals with these issues and presents them, come about in a natural way. For example, people are usually naked when taking showers, and as such they are naked when showering in the game. Even the missus, who is usually the first to frown upon the use of gratuitous nudity in movies and games, found the inclusion here to be appropriate and natural. There is, for instance, one scene in which a female character takes a shower displaying a set of high-resolution boobs, but it doesn't feel weird or out of place as many people would probably want a shower in that very same situation. And then there is the language; people swear, it's as simple as that. Swearing is as much a part of everyday language as the words "dinner" and "mail", and again it is used in appropriate ways. It never feels contrived or tacked on for the sake of it.
In addition to all this, the game further adds to the characters by introducing such all too real issues as chronic insomnia, anxiety, substance abuse, domestic abuse and prostitution. By painting the player characters as normal, flawed human beings you will sympathize with them - you believe in the characters and their motivations because you either have first hand experience with the same issues, or because you understand them well enough to be able to identify with them. These are not the invincible action heroes we are used to seeing in games; these are people that could be your neighbours or your co-workers.
Anxiously I await my next chance to play further, and reluctantly I put down the controller as real life obligations claim my attention. It is a truly remarkable game that is, I will dare to say, the first of its kind, and one that belongs in the collection of anyone who owns a Playstation 3. And if you have not yet purchased a PS3, this is the excuse you have been waiting for. It is an emotional roller-coaster ride that will surprise, frustrate and sadden you.
How far would you go to save someone you love?
While I bought the game primarily for the missus, I was the first that really got my teeth into it - playing a good few hours all in all while she slept or was otherwise engaged. However, now it is proving impossible for me to pry the controller away from her whenever the time for potential gaming arrives (mostly when the twins have been put to bed for the night). None of us have as of yet finished the game, and as it gobbles up time in a pacmanian fashion (I just invented a word) I suspect we still have many game hours to go. So these are my impressions of the game for those of you who, like me, are late to get into it.
It's 18 for a reason; this is a game dealing with mature issues. |
As this game is driven by its story and the way you shape it, I cannot reveal much about how the story progress, and thus this review will be about impressions and experiences with the game. While the game installs you are treated to a neat little time-sink to while away the tedium of watching the install bar crawl from left to right. Being a full blown geek I have always loved these kinds of things, and it brought my mind back to the original Command & Conquer on the PC which, as far as I know, was the first game to do something similar. C&C provided you with information screens during the install which let you familiarize yourself with the background story and various units while awaiting the install to complete. Heavy Rain provides instructions for folding an included origami piece yourself, and if done correctly and quickly enough, you should be finished earlier than, or at the time the installation has completed.
As the game opens you are stuck in the role of Ethan Mars during a sunny day at his and his family's home in the sprawling suburbs. This is the prologue, and while it seems daunting and perhaps a little tedious at first to go through the motions of waking up and doing the various morning toiletries with appropriate motions and gestures with the controller, it serves to familiarize yourself with the interface as well as set the mood for the game. Some reviewers have complained about the inclusion of "shake controller to towel off after shower" sequences, and "shake controller to brush teeth" operations, but I thought they were more than appropriate. I will even go so far and argue that these sequences are necessary.
A brief moment of family bliss |
The game is marketed as an interactive psychological drama, and as such the characters in it are the most important aspects of the story (obviously in addition to the story itself). And in order for the characters to be believable, they need to have realistic lives, and that is what the toweling off and shaving sequences do. They add to the immersion in the game, and they provide an effective illusion that these are real people, with real lives and real life problems and obligations that need to be handled. There's only one thing, which I still maintain, that is a small let-down; the voice acting. This game has taken a lot of time and money to develop, and it would definitely have benefited from hiring in some decent talent to do the voice-overs. This is, however a small niggle, and it is one that you'll be able to overlook as the game sinks it's teeth into you and pulls you in.
Playing the game involves makings gestures with, or hitting declared buttons on, the controller according to available options shown on the screen. Some items are interactive, and these show an action icon whenever you are in position to perform it, requiring you to make a gesture with the right stick. Others relate to the way your character respond in conversations or to his own thoughts, and others still are so called quick time events, or "press X right now in order not to die" events.
Normally I would state loudly that I thoroughly hate QTEs, and that I hate them with a passion, but not this time. In Heavy Rain they are necessary, and they are the driving forces of the game as you will only have a limited amount of time to contemplate your response to certain events, and only a split second to contemplate your response to others. The game, however does not care if you find yourself regretting your reflex reaction to an event - it just plows on mercilessly, giving you no chance to go back to try again. Both I and the missus ended up shooting an innocent man in a reflex reaction, and we both would have undone that action if we could have, but the world of the game did not care about our bout of remorse and simply drove the story on, leaving us to our self-inflicted psychological trauma.
You have to open yourself up to the game and world within it, and if you do you will form emotional bonds with the characters that will in many ways leave you feeling as if it is the game that is pulling you along, rather than you driving the game towards the end. There are not many games that are able to incite such deep emotional responses from its players (the scene when Aeris dies in Final Fantasy VII comes to mind), but this is one of them. You want the characters to prevail, you want them to come out on top and you want only good things for them - in spite of all their all too human flaws. But alas, the world does not work that way. The world can be a dark and scary place, filled with danger and people with nefarious intentions that hide in the shadows just waiting to sink a blade into your chest for a pocketful of change. The game will remind you of these things, but it will also show you that there are good things to be had in the world, that in spite of all the misery the sun still shines behind the clouds.
Playing the game you will alternate by playing it through four different people, who all have different stories to tell and different motivations, and whose lives will, or may, intersect. For instance, in my game I had two of the different characters meet briefly in a situation brought on by the main story, whereas in the missus' game this didn't happen because she had reacted differently to a certain earlier problem. These variations both gives the game replayability, as well as lending it a level of open-endedness in that you as a player can directly influence how the story progresses and how it will end. The main story behind always stays the same, but the way you navigate through it will be shaped by your actions and your inactions.
So what is the story in the game? Well, the characters all live in an un-named city that is being terrorized by a particularly clever serial killer dubbed "The Origami Killer". I can not say much more about this without revealing too much of the plot, so I think I will leave it at that. As the game deals with some very mature issues, there are instances of nudity and very coarse language, and as such, this is not a game for children. It requires a mature mind to fully grasp the story and the implications of that story on the simulated people within, thus this is one instance where the age rating on the box is appropriate.
People tend to be naked when taking showers. |
However, the way the game deals with these issues and presents them, come about in a natural way. For example, people are usually naked when taking showers, and as such they are naked when showering in the game. Even the missus, who is usually the first to frown upon the use of gratuitous nudity in movies and games, found the inclusion here to be appropriate and natural. There is, for instance, one scene in which a female character takes a shower displaying a set of high-resolution boobs, but it doesn't feel weird or out of place as many people would probably want a shower in that very same situation. And then there is the language; people swear, it's as simple as that. Swearing is as much a part of everyday language as the words "dinner" and "mail", and again it is used in appropriate ways. It never feels contrived or tacked on for the sake of it.
In addition to all this, the game further adds to the characters by introducing such all too real issues as chronic insomnia, anxiety, substance abuse, domestic abuse and prostitution. By painting the player characters as normal, flawed human beings you will sympathize with them - you believe in the characters and their motivations because you either have first hand experience with the same issues, or because you understand them well enough to be able to identify with them. These are not the invincible action heroes we are used to seeing in games; these are people that could be your neighbours or your co-workers.
Anxiously I await my next chance to play further, and reluctantly I put down the controller as real life obligations claim my attention. It is a truly remarkable game that is, I will dare to say, the first of its kind, and one that belongs in the collection of anyone who owns a Playstation 3. And if you have not yet purchased a PS3, this is the excuse you have been waiting for. It is an emotional roller-coaster ride that will surprise, frustrate and sadden you.
How far would you go to save someone you love?
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