Heavy Rain Review
Developed By: Quantic Dream
Available on: Playstation 3
Reviewed on the Playstation 3
This game made me cry.... But that’s not a good thing
Sony’s first big blockbuster of the year, wetting the taste of gamers everywhere, is Quantic Dream’s story first, who cares about gameplay approach of Heavy Rain. Set in a, I think modern day but hard to tell because of the oddly placed futuristic Minority Report rip off detective side element, Heavy Rain asks the question can video games make people cry? I don’t get emotional over movies or books, so to me that question is kind of dumb, but it’s even more so here. The ham handed dialog and average to downright bad voice acting didn’t help to draw me into the world QD was trying to craft. Coming off of their critical and commercial flop Indigo Prophecy, QD tried to re-write everything we as gamers know about playing a game, in an attempt to tell a story that not only is cliché and tired but full of plot holes to boot.
I would like to point out that even though I’m referring to Heavy Rain as a game, it is not a game. They call it a game, you need a PS3 to “play” it but this is not a game in the traditional sense. This is a movie, a 6 hour long, boring and poorly told movie. Every so often you get to press a button when it prompts you to on the screen, and you can guide a conversion sort of how you choose, like you can in games like Mass Effect, but unlike Bioware’s amazing sci-fi tale, this one has almost no gameplay. The little that is here is hindered by a bad locked camera reminiscent of the old school Resident Evil games, some of the worst controls ever, and game ending bugs.
The biggest problem by far is the controls. To walk you have to hold R2, sort of like a gas pedal, then you use the left stick to steer your character. This in itself is a little awkward, but place on top of that a camera that tends to change angles when you really don’t want it to and you have yourself a game that sends you walking in circles when all you want to do is face the fucking door. The omission of a 3rd person over the shoulder camera is mind boggling. I guess they wanted a “cinematic feel” like the Resident Evil games have, but the camera placement isn’t interesting or well planed out. On top of the bad movement controls and camera, is the implementation of six-axis shake. Dear God stop putting six-axis in games, it’s fucking dumb, STOP IT! I love that in Uncharted 2, Naughty Dog took out the six-axis balance mechanic because it didn’t work and Sony only put it into their controller to try to adopt a MiiToo attitude toward the big N. Every time I got into an “intense” hit the correct button battle, and the six-axis logos showed up on the screen I felt so dumb shaking my controller around and couldn’t wait for another boring conversion to stop the waggle-fest.
Not only is the shake it control scheme retardedly gay, the hold multiple buttons for seeming simple actions is equally more so en-gay-ging. Just to walk up a hill you have to hold one button until it prompts the next, then continuing holding the first and the second, then maybe a third, then you can let go of the first when a forth comes up and now hold that one, FUCK I JUST WANT TO WALK UP THE DAMN HILL!!!! I don’t think the developers have every played a game and felt games are less about fun and more about telling a poorly written, poorly acted story.
The voice actors in Heavy Rain bring a huge amount to the blandness of it all. The major problem is they are not American actors, but they are playing American characters. This wouldn’t be a problem if they just cast talented actors capable of covering their native accent like Hugh Laurie of House fame, but when you have actors that can’t block out their natural accent it comes off as laughably bad. I had to chuckle every time someone said origami killer, drawing a long a sound. I can’t just blame the actors for this, even though they were real bad, the badly written dialog didn’t help much either. Place on top of that a plot hole that tries to throw you off the path of the killer but using a cheap “what you didn’t see” cinematic at the end of the game to try to cover up a big hole in its story just makes for bad writing.
The major culprit is the bugs that fill this game. There was a game ending bug that hit me right at the end. My character got stuck in a hole that was about 2 inches deep and I had to replay the chapter because he just wouldn’t step out of it. Other things like glitchy characters teleporting around makes for a game that feels unpolished and rushed to get out on the shelves so Sony has something to fill the void left by the amazing game of the year title Uncharted 2 from last year and until God of War 3 hits March 16th. Not only is the game full of visual bugs, it is plagued by sound issues too. Sometimes sounds cut out and other times sounds didn’t trigger all together.
Heavy Rain is being praised as original by many outlets, but from day one I was not impressed. The lack of gameplay is lazy and the stuff that’s there is just QTE that have been part of games dating back to Dragon’s Lair in the arcade in the 80’s. The story is boring, littered with plot holes, and the killers reason for doing what he’s doing is really fucking stupid. All of the characters that inhabit the world make questionable and unrealistic choices and did not draw me in at all. The visuals are nothing special, bland average looking environments that for the most part are only the size of a big room with some limited outside sections. The fact the game was patched day 1 was a bad sign. I would hate to play the game without the patch after seeing the glitches that were present after it was “fixed.” I recommend stay away from this one, or at most rent it like I did so you don’t feel like you wasted 60 bucks on a 6 hour long bore fest.
I would like to point out that even though I’m referring to Heavy Rain as a game, it is not a game. They call it a game, you need a PS3 to “play” it but this is not a game in the traditional sense. This is a movie, a 6 hour long, boring and poorly told movie. Every so often you get to press a button when it prompts you to on the screen, and you can guide a conversion sort of how you choose, like you can in games like Mass Effect, but unlike Bioware’s amazing sci-fi tale, this one has almost no gameplay. The little that is here is hindered by a bad locked camera reminiscent of the old school Resident Evil games, some of the worst controls ever, and game ending bugs.
The biggest problem by far is the controls. To walk you have to hold R2, sort of like a gas pedal, then you use the left stick to steer your character. This in itself is a little awkward, but place on top of that a camera that tends to change angles when you really don’t want it to and you have yourself a game that sends you walking in circles when all you want to do is face the fucking door. The omission of a 3rd person over the shoulder camera is mind boggling. I guess they wanted a “cinematic feel” like the Resident Evil games have, but the camera placement isn’t interesting or well planed out. On top of the bad movement controls and camera, is the implementation of six-axis shake. Dear God stop putting six-axis in games, it’s fucking dumb, STOP IT! I love that in Uncharted 2, Naughty Dog took out the six-axis balance mechanic because it didn’t work and Sony only put it into their controller to try to adopt a MiiToo attitude toward the big N. Every time I got into an “intense” hit the correct button battle, and the six-axis logos showed up on the screen I felt so dumb shaking my controller around and couldn’t wait for another boring conversion to stop the waggle-fest.
Not only is the shake it control scheme retardedly gay, the hold multiple buttons for seeming simple actions is equally more so en-gay-ging. Just to walk up a hill you have to hold one button until it prompts the next, then continuing holding the first and the second, then maybe a third, then you can let go of the first when a forth comes up and now hold that one, FUCK I JUST WANT TO WALK UP THE DAMN HILL!!!! I don’t think the developers have every played a game and felt games are less about fun and more about telling a poorly written, poorly acted story.
The voice actors in Heavy Rain bring a huge amount to the blandness of it all. The major problem is they are not American actors, but they are playing American characters. This wouldn’t be a problem if they just cast talented actors capable of covering their native accent like Hugh Laurie of House fame, but when you have actors that can’t block out their natural accent it comes off as laughably bad. I had to chuckle every time someone said origami killer, drawing a long a sound. I can’t just blame the actors for this, even though they were real bad, the badly written dialog didn’t help much either. Place on top of that a plot hole that tries to throw you off the path of the killer but using a cheap “what you didn’t see” cinematic at the end of the game to try to cover up a big hole in its story just makes for bad writing.
The major culprit is the bugs that fill this game. There was a game ending bug that hit me right at the end. My character got stuck in a hole that was about 2 inches deep and I had to replay the chapter because he just wouldn’t step out of it. Other things like glitchy characters teleporting around makes for a game that feels unpolished and rushed to get out on the shelves so Sony has something to fill the void left by the amazing game of the year title Uncharted 2 from last year and until God of War 3 hits March 16th. Not only is the game full of visual bugs, it is plagued by sound issues too. Sometimes sounds cut out and other times sounds didn’t trigger all together.
Heavy Rain is being praised as original by many outlets, but from day one I was not impressed. The lack of gameplay is lazy and the stuff that’s there is just QTE that have been part of games dating back to Dragon’s Lair in the arcade in the 80’s. The story is boring, littered with plot holes, and the killers reason for doing what he’s doing is really fucking stupid. All of the characters that inhabit the world make questionable and unrealistic choices and did not draw me in at all. The visuals are nothing special, bland average looking environments that for the most part are only the size of a big room with some limited outside sections. The fact the game was patched day 1 was a bad sign. I would hate to play the game without the patch after seeing the glitches that were present after it was “fixed.” I recommend stay away from this one, or at most rent it like I did so you don’t feel like you wasted 60 bucks on a 6 hour long bore fest.
Story: 4 -- Gameplay: 2 -- Graphics: 8
Sound: 6 -- Replay: 3 -- Fun factor: o
Overall (not an average): 2 out of 10
-TuxedoKatsJoe
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