Heavy Rain - The Illusion

Pre-Scriptum: This entry might seem less cohesive than usual. I am simply dying to go play God of War III. I'll make it up to you next time.

"What choice do I have?", reflected Ethan Mars as he grabbed the vial of poison in his hands. The last few hours flashed before his eyes while he ingested the liquid. And like it, his acts disgusted him. No matter what, in an hour, it would be over.

Game director David Cage (in)famously said that Heavy Rain was not a game that should be replayed. I must admit that he was right. Your first (and ideally your only) play through of Heavy Rain is a fantastic gaming experience, filled with particularly tense moments. But as soon as you replay some of those chapters, you realize that amidst all those choices, not all of them have lead to a different result. That is without counting those scenes which must be played no matter what.

I will mention two specific scenes where the illusion of choice is seriously shattered. Now, I do understand the technological aspects of these things, but once again, my problem is one of writing.

The first scene features my favorite character, Madison Paige. It is in fact her first scene. At some point in the scene, while being chased by "men",  you have a choice of heading left or right. When we first played through it (my girlfriend and I), we wondered what would have happened if we had selected the other direction. Of course, when I replayed the game, I chose the other path. To my dismay, I was pushed in the other direction by the man. I let the scene end on its own, by failing at every action, rather disappointed that my choices did not necessarily have different ends.

Most shocking is Scott's first scene. I voluntarily acted like a total a-hole towards Lauren. Did try to ask many questions, barely talked with her, did not even turn back to help. I was wondering if Lauren would still show up without any justifications. Once again, my hopes were in vain and Lauren did show up with the envelope.

These are but two of the scenes where choice proves to be an illusion for their resolution is inescapable and very far from malleable (and with more than 10 endings, no end is truly inescapable in Heavy Rain).

For a game sold on its many paths, choices and ends, it fails dramatically (pun intended). I truly wonder what were the branching paths at same point in the development. Which choices were taken out of the game? How close is Heavy Rain to Cage's vision? What compromises were made?

At the end of the day, however, I believe this will be the end, for now, of my little mental exercise (a light one at that) on Heavy Rain. I will reiterate that you should most absolutely play this game if you enjoy videogames and especially adventure games (à la point and click). It may not be perfect, but it dares to be different and offers a rather unique experience. The illusion does work stupendously on your first play-through.

So where do we go from there? Do we pursue this form of interactive drama? I personally hope so. I believe it is a good match for episodic content. As you can see, it raises a few interesting questions, it's just a question of seeing where all this rain leads us to.

Once again, my apologies if certain paragraphs seem disjointed but Olympus awaits and gods shall fall.

Next time on A Dad and his Blog: Uncharted 2, toddlers and getting old.