Heavy Rain - What does it bring to gaming?

Quantic Dream's cinematic adventure is not your average video-game. Heavy Rain is a game that sets out to test your morality; the purity that defines our very existence. Sound a little too "heavy" for a game? Well, it is, but only because we've never really experienced it before. There have been a few that have tried it in the past, and moral dilemmas are no stranger to the gaming medium. But Heavy Rain takes it to an entirely different level.

We have to ask a simple question when considering the experience Heavy Rain offers: Is this realism, simply portrayed in a virtual and fictional world: a social experiment? Or is it just a game?

How exactly do you separate realism from gameplay? Is it possible to even combine the two? We can say a game offers "realistic" graphics and "realistic" gamelay, but what exactly defines realism? Have we really seen a game that offers an experience so undeniably close to real-life? And is realism in a game limited to the actions of the characters and the world they live in?

Well no, it isn't. And even Heavy Rain proves this. All this talk of realism in Heavy Rain isn't necessarily hyperbole, but realism in reference to gaming has expanded so much that it's actually quite difficult to measure. What Heavy Rain does do is offer a true interactive story with genuine moral dilemmas: it asks real questions we ask in real situations. The execution might lack the realism, but the response is what ultimately dictates the realism.

Heavy Rain definitely takes storytelling in games to a completely new level. The script for this game would have to be enourmous, considering the different branches of plot that can be accessed, depending on each gamer's decisions throughout the experience.

Heavy Rain - What does it bring to gaming?

There is a narrative at the very core of Heavy Rain. There is one conclusion and ultimately one path. You can either choose to take the path, or alter it however you see fit. What it comes down to is you're going to eventually end up in the same place as everyone else. But that doesn't mean your decisions don't matter. Character's have emotional impact on the story and your own decisions, and literally everything you do affects how you reach the final conclusion.

If Heavy Rain does one thing perfectly, it's reinvent the adventure genre fittingly for the current era of gaming. This generation has seen a growth in narrative-driven games, titles that rely on characters and a strong plot to pull the gamer in. Gameplay is of course always the most important factor, but narrative is proving to be almost as important. Gamers seem to need an experience that borderlines watching a movie: a cinematic experience with interesting characters and plot points. How Heavy Rain does that so well is through implementing emotional story elements with unique gameplay that is, thankfully, perfectly fitted for the Playstation 3 controller.

Heavy Rain - What does it bring to gaming?

There is a sense of beauty when playing Heavy Rain, a factor that many non-gamers just won't be able to appreciate, much in the same way an arrogant and uneducated teenager wouldn't be able to appreciate the beauty of the Mona Lisa. That beauty lies in its ambient atmosphere and artistically designed Quicktime events.

Heavy Rain might leave you frustrated and the story has its fair share of plot holes at the end, but one thing's for certain: Heavy Rain is a cinematic tale. It might lack the fundamental elements that make a game, like your ability to move the character outside of Quicktime events, but its emotional weight and social commentary takes story-telling in games to an entirely new level.

How do you see Heavy Rain?

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Gaetano 26/02/2010

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