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Heavy Rain Thoughts.
Sep. 15th, 2011 04:03 pmHaving given up temporarily in despair on JRPGs, I've been playing Heavy Rain. Unfortunately it's short enough that I've already finished it, leaving me nothing to do but rant.
Heavy Rain is an Interactive Fiction game produced by Quantic Dream for the PS3, which means that it's almost entirely story-based. When played it feels like someone took the concept of the old item-based adventure games, the idea of a character or group of characters exploring their environment while trying to unravel a mystery, and updated it to new hardware. They replaced the usually frustrating item-based system with a simpler and more obvious action-command system, and turned what was once a linear plotline into a branching, twisting storyline with multiple endings.
The game involves four viewpoint characters, whose lives become tangled with a serial killer known as the Origami Killer, a killer who abducts pre-adolescent boys and drowns them, only to leave their bodies decorated with an orchid and an origami figure. The characters all have their own motivations and flaws (physical and mental), and intersect with each other's storylines as they each chase after the illusive and evasive figure who ties them together. The environment is well-built, interactive, and has a very gritty noir feel in the trailer-homes, rundown offices, and empty industrial buildings in which the game takes place. The game itself is extremely intense, and its immersive, interactive style effectively draws the player into the game.
I wish I could recommend the game. In fact, I would recommend the game, if it were not for several points that I think a gamer should be aware of before playing that I have listed below (while trying to avoid spoilers). They don't make the game a bad game, they just made me break out in random swearing, bash my head into books, hold a staring contest with my PS3, and in one case break out into an eruption of vitriolic victim-blaming so intense that I don't think that the fact that it was against a fictional character can redeem it.
( Commentary (and Complaining) )
Heavy Rain is an Interactive Fiction game produced by Quantic Dream for the PS3, which means that it's almost entirely story-based. When played it feels like someone took the concept of the old item-based adventure games, the idea of a character or group of characters exploring their environment while trying to unravel a mystery, and updated it to new hardware. They replaced the usually frustrating item-based system with a simpler and more obvious action-command system, and turned what was once a linear plotline into a branching, twisting storyline with multiple endings.
The game involves four viewpoint characters, whose lives become tangled with a serial killer known as the Origami Killer, a killer who abducts pre-adolescent boys and drowns them, only to leave their bodies decorated with an orchid and an origami figure. The characters all have their own motivations and flaws (physical and mental), and intersect with each other's storylines as they each chase after the illusive and evasive figure who ties them together. The environment is well-built, interactive, and has a very gritty noir feel in the trailer-homes, rundown offices, and empty industrial buildings in which the game takes place. The game itself is extremely intense, and its immersive, interactive style effectively draws the player into the game.
I wish I could recommend the game. In fact, I would recommend the game, if it were not for several points that I think a gamer should be aware of before playing that I have listed below (while trying to avoid spoilers). They don't make the game a bad game, they just made me break out in random swearing, bash my head into books, hold a staring contest with my PS3, and in one case break out into an eruption of vitriolic victim-blaming so intense that I don't think that the fact that it was against a fictional character can redeem it.
( Commentary (and Complaining) )