Zero Punctuation: Heavy Rain

[Kekon3]

Very funny review but heavy rain is still the best game ever!

Where do you live? I'd like to shake you hand and say "thank you for not being a idiot"

 

[Redgethebat]

See, I liked that the Killer doesn't change. For me, it always breaks the immersion, and I feel taken out of the experience when the killer changes. I mean, it wouldn't make sense, how would your actions change what person is killing these people?

 

[deserteagleeye]

I DONT GIVE A F*** WHAT ANY1 SAYS, HEAVY RAIN AND INDIGO PROPHECY ARE THE BEST GAMES EVER! I was emersed into the games at the beginning. I dont care if i sound like im overreacting, David Cage is the only guy that can bring a good simple yet compelling videogame. Not like Hideo Kojima who tries to make the plot so brain-rapingly confusing and detailed like hes trying to make americans feel like retarded republicans... I mean republicans. These games are the only good thing that came from the french... except maybe french maid outfits.

 

[deserteagleeye]

Very funny review but heavy rain is still the best game ever!

Where do you live? I'd like to shake you hand and say "thank you for not being a idiot"

I feel the exact same way man

 

[Dapz]

I agree with most of his comments, but I think it's best that the killer is always the same person. A murder mystery's story can't be very strong if it's that flexible!

..they could have just not declared who the killer was, and allowed it to be up to the viewer to decide who it really was.

But yeah, I agree the objection to the way they did this in Heavy Rain seems to be some sort of "academic" point about interactive gaming. Because in Heavy Rain they really have both. They had a very compelling narrative about deciding who the killer is first - then a detective part where you continue trying to figure it out. And they have a separate scene where the killer is revealed. And it seems pretty ridiculous to demand a more flexible scene like that, if they had to trade the "revelation" for it. After all, from the beginning we know that Ethan can't have actually been the origami killer in the papers. But he can be a copy-cat murderer. So QD really did the best possible with that story.

And any objection to that way of making the story would have to come along with a suggestion to restructure the story to be much less linear, with huge amounts of content that never would have been shown. And I'm not sure that's a very good suggestion, when the design in Heavy Rain was to have choice within particular context - and then reasonably limited story-paths and event triggers between those scenarios.

Instead, I guess you could mention that QD was pretty skilful in hiding where those branches happen. Because there are several events that are picked up and cause actual changes - most of them are never mentioned by one reviewer alone.

In the same way, the choices within the contexts are pretty intelligent - they make you choose for yourself what sort of motivation you have in the situation, rather than try to figure out what the main character's motivation is. Or, said in a different way, you are giving your character motivations in a situation - and the game then acts those out for you.

And that's.. pretty good, and novel, and new, and stuff like that.. on it's own. So that bears to be mentioned, before the "not enough choices" things - specially when combining those two ways of telling an interactive story really isn't possible.

Obsidian had a similar discussion going on when it came to choice in Alpha Protocol. Bioware has mentioned the same when comparing Mass Effect and Dragon Age. That you have two different approaches to the choices you insert in the story. So it's not as if you have nothing whatsoever to rest on here either..

My main point is that the reason we usually observe murder mystery stories is for the shocking (if done well) revelation at the end about who the murderer is. However, if you find out who the murderer is but know that it's just one possible outcome out of many then the effect is somewhat marred. For a strong murder mystery story, you need to have a definitive murderer.

 

[samaugsch]

"Weird black thing found dead; no one cares."

 

[Someone Depressing]

I kinda liged fareinheit, it was annoying, but I liked it even though it gets mixed up with the tales games halfway through and the QTE's are about as enjoyable as sticking a crowbar up youre ass, I kinda liked it....

 

[stefani_saturn]

i haven't played this game, i don't have a PS3, but after Yahtzee mentioned the finger cutting off scene it was straight to you tube for me

 

[MonstersInMyCloset]

this game is pure genius

 

[Netrigan]

See, what i don't like about this review is that everything is part of the plot, he claims that the dream sequence isn't important, but its character development, this is why I hate yathzee sometimes. He goes to the hot tub next to the pool and claims that there is no pool.
Its just a fuckin time waster to say things are bad when you just not paying a(FUCKING)ttention

Setting the way-back machine... but I only just played it.

It is a bit of character development for her... but the scene doesn't become important until much later in the story. Where it's at, it's basically a one-off where she takes a long shower, gets attacked in her underwear, wakes up... then the story leaves her behind before you have any understanding why this scene is important.

I twigged to its importance when she was talking about how she can only sleep in motels, but even then it's not super-obvious. My suspicion was only verified when I made her strip everything off at gunpoint and saw the scar. I think the only overt clue is in one of the endings where she's holed up in her apartment hallucinating attackers all around her.

Side-note... I managed to get one of the happier endings for the father/son and that felt like a pretty big cheat. They seemed a bit too happy family for what they had so recently gone through. I would have preferred to see a spot of darkness in that final scene... just a hint that this experience has left a psychic mark upon them both that a nice new apartment won't erase.

 

[flyingwithsharks]

For all the people complaining about it not having different killers each time you play:

Spoiler: Reason

"I would like people to play it once?because that?s life. Life you can only play once...I would like people to have this experience that way. I'm fine with [reloading to avoid a bad result], but the right way to enjoy Heavy Rain is really to make one thing because it's going to be your story. It's going to be unique to you. It's really the story you decided to write...I think playing it several times is also a way to kill the magic of it." - David Cage

This is why.

 

[mikespoff]

I'm a little curious how a murder mystery could ever stand up on replay.

I know not every game is about replay value, but it does seem like a limitation of the genre. I have the same kind of concerns about LA Noire...

 

[SurrealFactory]

I was bugged by Heavy Rain. And I'll start by saying that while I expected an experience similar to an interactive move, I got something different. Although the game consists mostly of quick-times, the buttons you press aren't random--they coincide with what you're doing. I thought the "slow push" button prompts--where you have to gently push the control stick in one direction or another--definitely added to my sense of immersion. But the thing that in the end really annoyed me was all the missed potential it had.

I came in expecting a dark, cerebral drama, but the end result seemed awfully lacking in the intellectual department. I felt the characters were either one-dimensional or underdeveloped, and the game doesn't really seem to be saying anything. And the revelation of the killer seems tacked on, or just there so they wouldn't have to develop a character further (not to mention he was one of my favorite characters). And while perhaps one of the other outcomes would have blown my mind philosophically and made me rethink my outlook on life, if the developer cannot bring that sort of thematic quality to every possible path a player can take, then he has failed at his job.

Regardless, I'd still recommend it if only for the level of innovation that it brings to the table.

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

Can anyone else predict the review for Jurassic Park "The Game" from this?

 

[Squidbulb]

The only bad point about this is that there wasn't really many great way to have the characters die. Letting Mad Jack kill me wouldn't be satisfying, as he's barely related to the story. It wouldn't be right to have everyone fail horribly.
Also, I got the best ending, because the only way to get another ending is to fail. I'm not going to just sit back and watch my character get killed.
Also, judging by the fact that he loved Psychonauts, I'd expect Yahtzee to ignore gameplay issues in favour of story. Psychonauts had bad gameplay and for the most part it isn't part of the story, while Heavy Rain had minor issues and it's almost all part of the story.
Also, it's bit immersion breaking to be in a tense situation only to walk into a wall, try to turn around and walk into the opposite wall.