Throwback Thursday - Heavy Rain

Welcome to another Throwback Thursday, our weekly look into my Top 100 games and general nostalgia.  While my blog is rated E for everyone's safe and enjoyable viewing, I should mention this week's throwback is rated M for Mature.  Parental discretion is advised for playing this game.

Speaking of which, making an appearance this week: The game of troubled pasts and a varied cast that is Heavy Rain.

Released in the US on February 23rd, 2010, Heavy Rain is an intriguing interactive drama developed by Quantic Dream that helped pioneer and further the potential of the "movie game" genre (referring to games whose focus are on story/narrative through use of scripted cinematics rather than gameplay).  The game centers around four playable characters in which players alternate controlling between different chapters in the game.  There is Ethan Mars, a father who lost a son to a tragic accident and strives to protect his only other son while fighting depression.  There is Scott Shelby, a rough and tough private investigator with asthma looking into the killings of the Origami Killer on behalf of the killers' victims.  There is Norman Jayden, an FBI agent who is tasked with finding the Origami Killer using experimental AR technology while fighting an unhealthy addiction.  And lastly there is Madison Paige, a journalist suffering from chronic insomnia trying to find the big scoop on the Origami Killer.  All these characters' stories slowly begin to intertwine as Ethan Mars is put to the test when his son is the next target of the Origami Killer.  Following a series of calling cards, Ethan must perform a series of morally questionable and brutal tasks if he is to save his son.  The overlapping theme of the whole game is how far you'd be willing to go to save someone you love.

As you play as each character in the game, you'll find that every highly detailed environment is covered with means to interact with it.  While many of these interactions usually don't have any vital significance to the gameplay, they help to allow means of expressing the characters and adding an immersive touch into the world.  This immersion is further enhanced as these many interactions have unique means of inputs that try to closely emulate the action being performed, such as the act of pushing then rotating the joystick to emulate rotating a door handle.  These little interactions also work very handily with moments of detective work and investigation.  I'll be light on details so as not to spoil too much, but one of my favorite moments in this game involves two characters looking for clues in a small shop filled to the brim of seemingly unimportant interactions.  But after a sudden development, all those little interactions suddenly become of great importance as you must recall every little item you dealt with, less your investigation take an unwanted detour.

Aside from the quieter. more subtle moments of this game, Heavy Rain also features magnificently rich and dynamic action scenes.  Although they focus mostly on QTE (quick-time events), these action-packed bouts offer a degree of flexibility as each scene will adapt to correct and missed button inputs, allowing these moments to feel more natural and free-flowing.  The game also features many varying paths and endings, of which certain sections of the game may never even be seen depending on the player's actions, detective work, or degrees of success.  In fact, every main character in the game has the potential to meet an untimely death, which can vary the story to a significant degree.

Avoid the punch but pressing the joystick quickly, but also decide where the fight will flow next with this dynamic QTE.

Heavy Rain may suffer from a slow start and awfully cheesy/artsy moments, but if you can get past these minor setbacks, you'll be left with an interactive narrative experience that is so very compelling and engaging.  And looking at the development of Quantic Dream's next game, Detroit: Become Human (expected to release 2018), it looks like they are taking many cues from Heavy Rain in offering another intriguing narrative experience following multiple unique characters, but with a greater emphasis on weighted decisions and branching story lines this time.  How this will turn out remains to be seen, but we can appreciate the great push forward Heavy Rain has already brought to this interactive drama genre and look forward to seeing the scope of such being expanded even further.