What's so special about Heavy Rain?

No, this isn't a hypothetical question where I give you the answer and tell you why I like this game - in fact, I don't even like it. This is an actual question I'm asking, because I really want to know, why is Heavy Rain so special?



Now, I haven't played the game at all, and in no way am I saying the game is bad, in fact, it's probably a pretty good game, but I wouldn't in any way say it's ground-breaking. The story seems like it's exciting, and the graphics are pretty good (although the characters themselves look like they're made of stale Play-Doh). But in all reality, it's nothing new, and it's hardly even a game at all.

Saying this game is bad would make me a hypocrite, since it's essentially a point-and-click adventure - a genre I enjoy playing - where you don't point and click, but instead your decisions are made by button controls. That said, aside from conversations with NPCs, the actions occur entirely in quick-time events (QTEs). It also plays like a make-your-own-adventure book in the sense that some actions might affect others in the future, or if you reach a point where most games would say "Game Over", the game continues as if nothing happens.

The reason this annoys me is very simple: Heavy Rain is a game with an experience you can already attain through books or movies. Some would tell me, "well, those Telltale Games could be experienced in the same ways," which is true. But the thing is, and I say it again, Heavy Rain's gameplay is almost entirely QTEs. What's the point, since all it seems to do is complicate actions that could easily be performed with the press of a single button? It's not engaging, it's annoying, especially to someone like myself who prefers action games, yet still enjoys a good point-and-click every once in a while.

Imagine it this way: Let's say you're playing a first-person shooter with the same QTE elements Heavy Rain adds to point-and-clicks. Instead pressing X to reload, you have to press X to activate the reload QTE, hold the right stick to rotate the gun, use the left stick to move your hand to the magazine, pull the left trigger to take out the magazine, move the left stick back to reach to your ammo pouch, press the left bumper to exchange magazines, use the left stick to move the new magazine into the gun, then release the right stick ending the QTE. Or... you know... you could just press X.

I'm not saying the QTEs in Heavy Rain are that complicated, but that's what it feels like to me. When most adventure games let you do everything with one click, Heavy Rain uses the whole controller. Take a look at the first 2 mintues or so of this demo and see what I mean:



Some would also argue that the game is original, using ideas that no-one's thought of before, but every aspect of Heavy Rain has been thought of before: The point-and-click aspects have been seen many times before, and the QTEs have been seen since Dragon's Lair in 1983. Heavy Rain's just doing them both at the same time.

You know what? It's just not my type of game. I prefer games that give you an experience exclusive to playing videogames; Stuff you can't do in movies, or books, or even music. A game can be a good story-telling media like the rest of them, but just because you want to make an adventure game, you don't need to make the actions complex so that it "feels" like a game.

tl;dr - All I'm saying is Heavy Rain's gameplay feels arbitrary compared to games released decades ago.

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Posted on 16 Feb 2010 by Bryan Skinner

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