Opinion// The Not Review: Heavy Rain

Whereas you can read our review of Heavy Rain over here, we also had other staffers and contributors who wanted their opinions aired. Firstly Mat Murray. You may know Mat from our SPOnGcasts. You may also know Mat from the Big Bother site or from Joypod, well now you know his thoughts on one of the year's biggest games:


Mat's Take
Heavy Rain, in my house at least, hasn’t been talked about in the way a regular game would be. For a start, my girlfriend wouldn’t want start a conversation about how Marcus Fenix should complete a level, or what tactics Master Chief should take to defeat the flood, or even why Blinx was shit. Course not. But Heavy Rain came into my house and caused a scene then left through the backdoor, tipping a bin over on the way out. The cheeky little tyke.

Ever since its conception, Heavy Rain has been talked about as the moment games and films finally go out for dinner, have a few drinks, and eventually end up in bed together, doing things until stuff comes out, and for me, it’s worked. Sure, people will go on about the graphics being amazing – and they are – and people will talk about how cinematic the game is – and it is - but those aren’t the main reasons it grabbed me. The biggest factor for me was how it made me feel, but also it’s effect on others.

I had been playing one afternoon when my girlfriend came into the room. Usually I’d just carry on playing hoping she would go away and make me a sandwich, but when playing Heavy Rain I found myself wanting to tell people what’s happened so far, why the characters are doing what they're doing, and saying “don’t worry about that shower scene, I’m not getting off on it. She needs washing. She’s been a very bad girl. It’s all part of the story, really!”

But seriously, I really did care what happens to the characters. I cared, and I wanted others to care as well. I was playing another time with my mate watching on the sofa and my mate had to leave the room for a phone call. When he got back he asked what had happened, and when does that ever happen with games? It’s just like what would happen if you need to go for a wee at the cinema. Except for the staring as you get up from your seat.

Every Quick Time Event (QTE) fight makes for an incredibly tense affair too. I didn’t want my characters to die and the fact that they can all die and the story would carry on, makes the fights far more than just some buttons to press at the right time. As each fight goes on I could see the different ways of my characters getting killed with each passing swing, and frankly, it’s scary. Anyone who says QTEs are a waste of time or dumbed-down the gameplay after playing this game is just plain wrong. And also slightly racist.

I’ve heard people saying that they’ve seen one scene, or played the demo and not got it. They felt the story was crap, and the characters didn’t convey much emotion. Well to those people I say fuck off. If you watched one scene of a film, or one 10 minute segment from 24 then you’d probably feel the same way about those, but you don’t. You see the whole film, or watch the entire series, then you judge the book based on it’s colourful cover.

Judging this game based on a demo or seeing your friends playing one scene isn't only doing a major disservice to the amazing, believable world that David Cage has created, but it’s not going to give you anywhere near the level of satisfaction you’d get from seeing the story out to it’s thrilling conclusion. Much like any good book (for me at least) it takes an hour or two before the story really kicks off, but once it does it’s relentless, fascinating, and frantic. The final few chapters really do have the feel of a page turner, and you’re kept guessing right up until the last scene.

Mat's Rating: 11/10, 19/21 or D.

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Mark Johnson is SPOnG's senior writer. A true gamer... here's his alternate take.

Mark's Take
I thought I was going to love Heavy Rain. After I spoke with Guillaume de Fondaumière, co-CEO of Quantic Dream, I was infected by his enthusiasm. I was desperately hoping for a breakthrough in storytelling in games.

Then I played through a chunk of the game's opening in preview code we were sent and I was massively disappointed. I scoffed at having to brush Ethan's teeth, at having to wander around his living room looking for obscurely-placed plates. I pushed Ethan in directions he was not meant to go in and performed actions that made the whole experience look jarring and laughable.

I was not sucked in, I was turned right off. I'm used to having the first few minutes of a game wallop me - as with the likes of [PROTOTYPE] - with the best a game has to offer, not having to potter about in a bland mall that makes me want to swear off capitalism. Having played a bit further and watched a significant chunk of Tim's play through Heavy Rain, I am a little humbled by how involving this game that I judged far too early is.

Yes, Heavy Rain is not always successful in creating a fluid narrative experience. The mechanics of poking around an environment, spending far too long pondering obscure corners of a landscape or room, do not always lend themselves well to creating a seamless, well-paced interactive story. The form and structure of the heavily narrative-lead game certainly needs a little work.

But, in spite of all that, Heavy Rain is extremely gripping. Despite my early guffaws, I found myself deeply invested in the story, a fact that made the more dramatic moments of the game tense like in no other title I've played.

Sure, there are moments of high tension in other, more action-focussed games where you're on the cusp of winning through a really tough point in play. But in those games you know that, if you cock it up, you'll just go back to the last checkpoint and have another go. That tension is the product of frustration – or at least potential frustration – rather than emotional investment in what's happening.

In Heavy Rain, I genuinely did not want to see certain characters die. I did not want to fail (or, when I was watching Tim play, be a witness to failure). Sure, you can go back and replay sections of the game to get it 'right', but that's really not entering into the spirit of the title. Heavy Rain is far more rewarding when you go with the flow and accept the consequences of your actions.

When you roll with both your failures and your successes, Heavy Rain's an intensely exciting and involving experience – one that stands apart from any other time I've spent with a game. I take my metaphorical hat off to Quantic Dream for that.

Now, I'm off to [R1], [X] a bagel and [O], [L2] at the vending machine.

Played Heavy Rain or even shoulder surfed while another played it? Give us your opinion in the comments below.