Heavy Rain, so heavy!

 Warning: spoilers all over the entry!

When shipped in February, Heavy Rain brought a much needed fresh air in the PS3 catalogue. Sony sold console bundles themed around the game, and the reception for the Quantic Dream masterpiece was as warm as ever. But, what were the players actually doing, by purchasing that game? They were taking distance from interactivity, they were showing how tired of the usual games they were, they were just trying to mutiny to the hardcore gamers cliches which forced them to sink into a spiral of plain and old gameplay mechanics in order to play a non-casual game.
But, were they doing it the right way? Is Heavy Rain a real masterpiece just because it is so different from everything else around?

The game is an 8-hour adventure, which uses "on-rail" investigation sections alongside QTE sections to guide four different characters to the epilogue, which can vary based on what they do or achieve during the adventure itself, which lets the player go on even if he doesn't solve every aspect of each scene or also if the character dies or is jailed. So, there is plenty of freedom, and that's something Quantic Dream must be praised for, because granting freedom using such techniques is hard and the main reason why graphic adventures are nowadays abandoned. Identifying where you miss something or where your character mistakes is easy, and the player will always be aware of what to change in order to reach a different ending (there are like 5 different endings per character, and sometimes they are combined each other). Then, when he completes the game, he can take on his previous session from where he missed something and go on from there, completing the game in a different way.

The plot is good enough to make you come back and try to reach the perfect ending for anyone, but there is a series of flaws which is worth considering before evaluating the game as a gem in the market. First of all, let's say that out of 8 hours, you play half of it, or maybe 5, because cutscenes take a good share of playing time. So, if you replay 2 hours, you end up watching 60 minutes of cutscenes, changing half of them for a 30 minutes of new content. Next time you play, maybe the 30 minutes will be 20, then 10, and so on. You are basically forced to get bored, and constrains kill fun and the real replayability value of the game, which is now just relying on an amazing plot to survive.

Heavy Rain gameplay also decreases the chanches of it getting away with murder from this entry. For how well it is programmed, for how varied it can be, QTE does not guarantee identification, especially when you are set to play with 4 different non-evolving characters. The pair of exploring section are a good alternative, and fun, but the imaginary boundaries set spoil the experience. In conclusion, in movies you identify with a character that has your same behaviour, or profession, or mindset. The same happens in Heavy Rain, and if you are not an architect who lost his first son and has the second kidnapped, or a hot journalist who cannot sleep, or a killer, or an FBI phenom, you won't fully identify with anyone in the game.

Quantic Dream made a great game, shipped it at the right time on the right market, created a legend because Heavy Rain is so different from the rest that users will end up adoring it. But, besides the huge scripting effort and a remarkable cinematic flow, fails in being the beginning of a new era. The title will remain unique, don't expect anything quite like that. A single sparkle in a land of shallow fun and involvement. But it is actually nothing really revolutionary, and has too many flaws to pave the way for clones. Since the same happened to much better games like ShenMue or Fumito Ueda's works, there is no reason why Heavy Rain would succeed in this particular aspect.

Future and words

Last month I had the opportunity to attend, as a student, the "Go Go Games" convention. It was about mobile gaming, a growing market which must be of some interest for everyone involved in the industry. Actually, mobile gaming is still far behind, for revenues, compared to the console and PC market, despite the incredible number of applications and different types of devices to exploit. Such figures were introduced by Renate Nyborg, the head of business development in a London-based multimedia company. We also found out that the U.S. are the main market for mobile applications and that the usual difference between number of female and male users is narrowing over time.

But, more than this, the part of the convention which got my attention was the last one. First, there was a presentation from the so-called "chief Wonka", an amiable guy who owns a small startup which produces iOS applications. His motto was trapped into a single word: "succailure" which means "success + failure". He showed the audience his personal journey into the mobile gaming market, started with some fun applications like a cartoonesque mouth that moves according to the users voice. The income from this kind of tools was around 0. To try and avoid "laying eggs", he tried with a game called ".", in which the player must guide a point inside side-scrolling levels towards the end. ".." followed "...", which was eventullay followed by ".....". 5 dots, don't ask where the fourth game ended up.
Anyway, chief Wonka wasn't earning a penny out of it, even if production times were narrowed to 48 hours in order to avoid wasting time/money into the programming phase. He finally found a way to pay the bills by publishing a collection of interactive children tales on iPad, a still growing application since he has so far received a lot of requests from users. Parents will be able to tell their children stories remotely.


That's what the mobile market is right now. It's like the Klondike for Scrooge McDuck. You go there, you try your best, you might come up with a great idea (luck) or you might be back home without nothing to show off. Anyone can dig in this first phase. There is no advantage for who is already in the business, as "Angry birds" shows very well.

The following lecturer was Mark Rein, one of the pioneers of the FPS revolution before founding his own AAA studio called Epic Games, which would eventually dominate the market, even thanks to its own engine, the Unreal Engine. Rein is a celebrity in the videogaming sector, and the possibility to attend one of his rare talks is something really precious.

Obviously, he is the exact opposite of chief Wonka, his company takes a lot of time to publish the next "Gears of War" and makes seven (eight) 0s revenues out of it. But Epic Games cannot stay out of the mobile market, it has to cover the possibility that consoles and PCs will fail in a couple of decades. With the growing capabilities of mobile devices, which will eventually reach consoles (*), Rein assumes that AAA developers will be the only ones to be able to publish compelling games, leaving people like Wonka behind. Rein's talk was broad, covered technical as well as marketing aspects, and was very interesting, but the real essence was that AAA, and his quality titles, will keep on staying on top of the selling charts.

But, as usual, a doubt popped up in my mind: if the difference between handhelds and consoles is going to get really fleeting, will we end up playing "Uncharted" in the metro instead of in our living rooms? Is the videogaming experience going to change in what seems to me as a complete abomination?

Uncharted on the NGP.
You'll be playing it on the metro or on the aircraft, with people chatting or children screaming around you. Not exactly the experience you wanted when you bought it.

Of course, I approached Rein after the conference, to speak with him about a series of topics. When I asked: "Do you think the new empowered way of mobile gaming suits the AAA usual titles, like Gears of War or adventure games like Uncharted or others?", he answered that we will be playing such titles on a tablet at the university bar. This vision scares me, as well as it should scare anyone aiming to get into the industry. The reason is that if I invent a videogame, I set a target, and a possibile environment for it to be played in. With markets colliding each other, one target melting one into the other and unpredictable ways in which a game will be played, the risk is to totally lose any artistic direction, with AAA titles, that now stand for "quality titles", losing a big part of their appeal.

(*) This is actually not true, mobile devices capabilities will NEVER reach PCs or consoles ones, but we can be confident they'll reach comparable standards in 5-10 years.