Long-time gamers are so used to dealing with genres—this game’s an RPG, that game’s a platformer—that it usually takes just a few seconds for us to look at a new release and file it in its appropriate cubby. In fact, for a website that’s dedicated to covering a particular genre, that skill is absolutely vital. Then every once in a while, a game comes along that defies easy genre classification. At E3, I watched the same demo for Heavy Rain—the new PlayStation 3 exclusive from Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy developers Quantic Dream—two times, and I don’t really feel comfortable calling it an “adventure game.” Nor is it an “action-adventure,” nor is it an “interactive movie.” Like its ambitious predecessor, at best I can definitively state that Heavy Rain is a dramatic murder mystery in which you decide the actions of the main characters. Also: that I really want to try it for myself.



Throughout the course of Heavy Rain, you’ll rotate between four different main characters—who never interact with each other directly—each with their own reasons for wanting to catch the so-called “Origami Killer”. There are over 60 chapters or “scenes” around 15 minutes in length apiece, and like in a complex mystery novel, you’ll change perspectives among the protagonists every few chapters. Depending on the way you choose to play the game, there are several scenes you may never see on your way to one of the game’s dozens of different endings. For the time being, Quantic Dream is keeping their cards close to the vest, revealing very few plot details and identifying only two of the four protagonists: Norman, an FBI profiler, and Madison, a photojournalist. The scene showed when I was there featured Norman.

For the spoiler-averse, let me assure you the scene I’m about to describe is less than 1/60th of the entire game. Norman has reason to believe the killer’s car was obtained at a junkyard/stolen car repository owned by a guy named Mad Jack. When he first arrives, the player can choose the direct approach—walk up to Mad Jack and ask him about the car—or the indirect approach—proceed to the garage unnoticed and started digging around for clues. Depending on your choice, the rest of the scene plays out differently. Norman is freely controlled as you explore, and when something of interest is approached, a prompt will appear demonstrating what button to push to interact with or examine it. At any time, pressing L2 will bring up a menu of Norman’s “thoughts” slowly rotating around his head, each mapped to a different face button. Among other things, while standing outside in the rain surveying the scene, Norman is reassuring himself that his Triptocaine, an illegal narcotic he’s addicted to, is safely in his pocket. If you choose to pass by Mad Jack and go right to the snooping, you’ll then need to have Norman activate his Added Reality Interface (ARI), which is like a full-featured CSI lab stored in his sunglasses. Suddenly you can see traces of footprints, tire tracks, plant pollen, DNA, even blood.

Once again, you have options. There are all sorts of things you can investigate in the garage to advance the scene. In my demo, Norman finds a blood trail leading to an acid wash, and inside the wash, a human skull. Mad Jack isn’t too happy to see a “policeman” snooping around, and places a gun to the back of Norman’s head. Now the action begins. Prompts—sometimes just one, sometimes a selection—once again pop up on screen to indicate which buttons to press in order to stay alive, but here you’ll need to do so quickly. These are usually called Quick-Time Events (or if you haven’t played an action game in the last few years, remember Dragon’s Lair? It’s kind of like that), but Quantic Dream doesn’t like using that term, and truthfully the system is more complex than many QTEs I’ve seen. For one thing, if you hit the wrong button or press no button at all, you don’t necessarily fail. Even when you’re fighting for your life, you have to miss several prompts in a row to be killed off, as most of the time missing a prompt will just cause the scene to play out differently. You can stave off Mad Jack’s assault very early, but the Sony rep demoing the game chose to miss a prompt on purpose so we could see a longer fight that explores more of the environment.

Eventually Norman turns the tables on Mad Jack, and, gun in hand, the player brings up Norman’s thought menu to decide how to get a reluctant Jack to spill his guts. Now the thoughts are swirling around Norman’s head much faster, to show his adrenaline’s up. You can try different tactics, and more than one may be successful, but in my demo Norman threatens to start firing at gasoline-filled barrels and blow them all to pieces. Jack gives Norman the info he needs, and it looks like this scene was a success—that is, until Norman starts getting the shakes. Everything’s going blurry, and you can try to hit the prompts to get the Triptocaine out of your pocket, but you’ll inevitably fail this time. Mad Jack towers over Norman as he passes out. When the screen fades back in, Norman is handcuffed to the wheel of a car that’s about to be crushed. Several on-screen prompts are given—you can even shake the PS3 controller to uselessly tug at the cuffs—but if you want to live, you’ll choose the prompt next to the glove compartment to get your gun, then use it to shoot the cuffs off. Make it out of there, and it’s time for a final showdown against Mad Jack.



At this point, some adventure game fans may be concerned about the apparently high number of reflex-driven action sequences in Heavy Rain. Many of us can probably name an otherwise fun adventure that quickly become a chore as we tried and failed to pass some minigame, having to restart it again and again. So what happens if you miss several prompts along the way? Don’t worry, even if your currently-controlled character dies, the game won’t force you to restart, it’ll keep right on going. There’s no requirement to keep all four characters alive in order to “complete” the game. Instead, you simply won’t get any more of that character’s scenes, and may even get new scenes you wouldn’t have gotten if they’d lived. If every protagonist dies, the game will end, but Quantic Dream doesn’t want you to consider that “losing” the game—it’s just that your version of the story has a tragic ending. CEO David Cage has said that the ending where everyone dies is actually his favorite, and encourages players to play the game all the way through once and accept however it turns out.

Have I mentioned yet how good this game looks? The quality of the graphics are beyond anything I’ve seen, and it’s apparent why Heavy Rain is exclusive to the PS3’s Blu-ray format. There’s no way I can describe them successfully, and the trailers don’t do them full justice, but be sure to watch the high-definition versions for best results. As Quantic Dream did in their last game, the way Heavy Rain uses different camera angles and other cinematic effects is extremely impressive. When Norman is cuffed inside the car, the screen is split, with 1/3rd of it dedicated to showing how close the car is to being crushed while you’re struggling for freedom in the other screen. Another distinguishing feature is that, instead of creating character models and only then hiring actors to voice them, the voice actors are the models for the characters here. The developers are also using motion capture to drive the characters' movements—even the actors’ facial expressions were modeled.

There’s still a lot we don’t know about Heavy Rain. For instance, who are the other two characters? Clearly a big part of playing as Norman will be using the ARI, but in what unique ways will the other characters be involved? Why is it always raining? Why is the tagline for the game: “How far are you prepared to go to save someone you love?” Above all, once players actually have the game in hand, will all of Quantic Dream’s big ideas actually work as advertised? They’ve promised to trickle out more information about the story and characters over the rest of 2009, but for the answers to the big questions, we’ll need to wait until the game is actually on shelves in early 2010.