Brutal Gamer

Heavy Rain Hands-on Impressions

By Zeth - October 31, 2009 - 10:42 UTC - 2 Comments

We go one on one with the superb looking Heavy Rain

Quantic Dreams have made some super fine titles over their numerous years in operation.  Director David Cage seems to have a good grasp on making the mundane cinematic and moving gaming in a slightly different direction to everyone else.  Fahrenheit was superb and Omnikron was good too, but their latest project seems like their biggest gamble yet.

Coming exclusively to the Playstation 3 Quantic have been hard at work on the title for over 2 years now.  The initial animation sequence with a young woman auditioning for a scene in a movie displayed the depth of emotion and realism Quantic are aiming for with Heavy Rain.

Sitting down at the Heavy Rain station in the belly of the EuroGamer Expo 2009 event, at Old Billingsgate London, it was an eerie environment. The lights were off, small clusters of red and blue led banks lit various areas of what could possibly of been a gas chamber. Whilst I waited patiently for the game to load, I had selected Mad Mikes level, a full screen image was presented of the in screen character you would play. This might not sound impressive but seriously, this looked creepily good. Not a sign of Uncanny Valley, this just looked draw droppingly impressive.

One thing I did notice was that the lovely big Sony LCD panel I was playing on started at 1080i at the desktop but as the game started to run up switched firmly in to 720p – I guess this will have the pixel counters furiously pawing over inflated screen shots when it is released but for now it looks to be only 720p. Mind you what was on show did not need to be in any higher resolution that it already was.

The level started with me arriving at the breakers yard to question mad Mike about a missing car. Now this is the part that concerned me most about the game, the controls. You move your on screen persona (whichever chapter or person that is) by holding down the R2 button. This gives your character propulsion. You then steer them in a certain direction by using the left stick. This took some adjustment as was totally different to all other games of this ilk. A few minutes in though and it was far less foreign. A brief interchange takes place and Mike tells you he has not seen the thing and to get lost. At this point Mike walks back to his digger and leaves you too it. You slip on a pair of glasses and fire up the detection system in them. This basically means that hitting R1 will send out a wave, almost like a sonar pulse, that will highlight any evidence or items of note in the immediate area around him. Moving to the items you then issue another context sensitive action via the right stick to perform pickups. For instance one was a simple downward movement to investigate a shoe print. This works pretty well to be honest, it took a little fiddling with but made you actually do some detecting for a change as not everything was handed to you on a plate.

A brief look around reveal a smelting pit with a human skull resting under the surface. Suddenly a gun is at your neck and you are being attacked by Mike. AS the animation plays out you are presented with context sensitive “Quick time” like events. For instance a quick flick of the right stick sends a small mechanics trolley rolling under the assailants feet knocking him off balance. You are then presented further options to counter this attack. You seem to be able to make a few mistakes, miss the odd cue but if you screw it up the Mike will whale on your face with a large metal pole and it’s lights out.

Graphically Heavy Rain is like no other title. The facial animations in Uncharted 2 and Heavenly Sword were completely out of this world but they both skirted the edges of the fabled Uncanny Valley. Trust me when you see that enlarged face on the load screen, or watch the rain droplets dribble down the characters faces you will believe. Heck the characters even do little quirks like look about or lift their faces and just enjoy the cool rain on their faces – and they LOOK like they are taking comfort in the cold drops.

Heavy Rain will ship some time next year on the PS3 and I for one can not wait to get hold of it for a proper play through!

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