Preview: Heavy Rain

There are many different sides to human emotion; love, fear, sadness, panic, regret and elation. It's what governs us in our everyday lives and is the foundation of our complex social relationships. Quantic Dream is hoping to create a game which not only encapsulates these subjective experiences; a tall order on its own but to also create something so special it could be known as the video-game industry's Citizen Kane. A game so critically renowned it would start a renaissance in the industry. Their project is known as Heavy Rain.

The importance of narrative

Narrative is paramount in all forms of media; be it books, film, music or video-games. Heavy Rain looks to combine storytelling and gameplay into a symbiotic entity using the best of both worlds. It's a game which can be described as interactive fiction, where every decision you make has real serious consequences down the line, some subtle some far less. The tone Quantic are going for is "a very dark film noir thriller with mature themes". The narrative is said to be so full of incongruity and multiplicity that Quantic's head of development David Cage proclaimed "the pleasure of playing Heavy Rain is in being the actor as well as the writer and the director of this experience".

So far we know that throughout the multi-threaded narrative you'll play as multiple characters. The revealed cast list features Scott Shelby; an asthmatic private eye detective, Madison Paige; a journalist who does what it takes, Norman Jayden; a FBI agent with the full might of the Federal Government behind him and finally Ethan Mars; the everyman but someone which we know absolutely nothing about, an enigma at present. All of these fully fledged characters feature a deep back story and have one drive in common, the Origami Killer.

Paper folding hell

Very little is known about the Origami Killer, with only small details being gleaned from an image on Quantic's website in 2007. The site featured a Spanish Pajarita origami model with blood dripping ghoulishly from one corner; the killer uses them as his calling card by leaving a little model on each of his victims as a parting gift for their next life.

In order to show off the ramification laced gameplay, Quantic showcased the "Mad Jack" scene at E3 2009.  This segment showed Nolan Jayden arriving at a Junk Yard after being called in by the local police in order to help catch the origami killer. The first thing we notice is that the gameplay interface has been completely overhauled since Quantic's last game Fahrenheit and is now integrated into the environment rather than flashing up in the middle of the screen, ala standard quick time event. The right analogue stick initiates context sensitive actions (CSA) such as moving the stick left to pull on a car door handle. In terms of movement the left analogue stick moves your characters head and shoulders letting you look around, couple this with holding the R2 trigger to move forwards and you've got a rather unorthodox scheme. This is slightly worrying due to Fahrenheit's horrendous control scheme but we will have to wait and see how it holds up in the retail build. Another interesting addition is the ability to see your characters thoughts when you hold the L2 trigger for example in this segment we saw Nolan's Triptocaine drug addiction weighing heavily on his mind.

Setting standards

As Nolan meets the Junk Yard's owner Mad Jack, Heavy Rain shows off its impressive facial animation, mannerisms and remarkable voice acting. After a rather fruitless conversation and the exceedingly unhelpful Mad Jack has skulked away Nolan pulls out some fancy looking sunglasses and we're given a sneak peak at his special ability. Each playable character has his or her own special ability and Nolan's is the A.R.I (Added Reality Interface), which can only be described as a portable C.S.I lab built into those glossy shades. As Nolan scans the area, blood trails are illuminated on the floor leading to an acid bath which under further scrutiny holds the gruesome discovery of a human skull. As Mad Jack reappears and as the music slowly starts to build CSA prompts start to flash up in the environment. If you complete them successfully Nolan ducks and weaves around Mad Jacks flurry of punches, if you miss them then let's just say Nolan's in for a rough ride as every one of those punches hit home. Missing one of two actions isn't too much of a problem and the environment reacts appropriately for example Nolan's leg buckling under a strike from a metal bar and a nasty looking blood stain slowly seeps through the fabric of his trouser. Quantic are keen to stress that whilst there is no game over screen, your actions will have repercussions. If you miss too many CSA's and don't fight hard enough your characters can die, all four of them in fact and the story will continue.

All in all Heavy Rain is shaping up to be a very interesting project and one which comes to fruition in February 2010. The question is can Quantic implement an intuitive and competent control scheme? Can they keep the narrative interesting and edgy from start to finish? Can they avoid the fate of Fahrenheit's ending which went off the proverbial deep end? Let's hope so as if they can get all of this locked down then the industry may well indeed have its Citizen Kane come 2010.