When I first read EDGE magazine’s preview of the now released Quantic Dream game Heavy Rain, I almost wet myself with excitement and then I sighed as I noticed it would be a PS3 exclusive title. I am sadly not able to play any PS3 games due to not owning one, a problem that I am hoping to rectify soon, if only to play Heavy Rain.
Quantic Dream released two games before Heavy Rain that I simply fell in love with. Omikron: The Nomad Soul was the first and was released for PC and Dreamcast back in 1999 and featured a vibrant soundtrack and a unique story for its time. It also blended multiple gaming genres together into one and it used them quite effectively and in the open cinematic broke the ‘fourth wall’, although it could be argued that some of the elements suffered as a result. It was certainly varied but I felt that some elements of the game seemed a bit too complex and lacked polish. It then took Quantic Dream a few years to release their next title, Fahrenheit (or Indigo Prophecy in North America), which was released in 2005 for the PS2, PC and Xbox and is now also available on Xbox Live for 1200 points. It brought something truly unique to the world of gaming; a truly cinematic experience where you as a ‘gamer’ influence the outcome or at least that was the idea.
Before Fahrenheit even got off the ground there were a few false starts for Quantic Dream; Infraworld, Quark and The Nomad Soul: Exodus all stalled due to publishers not taking on the projects, but out of those stalled projects Fahrenheit arrived on multiple platforms courtesy of Atari. Fahrenheit wasn’t a game I was particularly looking forward to, I wasn’t actively looking for previews or reviews prior to picking it up and I can’t quite remember my motivation for buying the game and parting with my hard earned money but I’m certainly glad I did. I have always indulged in films of the thriller variety and I also, rather morbidly, like watching documentaries about serial killers. For those of you who have seen films like Session 9 and Zodiac and loved them will understand how atmospheric and tense slow-building stories can be with the right soundtrack and story.
When you first boot up Fahrenheit and select a new game the opening cinematic in which the character that we will take control over gives you a small, enigmatic monologue which sets the scene. Someone calling himself Lucas Kane addresses the player directly, telling us that he “used to be just like you”, he then carries on to say that the event you are about to witness descended his life into chaos but nothing prepared me for what actually happened. If you do not wish to hear about spoilers then you are out of luck. While I won’t go out of my way to spoil the story or the plot points per se, it would be difficult to consider this narrative disruption a spoiler considering it takes place within the opening sequence. As the intro plays out it sets the scene for you to take control of Lucas, the man we were introduced to earlier, mutilating his arms and committing a murder whilst under possession. This scene relies heavily on showing the player that Lucas isn’t in control of his person to evoke a powerful emotion within us; empathy, or at the very least, some sympathy for what he has just done.
As the player you then take control of Lucas and from there you make your choices. Do you try to hide the murder and walk out like nothing happened or do you bolt out of the door, covered in blood, and hope that the security guard doesn’t catch you? The atmosphere is tense and I set about trying to hide the murder. It is certainly startling and a compelling opening act to force the player to do something somewhat unrefined years before the controversial “No Russian” mission in Modern Warfare 2 but the scene in Fahrenheit certainly wouldn’t cause such a media outcry as the player wasn’t tasked with killing this innocent man.
Regardless of how you handled that situation the second twist came as I had successfully escorted Lucas outside and out of harm’s way. I was struck with a moral choice when the other two player-controlled characters turned up to investigate what I, as Lucas, had done and I remember genuinely asking myself; “Should I help them?” The two new characters that are thrown into the fray are Carla Valenti, a workaholic Police Inspector and her partner, Tyler Miles, a young man struggling with keeping his life together in the wake of his busy job and who seems to be drenched in black stereotype. The tasks you are given for these two characters is to hunt down the killer which creates a separate and oppositional task to the one which you are trying to achieve as Lucas.
While Fahrenheit is a fantastic atmospheric thriller it does, however, have some major flaws, although it’s more aesthetical than anything else. As the games requires you to move around and perform actions from a selection given to you by rotating either the thumb sticks or the mouse, every now and again during cinematic sequences you are tasked with performing actions by pressing a combination that flashes up on-screen that looks remarkably like a Simon Says children’s toy. By performing these tasks Lucas doesn’t fail at whatever he is doing in the cinematic and the game can continue but these segments can take away from the spectacle of it all. One of the sequences you encounter during the early half of the game seems to be more like a tutorial, in which you, as either Carla or Tyler, have a little practice boxing match. These QTEs (Quick Time Events) don’t seem too out of place in that instance but in a sequence later on, the mashing of the correct colours in time obscures the view of the sequence to the point that you consequently miss what actually took place. A lot of the time I found myself saving the game and going back to the menu and watching the segments in the movie viewer.
Fahrenheit was a commercial success for Quantic Dream and I’m sure that Heavy Rain will be too. It’s clear to see that their ideas evolved from Omikron: The Nomad Soul to Fahrenheit and now Heavy Rain, and while I loved The Nomad Soul, when it was released I felt that the use of almost every game genre blended together failed to capsulate the story and that the game suffered for it. In the case of Fahrenheit it is clear to see that Heavy Rain is a more refined game. The Quick Time Events used in Heavy Rain aren’t as intrusive to the scene as they are in Fahrenheit. Even dialogue options are stylistically chosen to fit with each specific scene, floating around the character’s head like you’d envision they would in an overly-inspired imagination, for example. Fahrenheit isn’t to be dismissed, however; it stands on its own as a title worthy of respect. At the time it was exceptional and while the supernatural element took the finished game too far than the audience expected, it was still an enjoyable game with unique and interesting characters, not to mention forcing the player to morally choose to help or hinder the main character. I expect that Quantic Dream’s next game might follow along the same lines as Fahrenheit and Heavy Rain as it has been said by the head of Quantic Dream, David Cage, that the development of Omikron 2 was halted to focus on Heavy Rain. While I welcome the thought of a current-gen sequel I also believe that Quantic Dream may have just found their niche genre with which to create rich, atmospheric and highly-interactive visual narratives, ones which rival any cinematic experience to date.
