select button: Heavy Rain soaks you to the bone with compelling characters and story

Review: Heavy Rain

In Heavy Rain the player rotates through four characters as each of them tries to solve the mystery of the origami killer, a serial killer who kidnaps young boys and drowns them leaving their bodies in remote parts of New Jersey with an orchid on their chest and an origami animal in their hand.

Ethan Mars is the separated father of Shaun Mars, the latest abductee of the origami killer.  Having previously lost a son in a tragic car accident, Ethan is wracked with guilt and depression.  His only chance to save Shaun is to carry out challenges set before him by the killer to obtain clues to the boy's location.

Ethan’s path crosses with that of photojournalist Madison Paige.  She finds herself pulled into the mystery of the killer, looking for a story and hoping to clear Ethan who has been accused of abducting his own son.

FBI profiler Norman Jayden is sent in to assist local police in their investigation of the murders and to catch the killer.  He finds himself at odds with the local authorities as well as with his addiction to triptocaine.

Retired police officer and hard boiled private investigator Scott Shelby is engaged in his own hunt for the killer on behalf of the victim’s families.  He struggles with his own demons and the shadow of alcoholism.

The game world and characters are rendered both digitally and narratively as fully realized people and places which does a great deal to involve the player in what’s happening on screen.  The controls deploy a logic of interacting with the environment in a way that feels natural.  These two components work together to strip down the wall between player and game.

The strongest aspect of the game is the one that makes it the hardest to talk about and that’s the sense of agency the player is given over the characters.  It’s never made immediately clear what actions will have what effect on the progressing story and what is simply added flavor.  I know in talking with two other people who have finished the game, we all came to different endings for the game but we also created very different ideas of who these characters were by the actions we made them take.

The only issues I had with the game were in the voice acting and setting.  While the voice actors were good, it became painfully obvious with some that they were trying to hide their French accents.  Also, the game is never clearly located but is indicated to be taking place in and around New Jersey.  In several scenes it felt as though the developers had never even been to the place (according to an interview with Fast Company, game creator David Cage based the nameless city on Philadelphia, which they visited).  If they had placed the game in an actual city, it would have been one more way to bring in the player.

Heavy Rain brings a breath of fresh air to the art of games and storytelling and asks interesting questions of the medium and the player.  This game is an important step in the right direction that could bring games to a whole new audience where story and mood are as important as action.

Reviewed on: PlayStation 3

select button: AvP made me want to cry acid tears

Review: Aliens vs. Predator

In my younger days, I used to believe that you could take two awesome things, smash them together, and mix them a bit to make something even more awesome.  This was just a dream of youth and in my adult years I have come to find that this usually doesn’t happen.  In spite of that, companies still feel the need to try it and these days it seems like they’re trying to smash more and more stuff together.  Case in point, Alien vs. Predator.

To the best of my knowledge, this game is not an attempt to adapt the movies of the same name into a game, which is good since I haven’t seen them.  I don’t really feel the need to do that to myself.  What this game feels like is an attempt to take three different games, smash them together, and make one awesome game.  What we get is one game made up of three lackluster components.  The colonial marine segment feels like an underdeveloped first person shooter.  The Predator segment feels like an underdeveloped first person brawler.  And the Alien segment feels like a poorly controlled, underdeveloped first person...um... something or other.  Each of these bits has its own story, none of which are really all that compelling either.

In the colonial marine section, you are an anonymous nobody referred to only as “Rookie.”  As is always the case, your ship takes a dive and you are tasked with trying to find what remaining marines are still alive on the planet so you can all escape.  As the Predator, you are a young warrior on his first outing in an attempt to keep the humans from acquiring technology from your fallen brothers.  Finally, as the Alien, you are specimen 6 who manages to get free from human captivity and makes its way killing whoever it comes upon.

Nothing in this game really serves to redeem it with the exception of Lance Henrikson’s presence, and you can always Netflix DVDs of the TV series “Millennium” for that.  The controls are generic and uninspired, and in the case of the Alien, the controls are a foe in and of itself.  In my various attempts to scale the walls and ceilings to get the drop on the humans, I found myself disoriented and receiving a heaping helping of pulse rifle to the face.

It’s a shame that this didn’t turn out better.  Maybe the currently in discussion plans for a sequel will see a better experience the next time out.  Oh, and I didn’t even bother with the online multiplayer having sold the game back to GameStop while I could get maximum value out of it.

Reviewed on: PlayStation 3