I have writer’s block. It’s annoying as I know what I want to say but at the moment it’s not coming out on paper. I wish there was a logic behind it, but it appears to be common as it comes up often when discussing writing papers with friends. So I thought I would blog about Heavy Rain instead, to make myself write something completely unrelated in the hope it may help.

I wasn’t going to buy Heavy Rain. I waited for the demo to download from PSN weeks ago (I’m sure it was something like 5gb but please correct me if I’m wrong). I was really looking forward to it, I’d heard so many great things and I was left with a massive sense of disappointment. I didn’t relate to detective character and I was unsure of the backstory. Weirdly these things are never top on my list of things I immediately think about when playing games (although narrative may sometimes impact on my playing, I’m never always consciously aware of it), but in this demo it felt more than necessary. The controls annoyed me as well. I had a massive dislike of having to hold down a trigger button to make my character move. It felt clumsy, awkward and unnatural compared to just moving the analog sticks by themselves. It’s funny how these things effect you, but controller design is something that has always been important to me. That’s why I prefer the PS3 to the Xbox360 a lot of the time, I prefer the neat, small design of the controller and the way my fingers jump between the buttons with ease. So I dismissed Heavy Rain temporarily. I was adamant I wasn’t going to buy it, until I had a conversation with someone at work. They had felt the same thing about the demo but assured me the game was worth buying. I was tempted, so I took a chance.

How wrong could I have been? From the moment I started playing the full version I was hooked. Sure, there are still a few things I don’t like about it but these somehow outweigh the positives. After playing for a while the controls start to feel more intuitive. As some of them, such as opening doors, or picking things up, start to feel more natural, the learning curve from the beginning actions of the game ease you in. I no longer begrudged having to hold down a trigger button to move my avatar across a room, it soon became second nature. Swapping between different characters and different scenarios kept my interest, and even the short play sessions and seemingly longer, frequent cut-scenes didn’t seem to bother me as I was intruigued as to where the story would take me. I wanted to know how everything fit together, I wanted to know if I would get to the end on time, and although I didn’t always hit the controls in the right order, I never had a sense that my avatar was going to die and I would be pushed back to an earlier part of the game. The lack of dying through inadequate control kept me going, as I felt I was continually progressing even though I often made mistakes.

I did however spend most of the game questioning whether how much this really was a game. Sure, I enjoyed it, but I enjoyed it in so far as I kept playing as I wanted to find out who the killer was. It was an ‘interactive drama’ in many ways, as much as that feels like a dated term for it. Although I could control a character, there were extremely freuqnet cut-scenes and some of the action was very much driven by the outcome of the different narrative threads as opposed to me (although I guess games can be like this too. Even though the player is felt to make like they’ve made decisions, many actions are consequently driven by design. Not many worlds can be ‘infinite’ if at all). I kept playing as the narrative kept me wanting to play. Sometimes it felt like the story would continue in the same way no matter what button I pressed, but I carried on regardless. It is the first game I’ve really felt a connection with the story, as an outsider viewing the action, and as an interacter effecting what was possibly coming next.

From a game point of view there were many things I didn’t like. The way the characters acted like Sims frustrated me slightly. Although it was interesting that you could use the bathroom, shower, brush your teeth, etc, each action involved a timed animation of the event, wishing that I could fast-forward and carry on with the story. The AI was similar, with each interaction with another character at a designated point in the narrative feeling like I really didn’t have any control over the moment. Some points felt inconsistent. I could brush my characters teeth but I could only go under a certain section of the police tape, and I could only leave some buildings when the narrative allowed. I know this is down to the mechanics of the game, and it isn’t possible to have every scenario but sometimes these inconsistencies stood out too much, especially as soon as the game promised to be user-driven, you, as a player, were bought back with a bang to having to follow what the designers intended. This sometimes meant the narrative sequences skipped like a movie DVD and on a few occasions the sound and action didn’t sync up as the PS3 struggled to keep up with loading the data.

Despite all of this I was hooked on ending the game. It took me 8 hours, which is one hell of a movie, but cost for cost, it is more expensive than a movie. The ending didn’t turn out like I wanted, but I wasn’t disappointed, probably because I knew I could play again. Which is what I am doing now. I’ve gone back for a second run, and I’ve already discovered a few new things that didn’t occur before. I guess that’s the explorer in me. I love to explore what more a game can offer, I love a good glitch, and in this case I’m keen to explore the other alternatives to scenarios I had played previously. That is why this is titled ‘Part 1′ as maybe I will blog again about Heavy Rain, maybe my attitude to it will change again on another playing. I’m not in so much of a hurry to finish it this time. I’ve had one ending, and even if it turns out the same with this new playing, I will have still discovered new things, and experienced a different narrative a second time round.