Heavy Rain’s story has been called ‘dark’ by some. And upon reflection, I suppose it’s hard to term a game dealing with the murder of children as anything else. But until I heard that, I hadn’t directly compared Heavy Rain to Dragon Age. A big part of the reason I loved Dragon Age was because it was a mature story. And by mature, I’m referring to more than just the sex and violence. I’ll grant you: Dragon Age may have had too much blood, and Heavy Rain may have had a bit too much nudity, but it’s more than just these that I’m referring to when I discuss the games’ maturity.

Even apart from the choices/consequences facet of the gameplay that I’ve already discussed, the fact that the game doesn’t pull punches, doesn’t ruin the surprises by heavy-handedly foreshadowing, and uses strong language and violence in the same way that non-broadcast shows like Dexter do works in its favor. The game isn’t for kids, and that’s not just because it has language and violence. It’s because kids wouldn’t necessarily appreciate the theme of fatherhood and be able to put themselves in a position to understand the gravity of the decisions you need to make in the game.

My compaints about the game are few. For one, while the quicktime actions in the game were intuitive, simple walking was very often the most challenging part. Even when the camera angles were good, it was sometime difficult to walk across a room in the direction you intended, which got very frustrating when there was time pressure. And when multiple actions were available, it was generally difficult to determine what action might result from pressing right and what action from pressing X. In cases like this, you were being asked to make a decision. For me, more often than not chance would decide, as I wasn’t sure what the result of a button press would be.

More and more as the game progressed, I realized how much work must have gone into the branching story. So many characters who influence the storyline heavily might have died. How differently would the story have unfolded without their presence?

I loved Heavy Rain. Even without any of the other factors, it’s a hell of a murder mystery.

I’ve been playing Heavy Rain now for two evenings, and I’m probably 5 or 6 hours in. Before they made Heavy Rain, Quantic Dream released a game called Indigo Prophecy, which I absolutely loved despite the game’s severely flawed denoument. I can say now that although Heavy Rain contains no science fiction beyond some advanced technology that likely doesn’t exist yet, the same basic feel is in place: what Quantic Dream terms “interactive fiction”. I’ll try to lay out how I feel about the game in an entirely spoiler-free way.

But what’s struck me most about the game up to this point is the notion of consequences. In most games, the sole consequence is death. Your character dies and you reload. But imagine for a moment that you couldn’t reload. Imagine that the game could continue after your death. The only game that I’ve ever played with any kind of similar system was Ultima III, back on my Commodore 64. In that game, when one of your characters died, the game would immediately save the character’s death to the floppy disk. In Heavy Rain, the game constantly saves your progress, your decisions, your advancements, and your failures. And it makes the consequences of failure far more severe than in any game I’ve ever played. Your decisions are irrevocable, your failures final.

Last night, I was dealt my first major failure in the game. The character didn’t die, but having experienced what that character has gone through, I know for a fact that he’d rather have died than failed. But no – that isn’t quite right, because if he’d died, he’d have failed, and the consequences of that failure would remain despite his death, so he had to survive in order to succeed. But he did not succeed. And I felt – through him – what it’s like for a man to throw himself heart and soul at something and fail. In Heavy Rain, like in real life, there are no retries. And I find that I love that. It’s just a game, and I love when a game makes me feel something, even if that something is a total sense of defeat. Just as long as I’m not expected to retry until I succeed.

Keepers is a weekly segment in which I discuss games I’ve played that I’ve seen fit to keep after playing. I generally sell a game that I’ve finished, so the only reason I keep one is because I plan to replay the game some day. Classifying a game as a “keeper” is generally a badge of merit.

…or as we Americans know it better, Indigo Prophecy. They renamed the U.S. version for some reason when they removed the naughty bits. I’ve played through the somewhat more indecent Euro version, and the only differences are a sex minigame which is easily missed if you play a specific conversation wrong, and a sex cutscene near the game’s end, which is easily tame enough to show in a typical rated-R movie. Funny how things like that are fine in movies but taboo in video games.

Fahrenheit moves the whole adventure game genre out of the box by including quicktime events, timed sequences, stealth gameplay, and minigames. They also do a really good job of building suspense using split-screen multicamera. As much as the endgame plot stunk, I really love this game.

Play The Aisle

I’ve never played any of the original Monkey Island games, but I’ve heard people rave about them. Now, it looks like TellTale games, makers of the new Sam & Max and Strong Bad adventure games have a new episodic game series on the boards: Tales of Monkey Island.

The series is debuting July 7th for the PC, and TellTale is putting together incentives to get you to preorder, including a DVD and one free other TellTale game.

Check out the site for details and view the trailer over at TellTale Games.

Keepers is a weekly segment in which I discuss games I’ve played that I’ve seen fit to keep after playing. I generally sell a game that I’ve finished, so the only reason I keep one is because I plan to replay the game some day. Classifying a game as a “keeper” is generally a badge of merit.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is one of those games that everyone who owns a Wii seems to own. I’d never before been a huge Zelda fan – I’d never even tried the much-hyped Ocarina of Time. But I had a shiny new Wii, and I’d liked previous Zeldas, so I gave it a shot.

Twilight Princess has more variety in its gameplay than just about any other game I’ve ever played, and it does it all so well. It does horseback riding better than Oblivion, wall-walking better than Prey, and puzzles better than most games. There was even a boss battle worthy of Shadow of the Colossus.

There are minigames absolutely everywhere. If you’re looking for diversions from the main quest, there’s certainly no shortage. Everything from goat herding, archery, and snowboarding to boating and hang gliding minigames. You even end up sumo wrestling at one point. And the mechanics of the fishing minigame have been heavily advertised. I didn’t do much of it, but with multiple fishing rods, multiple lures, and many different kinds of fish, it gets pretty intricate. There’s also a rhythm minigame when you’re in wolf form that starts easy, and gets quite difficult by the end of the game.

Twilight Princess has been out long enough that if you’ve never tried it, you can likely get a used copy for a song. Personally, I’ll be keeping mine. If you’re interested in reading the original review that I wrote a couple years ago, you can check it out here.

…except the name of the game does not have the word “poop” in it.

Yeah, it’s juvenile. Yeah, it reminds me of some of the crude text adventures I’d played on my Commodore 64 when I was 14. And it bills itself as “survival horror”. But it’s old school in that it’s not easy. A timed text adventure? Getting all the different achievements is the tough part. Bizarre, yet entertaining. Good game for Friday the 13th.

Play “Don’t Shit Your Pants”

When I first had the idea for a Free Game Friday segment, the first two games that came to mind were Wasteland and Maniac Mansion Deluxe.

I first played Maniac Mansion years ago on my Commodore 64. It was a wonderfully nonlinear adventure game with multiple solutions to its problems, excellent humor, and a lot of replayability. It took me forever to figure everything out when I first played, but when I learned of this LucasFan remake, I downloaded and played through the entire game in a night or two. Guess I remembered the solutions to all the puzzles.

Download Maniac Mansion Deluxe

This game is part of the Retro Remakes project. I remember playing The Hobbit on my Commodore 64. I never really got any further than the goblins’ cells, but that’s largely because I had no walkthroughs back then, and I suck at adventure games. If you like adventure games, or retro games, give it a shot.

Download The Hobbit

For this week’s Free Game Friday, I look back to a post Michael Abbott made last week, wherein he talks about this remake of the original Quest For Glory II, which has been given a total overhaul and released for free.

The sequel to Hero’s Quest, Quest for Glory II is an old school adventure game in which you can play a magic-user, fighter, or thief, and save the land of Shapeir from an evil wizard. Although I’ve never played the original, this sounds like a pretty sharp remake.

Download from AGD Interactive