Heavy Rain – Interactive adventure for the PS3

Upon initial development of Heavy Rain, Quantic Dream planned on utilizing the motion controller for the PS3. In fact – David Cage (CEO of Quantic Dream) even admits that hardware driver code involving the motion controller still exists in the game’s source code. The problem is – Sony won’t be releasing the motion controller peripheral for another year.

“If you are talking about Motion Control, this is something we initially considered for Heavy Rain,” Cage revealed in a Q&A for Dagbladet.no. “The very first version of the game design was based on motion control, but it was not feasible at the time. But all the controls of the final version of ‘Heavy Rain’ is still based on motion.”

He then went on to say “I have a lot of interest in Sony’s motion device and there is a good chance that we announce something about it in the coming weeks”. This is also interesting news as there haven’t been a lot of developer’s announcing anything regarding Project Natal.

According to several sources, Heavy Rain will incorporate a unique control system. A trigger button on the PS3 controller will move the character forward. A major focus will be placed on the button’s analogue function, allowing the user to control the speed of the character’s movement by pressing harder or softer on the button. The left analogue stick will control the viewpoint of the character and the direction the character moves in relation to where the character is looking. According to Quantic Dream’s CEO David Cage, this will free the movement of the character from the perspective of the camera. The rest of the gameplay is adjusted according to the context of the current scene. This will likely mean that several different actions will be mapped to the main controller buttons depending on the game event at hand. Players are able to bring up a selection of their character’s current thoughts by holding the L2 button and pressing corresponding buttons to say or do what they’re thinking. These thoughts will sometimes blur, and selecting them at the wrong time will affect the character’s reaction, causing them to say or do something in the wrong way.

Action sequences, such as when the player is being attacked, play out as quick time events. Players will be presented with various symbols, requiring them to either press buttons, move the right analogue stick in a certain way, or shake or tilt the controller (think Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit). Failure to execute these commands successfully could result in detrimental effects to the storyline or even character death. For example, in one scene, Norman Jayden is interrogating a suspect named Mad Jack when he starts to suffer from withdrawal symptoms and button prompts will show up. If he fails to take his drugs, he will be taken to a scenario in which he will have to escape from a car before it is thrown into a crusher, killing him. In scenes like these, a “timer” scene (a portion of the screen that is devoted to show the player how long he or she has until their time runs out, or another event is scripted to occur, which is shown through several different camera angles) is shown at the bottom of the screen, indicating how long the player has to escape from his predicament.

Anther unique feature of this game is how character death is handled. If a character dies, the game resumes with the player having control of another character – with the previous character’s death affecting the story. There are 4 possible playable characters. If all 4 were to die, there is a proper conclusion before the game ends (in other words – you won’t simply get a “Game Over” screen).