Spotlighting the New IPs of 2010 – Heavy Rain

Welcome to Part 5 of a week-long series at MMOMFG.com where we’ll be spotlighting some of the biggest and most original titles slated to drop during the first few months of next year.  We believe that new intellectual properties (IPs) are the life-blood of the video game industry and the studios and publishers willing to take a risk on a new idea or story deserve much praise.  After all, it takes a successful new IP to establish a franchise and churn out those money-grabbing sequels…not that there’s anything wrong with that.  For the next five days we’ll be posting a rundown of what to expect from some of the most highly anticipated original titles of the first quarter of 2010.  So far we have previewed Alan Wake, Split/Second, MAG, and Dante’s Inferno. In our final installment, we look at Quantic Dream’s deep story telling  title, Heavy Rain

Heavy Rain
Release Date: First Quarter 2010
What is it? First announced back in 2006 with an emotionally powerful tech demo, Heavy rain is a game that will utilize choice and story unlike anything we’ve seen this generation. It’s a title that is all about  immersion. In a game where there are no do-overs and character death is permanent, Heavy Rain hopes to blur the line of story telling, movie making, and game playing to a degree in which has never been done.

Why it could hit
Multiple characters, multiple paths – Since character death is permanent, gamers are going to continue to play Heavy Rain to unlock the different endings. With four characters to dive into, exploring the different choices and witnessing the different outcomes are going to make people come back again and again.

Fun to watch, fun to play – Heavy Rain is starting to look like one of those games you don’t mind watching your friends play. It’s a dark, investigative, film-noir story that will have those playing and watching trying to figure out who the Origami Killer is and how to stop him. Quantic Dream has gone to great lengths showcasing Heavy Rain as a game that is submerged in it’s story telling. With tense moments and the feeling that every choice matters those wanting a story and setting to sink their teeth into won’t have to look far. A mature setting might also help to generate plenty of interest (and publicity) for the non-gamer crowd.

The power of the PS3 -  This game looks gorgeous. With 3 years in development, Quantic Dream has gone to great lengths on character modeling and creating realistic backdrops for their story.  As of right now, the best looking PS3 game will have to go to Uncharted 2, but in a few months that might change. PS3 fans wanting to tout the system’s power don’t need to look far after getting a good dose of Heavy Rain.

Why it could miss
Quick Time Events – Very few games can pull off Quick Time Events. In fact I believe the God of War series is the only recent group of games that I didn’t mind them from start to finish.  It looks like Heavy Rain will be relying heavily (no pun intended) on QTEs and from what we’ve seen they aren’t obtrusive or in your face. Instead the game users a subtle fade-in/fade-out effect prompting you for button presses and it looks like it just might work.  However without seeing anything but QTEs in the videos it’s tough to tell whether the hardcore group of gamers will be patience enough to enjoy the story and “click through” the entire game.

Uninteresting Story – With so much focus on it’s story, there hasn’t been too much revealed about it. You’re searching for a killer….and that’s it. It could be good, it could be bad. There could be very cool plot twists or the story might have more plot holes than a piece of Swiss cheese. A good story can keep a gamer going for four hours straight but one that lags will snap people right out of the moment no matter how pretty the graphics are.

The media is dumb (people can’t think for themselves) – Heavy Rain is a mature title and with it comes plenty of baggage. In the case of GTA all the bad publicity probably helped it in the end. However that was Take 2 and Rockstar and they’ve been around the block multiple times when it comes to the whole “violence and boobies and sex are bad” shtick. Heavy Rain is a new IP and even though Sony is a big powerhouse I don’t believe they’ve ever had to back a game as mature as this. With being so late in development it would be a shame to see something get censored or cut out due to the fear of backlash from either the media or public opinion.

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What our crystal ball tells us
Those who can stomach the QTEs will find Heavy Rain to be one of the most beautiful and provocative games of 2010 and for the PS3. It won’t be the system seller many might think but it’ll garner plenty of awards and be a de facto standard when discussing storytelling in a video game. Those who hate QTEs will continue playing Bubble Bobble and burger time.

That concludes our week long series of some of the top new IPs we’re looking forward to next year. The good news is, most of these titles either have a hard or tentative date for first quarter 2010 so we won’t have to wait much longer to see if they’re the real deal or just pipe dreams. Regardless of the outcome, new intellectual properties should always be embraced and supported as you never know when you’re looking at the next Mario or Sam Fisher.

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