Heavy Rain is an interactive action-adventure game with a neo-noir type of storytelling, this would be Quantic Dream's second interactive game, with Fahrenheit being the first (Published in 2005). The story is very much that of a drama crime thriller, following four very different individuals who attempt to solve the case of The Origami Killer, a serial killer who drowns his victims with extended periods of rainfall.
The studio behind this game is Quantic Dreams, a French Video Game Developer Studio that was founded in 1997 and based in Paris, France, it is also one of few companies offering motion capturing services to film and video game industries. Though the Studio is still somewhat young and considerably small (Consisting of at least 180 employees), the handful of games they have published thus far have all been well received and won multiple awards.
They are perhaps the first to explore into the Interactive Drama game genre, their games focusing heavily on storytelling, emotion and innovation, while also continuing to upgrade their graphics and animation technology to keep up with the times.
Like a good crime thriller, this game did have a tendency to give me a heart attack now and then... maybe more so, seeing as I am in the one in control of the characters. There are many moments where your character could die if you are not able to figure out a solution in time, and no, to make matters worse, the game would not end right then and there just because he or she had died, the story would continue progressing without them, which is very unlike most games. The game is in no way linear as your choices could vastly change the fate of your characters, so quite humorously, you might feel pretty darn guilty for throwing your character into a bad situation, even if he or she is fictional.
Since Fahrenheit, there have been huge graphics improvement for Heavy Rain, there was a demo of sorts made to show the facial capturing technology (Very much like Kara) that would be used for Heavy Rain while it was still in progress, at the time they were still in the middle of research and development efforts for the game itself, you can clearly see that the graphics were even further improved by the time the game itself came out:
Notable features of the technology used not only includes full body and facial motion capturing, but also real-time tears and wrinkles on the face, advanced skinshaders, and some advanced rendering features, such as depth of field, spherical harmonics, auto exposure and high dynamic range rendering. The technology enables animations of pupil dilation, tongue, eyes, fingers, and dynamic hair with physics.
It is just amazing how motion capturing has been improving so vastly and quickly over the years, of course we also have the amazing actors to thank for in the process.
It breaks my heart that I will not be able to play Beyond: Two Souls until I return to Singapore much, much later, but at least I will know that I have a huge pile of wonderful games to catch up on once I get back... I think that's a good thing...
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