Top 10 Video Game CS/Play Movies

09. Heavy Rain

You cannot make a 'Top 10 video game into movies' list without including what is widely held to be the first popular conception of the application of motion-picture approach fused into a video game.

Heavy Rain is commonly labeled as a Film Noir video game. What does that mean?

The basic and most commonly accepted definition of Film Noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe the sort of stylish Hollywood crime dramas of the 1930s and 1940s that emphasized a more cynical attitude towards the story presentation.

Traditionally video games are not structured like that. Any regular gamer can easily name the core genres most often found in a given video game season, and are quick to single out their favorites if asked. So when they are presented with a genre - or more likely a sub-genre - that falls well outside the accepted norms, this tends to polarize the audience.

In the case of Heavy Rain that polarization took the form of an instant love-hate divide that had a very significant impact both on the game, and the gamer community.

You either really liked it, or you really hated it. And regardless of which camp you happened to fall in, the complex nature of a wide variety of sub-plots (all of which in one way or another contributed to the path that the player took and which ending they experienced) made it almost a requirement for the player to seek out a good game play guide or walkthrough so that they had a source that provided an explanation of what it was they had just experienced.

It was not that the gamers could not understand it - or that the game itself withheld key information - but rather it came down to the various sub-plot elements and the barely detectible switches and events whose primary goal was to manipulate the emotional condition of the player, that made all of that necessary.

The real irony was that the quality of the guide that the player used was not as important as the basic grasp that its author had for the pivotal events that were being documented.

An excellent example of this - and its importance - is related to the fact that the game also happened to be a platform-exclusive title. Heavy Rain was created by game development studio Quantic Dreams exclusively for Sony's PlayStation 3 entertainment console, and published by Sony as a cornerstone of the foundation for its 2010 / 2011 game season.

It did not help matters that the game was received as a genre-busting major release that instantly generated a seemingly built-in measure of bewilderment thanks to its easy classification among so many different genres and sub-genres.

To put a finer point to the matter, consider this: despite it being a genuine case of WYSISYG story design, it was not at all uncommon to find a publication or game review outlet adding to the confusion through its own internal inability to define the primary genre of the game!

In just the month before and the month following its release, Heavy Rain was identified as the following genres:

Action-Adventure

Art-Adventure

Crime Thriller

Puzzle-Adventure

Role-Playing Game (RPG)

Stealth-Action

Survival Horror

Visual Novel

Those are just the primary genres that may have applied to the game - when you start packing in the sub-genres the list rapidly becomes unmanageable and even more confusing.

Considering that, in most cases, a video game genre is defined not by the developer or the studio that releases it, but rather by the collection and often arbitrary elements that are themselves rather a subjective matter of the perceptions of the player / writer / reviewer and games community.

So when you have a wildly popular game that happens to be a platform-exclusive offering, and that game is properly classified in a manner that is independent of the setting in the game, its game-world, and the interpreted focus of the protagonist from their point-of-view, that confusion becomes much easier to grasp.

The issue was further muddled by the popularity of the game itself; while it received the to-be-expected game reviews, it was also a fitting and well-covered subject for feature articles, rating articles, and was the focus of speculative writing covering everything from its unique Film Noir style to psychological manipulation of the player thanks to the nature of its characters and story.

You cannot blame gamers for being confused by all of that. Now consider that this confusion was present not just for the gamer community, but also among the writers and editors for the outlets whose basic job it is to offer light and definition to that community, and that was when it really started to get weird.

I recall distinctly how that confusion settled in just prior to the release of the game - and the fact that it was not at all uncommon to discover that different writers at the same publication or outlet somehow managed to define the game into a wide variety of different - often-conflicting - primary genres.

This was actually a significant problem; you see this sort of thing is not supposed to happen. Ever. The event was not clarified by the editors and sub-editors whose job it is to offer just that sort of clarification, and that actually raised another bogeyman of an issue in that for the writers who were assigned to cover the game, the editors and subs are supposed to serve as the first - and the last - line of defense, and help to prevent the sort of confusion that was not prevented largely because they too were confused...

When we stop to consider how deeply this title divided gamers as well as the editorial, review, and features side of the games press, we catch a glimpse of confusion on a scale previously unseen.

Now as hindsight is 20/20 we can look back on the events - and the game - now, and see with a clarity that was not present then. Bear in mind that this was a time when the gamer community was not quite ready for this sort of genre-bashing game.

As a result, the segment that was willing to embrace the game found an awesome adventure - if somewhat confusing at points - whereas the segment that was put off by it found a game they could really loathe.

The secret to the success of Heavy Rain can be found in the immediate and deliberate focus upon the protagonist and his emotional dysfunction and personality from the very start.

The essential experience and point was to place the player not simply in the guise of Ethan, but to help them quickly develop a serious case of empathy for him so that the decisions that they made had real punch and the consequences genuine regret.

What truly set this one apart was not its collection of additional protagonists, or the manner in which they contributed to the unfolding story - though that was all very important - but rather it manifested in a combination of emotional impact and frustration of hindsight because the many choices that the player was forced to make as they became Ethan resulted in a splintered path!

While this game only attains the position of Number 09 on our list, the fact that it also happened to serve a pivotal role in creating the circumstances that lead to the creation of the Video Game as Movie genre on platforms like YouTube also stands out.

In the case where you have to pick a few to watch due to time constraints. should you find yourself wondering which Game-Movies you will choose, we strongly recommend that the video embedded above be one of them if only because it both tells an amazing story and, perhaps more significant, will provide you with a bit of insight as to how the phenomenon actually got started.

Posted: 20th Nov 2014 by CMBF
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