Heavy Noire

In mid-May, the highly anticipated video game L.A. Noire was released around the world by Team Bondi and Rockstar Games (most famous for their Grand Theft Auto series). The production studio used a special new state-of-the-art motion capture system called MotionScan to record real actors' faces from 32 different angles, which they used to animate realistic facial expressions for the in-game characters, each voiced and portrayed by their respective motion capture actor. The resulting graphics were astonishingly realistic for a video game, and gamers couldn't wait to get their hands on it.

John Noble, recording motion capture for one of
the game's antagonists.

Hearing all the buzz about this new game, however, I was reminded of another game that was released a year prior, called Heavy Rain. I heard about Heavy Rain last summer when I was looking for some video games that had emotional storylines. The Heavy Rain producers were praised for their use of motion capture technology, but mostly for their involving plot, about a man whose son is kidnapped by a serial killer and must go to great lengths to save him before he's drowned.

Heavy Rain protagonist Ethan Mars.

The two games are similar because they both have heavy Film Noir influences, and they've both been praised for their innovative use of motion capture technology. When I first heard about L.A. Noire, I immediately wanted to compare it to Heavy Rain, thinking that Heavy Rain was much better even though I didn't really have any experience with either game at all. As it turns out, the two games are more dissimilar than I first realized.

In L.A. Noire, you play a police detective in 1947 Los Angelos. Like in the Grand Theft Auto games, the player is given a large city within which to navigate wherever you please; you can ignore the main plot if you like and explore on your own, or you can follow the in-game story, solving cases and arresting the criminals to progress. The game really does require you to use your detective skills, putting the extremely detailed facial rendering program to work as you decide if a witness is lying or if a suspect is telling the truth.

L.A. Noire protagonist Cole Phelps.

The game story, however, is relatively simple. It starts off very similar to an older mission-game; you're given an assignment (catch the criminal), you go out and collect the evidence, talk to witnesses, determine the suspect, arrest them, and get the next mission. It's very much Phoenix Wright but all the action, tension, and reckless driving of Grand Theft Auto, and superb graphics. I'm not very impressed by top-of-the-line graphics, however, so while I acknowledge that the graphics are amazing in L.A. Noire, and that the story does finally seem to exist later in the game, it doesn't appeal to me much more than games like Harvest Moon or the Professor Layton games.

Heavy Rain, as far as video games go, is very different. Compared to L.A. Noire, Heavy Rain is extremely linear: there are only certain places you can go, only certain things you can do or say, and every option you have is spelled out for you. However, Heavy Rain is simultaneously much more free, because there are many ways to tell the main story. You can get a main character killed halfway through the story, and then they're dead for the rest of the game, or they can get out alive; the story moves on either way. There are several different possible endings to the story, and the actions you take throughout the game determines what happens in later sections.

Heavy Rain is more accurate described as an interactive fiction. It's made up almost entirely of cutscenes that you can control; as the player, you move the character through the programmed actions by following the on-screen commands, and if you mess up, the character messes up, too, and you can either start over or do something else. That is, if your mistake didn't kill the character, of course.

An example of on-screen commands during an action sequence.

There are four playable characters in Heavy Rain, each with their own stories, coming at the case from their own angles, trying to find out who the serial killer is before the main protagonist's son dies. Depending on the different choices you make while playing as the different characters, you can change how later scenes will play out, and if you don't work hard enough, the son dies.

Heavy Rain isn't the best thing ever, however. In retrospect, I noticed a few plot holes and unanswered questions that kind of weaken the strength of the story. It's also very, very dark, not just with the search for the serial killer but also with the tasks given to the boy's father by the killer, one of which involves killing an unsuspecting drug dealer in order to gain a clue as to where the boy is. I wouldn't have minded the dark story, though, if it had succeeded in being emotional. While it was emotionally appealing, the only part of the game during which I felt any strong emotion was towards the end, when the player's actions determine whether, after all that work, the kidnapped boy lives or dies.

When compared to L.A. Noire, I still prefer Heavy Rain, but in all honesty, the two games aren't even attempting to achieve the same affect. Heavy Rain is a dark, emotional drama with an awesome story, a wonderful interactive style, and a somewhat disappointing execution, while L.A. Noire is an amazingly animated mainstream action game that, as far as I can tell, successfully blends the action with problem solving and critical thinking into a more-than-mediocre but less-than-impressive plot. Most people, it seems, are looking for mainstream-type stories, so I imagine in the coming years that L.A. Noire will make more of an impression, but Heavy Rain will still be recognized as a game whose designers thought outside of the box and made something truly unique.

(Side note: L.A. Noire is really awkward to type after a while - did any other reviewers notice after a while? It's cool to say, but I wish they hadn't insisted on using the periods in the acronym.)