Heavy Rain and QTEs

I've just finished Heavy Rain for the first time and I thought I may as say what I thought about it. Plus I'll be talking about Quick Time Events (or QTE for short) and what I think about their use in gaming

Well first I gotta say that Heavy Rain is a brilliant game, it starts off pretty shitty and boring to begin with but once the story gets going you can really get into it then. For those of you who don't know the game is about a father (Ethan) who has to overcome some trials to save his son (who is 10 years old I think) from the mysterious origami killer. The killer has murdered other children in the past, all by drowning them in a pit that fills up with rain water. The other main characters you play as are Madison who seeks to help Ethan with his problems, FBI agent Norman Jayden who has been assigned to investigate the murders and capture the killer and Private Investigator Scott Shelby who is also looking into the murders separately from the police.

Ethan Mars

Madison Paige

Norman Jayden

Scott Shelby

The gameplay is rather unique in that you walk by pressing R2,  adjusting your direction with the analogue stick (usually in other games you just need to point the analogue stick the direction you want to go to move). The primary interaction with the environment though is with QTEs which pop up every now again to enable you to perform different movements or actions. The required pressing of buttons, flicking of the analogue stick and  movement of the controller reflects the action on screen. You can also switch the game to move mode which enables you to use the playstation move instead of the dualshock 3 controller.

You need to press the X and Square before the circle fills up to enable Madison to successfully fight the burglar

Here you need to tilt your controller clockwise before the circle fills to get Ethan to turn the steering wheel clockwise

In this shot the player can either choose to shoot this person with R1 or flick the analogue stick in the direction shown to put the gun away

When it comes to scenes with tension such as a chase or a fight, I have to say that this system works really well adding to urgency by getting you to worry about pressing the right buttons and doing the right movements. You've got to be quick but not lose your concentration or you could mess it up and this can become surprisingly difficult. However there were times where for me it wasn't clear what the QTEs actually did, so I had to find out through trial and error. This got really frustrating at times and I had to turn off the game twice to undo what I had done so that I could choose the action that I actually wanted to do in the first place. Take the above example with Ethan pointing the gun at a man's head, I knew that R1 was to shoot him but I wasn't sure what the analogue stick movement did. I wondered if it meant to put the gun away but I said to myself "what if it wasn't?" I ultimately wanted to shoot the guy, well I really didn't want to but not shooting him might've meant that Shaun would die and if I had to choose between that guy and Shaun I would want Shaun to live. I needed to see what the other option was so I tried the analogue stick movement and low and behold it meant to put the gun away and not kill him which I didn't want so I exited the game quickly and loaded it again so that I could choose to shoot him now that I new what the analogue movement meant. Maybe it would've been better if for some of the actions (especially those where choice is involved) had words accompanying the QTEs shown on screen explaining what choices are present and which movements do what action. Maybe Something like this:

I reckon it's clearer this way but not essential for all QTEs, especially those in action sequences where there's not enough time to read.

Having QTEs that aren't clear has the opposite effect of their overall intention by making the player less engrossed with the game, it's really distracting and detrimental to keeping the necessary atmosphere present. The ones in the more active sequence don't need to be so clear since the tension comes from the player getting the button pressing and movements right rather than worrying about what they do. There are choices in some of these sequences but they don't seem to affect the plot that much so in these cases it's pressing the buttons accurately rather than choosing the options that matters.

There was one other time that I had to restart the game in addition to the two times previously mentioned, this wasn't about choosing an option though it was about getting the action right. The QTE shown required me to move my controller downwards, which I did but it didn't show that I performed the action, the game thought I didn't do the movement. Now it is possible that whilst I flicked the controller downwards that I may haven't have done it well but I'm pretty sure I did it clearly. It's sort of related to what I was saying in a previous post about motion sensing in gaming in that there's a lack of feedback in your actions when flaying your controllers around in the air giving a sense of uncertainty, whereas if I flicked say the analogue stick in the general direction required but it didn't count then I know for sure that it was my mistake since I know the controller must have picked up my movements so then I know that I wasn't accurate enough. With motion control it's more uncertain, however hopefully this may change as technology improves since the Dualshock 3 motion sensing is appauling. It kind of got me curious as to how the playstation move would fair for this, not sure if I'd buy one just for this game though.

God of War

Anyway what about QTEs in other games? Well the only other games I've played that use QTEs prominently are God of War and Metal Gear Rising; Revengeance (only the demo though). I have to say that I'm not fond of QTEs in action games which are very dynamic in their nature and I feel QTEs detract from that. When slicing up a monster or robot I want to feel like I'm the one doing it albeit through an avatar. With QTEs you don't feel like you're slicing up anybody you just feel like you're pushing buttons, the method of tension that it provides isn't suitable and essential for an action game. When I'm attacking normally I don't think "press square to attack it" I think "attack it" and pressing square comes naturally without thinking. However with a QTE I don't think "pull out the eyeball" instead I think "press square to do something" and it's this that distances me from the action in the game, breaking that dynamic flow.

Anyway regardless of it's flaws (of which I haven't mentioned all of the ones I experienced in the game within this post) I really enjoyed Heavy Rain and recommend it to anyone up for a decent emotional experience.