Recently, affected by heavy rainfall such as dragon boat rain and plum rain, heavy rain has continued to fall in many parts of the country, and all localities have suffered from waterlogging disasters. Speaking of torrential rain, gamers can't help but think of Quantic Dream, a French studio developed by interactive movie games, released on February 23, 2010 on the PS3 platform.
Due to the continuous playing of "Rainstorm", the game has been released on the PS3, PS4 and PS5 platforms successively, becoming the father of the three dynasties without compromise. According to official figures, Rainstorm, with a development budget of 16 million euros, sold 5.3 million in January 2018. The company's other out-of-the-box game, Detroit: Becoming a Man (development budget of 30 million euros), achieved "only" 6.5 million with a budget twice that of the former, which also highlights the old and timeless nature of the 12-year-old game.
With the acclaim and acclaim for the development of interactive movie games such as Phantom Killer, Rainstorm, The Amazing Twins and Detroit: Becoming Human, Quantum Dreams has established the company's leading position in the field, and no, the company is already working on Star Wars: Eclipse and another unpublished AAA blockbuster. Then again, what's so fun about Rainstorm? How to help Quantum Dream achieve good commercial results, and even be regarded as "god work" by some players?
1. There is killing to become benevolent, and there is no survival to harm others
"Heavy Rain" tells that whenever the rainstorm pours down in the autumn, the police will find the body of a boy around 8-10 years old. Strangely, the boys held origami in their hands and an orchid on their chests. The number of victims is increasing year by year, and the media and the public are paying more and more attention to the matter, but the police have never been able to find any clues about the murderer, so the murderer is also called "origami killer".
The whole story revolves around the detection process of the Origami Killer Case, the game adopts a multi-line parallel narrative method, telling the 4 protagonists controlled by the player, the father who experienced the pain of losing his son, the female reporter who tracked down the exclusive news, the FBI criminal profile expert and the private detective, and the player will observe and guess their connection with the case from multiple angles in the different action trajectories of each character.
Just as the scene in the game is presented, the gray sky is mixed with countless rains. As the storyline progresses, more and more frequent and rapid rainfall not only sets off the atmosphere of depression, uneasiness and pain, but also makes an excellent preparation for the direction of the story and the different moods of the characters.
Studies have shown that on rainy days, the brain pineal gland secretes more melatonin, serotonin and other substances to cause a low mood, while on sunny days, the skin is exposed to the sun, the body will produce more vitamin D, thereby promoting the brain to produce serotonin to enhance emotional enthusiasm. In Rainstorm, origami killers kidnap children during the rainy season, and after the kidnapping, they start counting the rainfall, and when the rainfall reaches 6 inches, they let the boy hostages be brutally drowned.
The entire game takes place in a rainstorm, the sound of which is noisy and irritating, and the gray sky and the pouring rain convey depression and suffocation. The intuitive feeling of the player is that after the production team has enriched the preparation in the early stage, when manipulating the protagonist Ethan, he can feel the protagonist's anxiety, anger, uneasiness and anxiety everywhere. The hazy rain, the clues hidden in the heavy rain, the tense and exciting BGM and the ups and downs, invisibly exacerbate the empathy between the player and the character.
In order to give players a deeper immersive experience, Quantum Dreams makes the scene in the rainstorm less saturated in visual presentation, increasing the difficulty of exploration while keeping the player's attention on the screen. Players are both worried about missing key clues and afraid of sudden jump scares, and the ticking rain is a "must-kill" that disturbs the mind.
Although the whole game is in an anxious, dark visual environment, but in terms of character image, the game is not stuck to the dualism of either or, but four different characters (even supporting roles) in shaping, let the audience feel the different personality charm of different characters, the author believes that this is the secret of the game's success in the character arc.
For example, while controlling Ethan to get the clue after all the difficulties, origami killer asks the player to kill an "innocent" man. As a player, are you brave enough to pull the trigger and be a "god" who can freely rule on the other person's life, or do you lay down your weapon and let the other person escape, but also risk losing your next clue and losing your loved one?
The game doesn't tell you which choice is correct, but it does make the player really feel that the butterfly effect caused by "my" choice is responsible for every choice "I" make.
Game director David Cage called Rainstorm a "very dark noir thriller with an adult theme" and "the real theme [of the game] is how much you're willing to pay to save your loved ones."
As he put it: "I want people to just play it once... Because that's life. Human life is only once... I want people to experience this game that way. He continues: "(Re-reading in to avoid a bad ending) I'm good at it, but the right way to enjoy Rainstorm really should be to just try it once, because that's going to be your story." That's your unique experience. That's the story you really decide to write... I think playing it a few times is a way to ruin its charm. ”
2. Why was "Rainstorm" canonized?
The success of "Rainstorm" lies in the shaping of the script, and the excellent multi-line narrative script, the networked narrative structure, and the application of narrative trickery reasoning have added a strong appeal to the game plot.
Let's talk about one of the scenes that impressed me the most. In the game, Ethan's originally happy family is torn apart by the death of his eldest son, and the younger son becomes his only dependent. However, the Origami Killer ruthlessly kidnapped his son and placed him in a series of inhuman trials to test the extent of his father's love for his son.
In particular, the scene where the origami killer asks Ethan to cut off his finger to continue to advance, and Ethan bravely cuts off his finger under the control of the author with his deep love for his son. Shouting heart-rending, BGM abruptly stopped, the player seemed to incarnate Ethan, and the pain of the father's cone seemed to reach the player's heart through the screen. The author believes that this is the real experience of the "Ninth Art", which is very different from other arts, meticulous and silent, giving the experiencer the most real sense of substitution.
There are many such soul tests in the game, Lauren, who has become a prostitute, is willing to go to the soup to find her son who is also missing, and Scott, who has experienced the shadow of childhood, is still willing to help others, and the successful shaping of these characters contributes to the success of the game.
As netizens said: The boom of "Rainstorm" continues to this day, interactive cinematic games are endless, such excellent works as "Strange Life", "The Walking Dead", "The Wolf Around Us" continue to attract our attention, and players also pay more attention to the plot in the game, manufacturers are also willing to carefully sculpt works like "Uncharted 4" and "The End of america" that attach equal importance to plot and gameplay. Perhaps this is the real meaning of the game "Heavy Rain" being "sealed".
The author would like to say that "Rainstorm" is a game that can be experienced without buying it once on the Internet cloud, and the simple "QTE" (Quick Time Event) operation also makes many viewers take for granted that the game threshold is extremely low and does not need to start. But friends, I think you may have had such an experience: when you are in a QTE game in the cloud, you will not be satisfied with some of the choices of the UP lord, and feel that such a choice is not in line with the character's personality and plot direction.
Yes, when you have this look and feel, I recommend that players get started with "Heavy Rain". In fact, it's like watching a movie in a notebook and never having the shock of a movie theater. There will be a world of difference between clearing customs clearance at Station B and actually handing out. These QTE elements in Rainstorm are not just for the player to perceive that this is a game, but for the production team to make the player have an immersive experience.
Just as people will misinterpret the acceleration of the heartbeat when playing the roller coaster as the heartbeat of love, a continuous and rapid QTE can also allow the player to enter a highly tense atmosphere in a short period of time, an experience that is difficult to bring by simply watching videos.
3. Between virtual reality + clever conception + human nature speculation
"I didn't want to make a freely roamable city like in the GTA series, because then the development of the plot would be difficult to control. But I do want to introduce a big city environment with a lot of people and some crowded areas (like malls and subway stations). And the game was indeed designed in that direction. David Cage said that although the city in the game has no name, it has a shadow of the suburbs of Philadelphia. Cage said he loves Indian-American director, screenwriter and producer Nate Shyamalan's films, many of which were made in Philadelphia. Cage and his team then traveled to Philadelphia and visited many of the poorer residents to experience the disappointment, poverty, and fear they saw.
In fact, Knight Shyamalan's films have always won with effect and have a deep philosophy, but what is more fascinating is the ending of his films, and almost all of his films will give people an unexpected ending. At the same time, in The Work of Knight Shyamalan, he uniquely shows a consistent concern for survival and destiny, and shows the ultimate reflection on the dilemma of human existence and the meaning of life.
Combining these contents, it can be seen that "Rainstorm" constructs the story scene in the grafting of reality and fiction, supplemented by an ingenious narrative structure, and finally realizes the deep speculation on human nature and philosophy.
For example, Rainstorm has many gameplay aspects that make it a rare masterpiece, including the use of extreme operation (especially joystick operation), the combination of QTE and scene atmosphere rendering, diverse choices and plot drive, and exquisite level design.
In particular, the operation of QTE, compared to the last two works "The Extraordinary Twins" and "Detroit: Incarnate", "Rainstorm" gives players a full range of QTE experience. From dressing and eating, to escaping and solving cases, the game tirelessly allows players to carry out tedious operations. At the beginning of the game, "Rainstorm" is to build a half-hour-long family trivia experience, through life trivia and happy past, to pave the way for the next reversal of the plot.
However, Cheng ye Xiao He also lost Xiao He. Complex QTE operations require players to have strong concentration and proficiency in key positions, which leads to a very low fault tolerance rate in the operation of the player, and it is likely to die due to too many operation errors. Moreover, the slightly dull and redundant preparation in the early stage of the game has dissuaded some "monkey anxious" players to a certain extent. While these operations are harmless, they are also flawless.
And Quantum Dreams is committed to giving players a free and good experience in every game. But in practice, the drawbacks of air walls and visual rotation are common diseases that have not been completely eliminated until "Detroit: Incarnate as a Human" produced in 2018. Moreover, after the three games of "Rainstorm", "Extraordinary Twins" and "Detroit: Incarnate As a Man" were ported from PS to PC, all parties generally had the phenomenon of wearing model bugs and frame drops, and the optimization of many models also made players suffer from "genuine". Realistically speaking, even after many rounds of transplantation and resetting, "Rainstorm" is still relatively outdated at present, and the micro-expressions of the characters' faces are often slightly stiff.
Of course, the flaw is that the real-time rendering technology of "Rainstorm" in 2010 is epoch-making. Including the hilarious CG animation at the end of "Rainstorm", which heralds the upcoming ERA of HD 4K after the arrival of the PS4, it also makes players excited. Unlike today's sub-era, called "sub-era", but because the technology has reached a bottleneck, many of the players' visions are difficult for manufacturers to put into reality.
merit
- A fascinating, suspenseful storyline
- Just the right BGM accent
- Great immersion experience
shortcoming
- Relatively backward picture quality
- Pc-side optimization is flawed
- The plot closed loop is flawed