Kubrick Homages in HEAVY RAIN

As Legal Arcade has astutely pointed out the video game (rather, "interactive drama") HEAVY RAIN contains some very strong Stanley Kubrick nods, evidenced above. [Relax: keeping this entry SPOILER-FREE.]

To add to the connections, the actor who plays the character of Scott Shelby in HEAVY RAIN, Sam Douglas, played the part of the cab driver in Kubrick's last film "Eyes Wide Shut":

Tonally, the game shares a surreal quality with Kubrick's work, as well.

Upon further inspection, I'm torn with HEAVY RAIN. I reread THIS ARTICLE by Anthony Burch, breaking down why HR proves Roger Ebert's argument against video games being considered "high art". There are some very good points in this article and it's worth reading after finishing the game.

It's no spoiler to point out that HEAVY RAIN involves you making critical decisions for an ensemble of characters. These characters have their own archetypes and histories.

In this really interesting interview with HEAVY RAIN writer/director David Cage, he discusses an earlier game he created to explain his rational for limiting a player's abilities:

Working on Fahrenheit, my guideline was that I allowed the player to do anything that made sense in the context. Some people came to me and said, "I'm in the diner in the opening scene. I would like to kill the cop at the bar, and I can't." Well, you know, Lucas Kane is not a killer. He's not someone who's vicious. He's just a normal guy. So why would a normal guy kill a cop? It doesn't make sense. Some people say, "I want to jump on the tables in the diner. I can't." Why would Lucas Kane do that? It doesn't make sense.

This is where the experience of watching a movie and the experience of playing a game wildly deviates.

When I'm watching a movie or TV series, I want characters to maintain some modicum of consistency. If "Dwight" has been set up to be an uptight, by-the-books company man in "THE OFFICE", it wouldn't make sense for him to ditch work frivolously or play video games on his office computer during work hours. [Oh, that's right, THE OFFICE totally sucks.] Characters can evolve, obviously, but you need to see that evolution in order to appreciate why the character is doing something s/he wouldn't have done as s/he's been established earlier.

When I'm playing a video game, on the other hand, I will do anything to sabotage the consistency of a character, just for the cheap thrill of imposing my will upon him/her. Sometimes it's less about an action making narrative sense and more about, "Let's see what happens if I do THIS...!"

And what if you try your best to remain consistent with the character as it's been established? Back to Burch's article:

"Great—you've maintained the integrity of the story and its characters, but you've also reduced the game to nothing more than a finicky DVD which must be unpaused every few minutes. If Ethan's character is already pretty well set in stone and you're just going through the motions you would expect him to go through, then why are you involved at all? If your personal interaction consists of nothing more than giving up your identity and making a character do something he would normally do anyway, then what differentiates your experience from that of watching a film? Your input no longer matters."

Spot on, IMHO.

I agree with all the criticisms of HEAVY RAIN and I still enjoyed the experience. I respect any game developer who's trying new things. I could go on and on about this, but I know that I'm not speaking to a very large audience. If you've the means and the hardware, try this game.