Emotional Connection to a Video Game

Fine, Video games may never be viewed in the same light as music or film in terms of art but they can still have a connection to us in more than one way. One of the most talked about games of the year so far has been Heavy Rain. Regardless of what people say, your experience in the game will most certainly be different than someone else's. Some love this while other feel that they would rather have a streamlined experience that doesn't stray off the beaten path.

Because I am also a contributor at a gaming site and was responsible for the site's review of Heavy Rain, I didn't want or could read other reviews of the game as to not dilute or affect my own thoughts on the game. Now after posting my review I have begun to think what connection people actually had with the game's subject matter.

As most people know, Heavy Rain is based around death and more specifically, the killing of children. This is a very touchy subject since death/killing and children in video game form is typically not dealt with. Just like Genocide and Rape, there are certain subjects that we may never get to experience in any sort of first-hand nature because of the controversy it would most certainly cause. Developers have purposely avoided such topics because they know that more harm and backlash would follow. Before Heavy Rain, it was Modern Warfare 2's 'No Russian' that broke the boundaries by putting us in the role of a 'terrorist'. Yes, we can argue for hours on if got the message across or if there was even a message in putting you in the role of a taking the lives of innocent people.

Now in Heavy Rain, you might not be directly killing children but it is the action of one man, a father, who ultimately decides the fate of his own child. Anyone who knows the basis of Heavy Rain, there is the possibility of either saving your son's life in the end or letting him die. This is not a spoiler but essentially the main plot of the game on the whole.

When reviewing Heavy Rain I had a number of different emotions go through my mind. For starters, I have a strong connection to death. I lost my father at a very young age, so I have lived most of my life without a father figure to support me. In this game, the role is reversed. It is a father who has already lost his first son and now is put into a position where he could also lose a second one. There is certainly a lot of pressure put onto a parent when they have already lost so much and could lose even more.

I wonder how many reviewers/critics of Heavy Rain have been put into a similar situation? I don't necessarily mean they've had someone kidnapped but have had to deal with a loss, specifically either they at a young age losing a parent, or losing a child. Better yet, how many of them are parents with children similar in age to the victims of the Origami Killer.

What started this thought process were comments made by Penny Arcade's Gabe who stated that after playing through portions of Heavy Rain, he was compelled to go to his son's bedroom and to give him a huge hug. The fact that a video game, of all things, made him so compelled to show off his emotions is something incredible. It may not seem like much at the moment and most certainly his child wouldn't understand the implications of why his father is randomly hugging him, but for a father, that moment means something that childless people probably would not understand.

Everyone is talking about the clearly evident plot holes and the limitations that Heavy Rain has but no one has bothered to bring up the emotion that Heavy Rain offers. I am really interested if that every crossed someone's mind while playing or have we become so separated that we are able to put a line between reality and entertainment. Love it or hate it, Heavy Rain does succeed in putting you in a position of controlling the life and death of more than one person.