HA6 Task 4 - Analysis of a Game Genre

Genre: Interactive Drama

Beyond: Two Souls - Heavy Rain - Mass Effect 3

I am going to explore the genre of Interactive drama in this article, using three games to detail my points and views while ultimately providing a detailed analysis into the genre.An Interactive drama is a fairly new genre introduced into the gaming industry, it consists of a story being played out in front of the player, but offers up choices or decisions which can have a massive impact on how the story will carry on from the point of that choice/decision.

In the game Heavy Rain You as the player are put in control of 4 major characters, each one of these characters could potentially die at various points during the story, however instead of having a Game Over screen pop up, the story carries on despite the death of this supposed major character, which causes the story to play out completely differently when compared to the scenario in which that character survives.

For Heavy Rain this results in an open ended, multi-strand story. The game Beyond: Two Souls takes a similar approach, however unlike Heavy Rain your choices and decisions are self-contained within each separate chapter of the story. This results in a more linear story and is made possible as the story follows a single main character, (Jodie Holmes) over the course of 15 years, therefore each chapter of the story has a fair amount of time separating them, which helps the believability of prior events not being reflected upon due to a 2 to 3 year gap. this could also be considered as a negative as it lessens the impact that you as a player has over the story, so regardless of your decisions in chapter 1, chapter 2 will always start the same way. The positive here is that you can quickly go to a certain point in the story and check out the results of different decisions easily without having to start from the very beginning.

While Mass-Effect 3 is primarily an action game and is not really considered an Interactive drama, (More RPG than anything) it has the same elements as Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls when it comes to making decisions in the story. Not only that but like Heavy Rain it has a multi-strand story, while it's not quite as expansive, it allows the players to experience a number of different events in the game, which can also lead to a number of different endings, which is also a feature of both Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls.

A notable aspect of all three of these games is that they all have a heavy emphasis on their characters and the development of said characters. This fact lends its self greatly to the drama aspect of this genre, as all of these characters go through negative experiences throughout but as they do, they grow as characters which also helps with the players immersion into these characters lives.

It's important to note that all these games also appear to be heavily influenced by films, especially in the case of Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls. The director of these games; David Cage clearly had a vision of what he wanted to achieve and many gamers have fairly declared that these games are nothing more than interactive films, many gamers have also pointed this out as a negative, however this is all they were ever meant to be, the emphasis was always meant to be on the story and the characters rather than engaging gameplay. 

Simply put, you are put in charge of the direction of the story. That's not to say that gameplay is neglected altogether, as there are plenty of high pressure action scenes which require rapid responces from the player in which a mistake can result in a harsh punishment. In a game with no Game Over screen, these punishments will stick and prove as a much harsher punishment than restarting from the last check point.

Sources

Image: http://redkingsdream.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/RKD_heavy_pain.jpg, http://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/write.ign.com/147611/2013/05/Beyond-Two-Souls-Jodie-600x336.jpg,http://i2.cdnds.net/13/12/618x347/gaming-beyond-two-souls-9.jpg, http://i1.cdnds.net/13/25/618x347/gaming-beyond-two-souls--screenshot-13.jpg, http://i1.cdnds.net/13/12/618x347/gaming-beyond-two-souls-13.jpg, http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/j_Lnqkhwxzo/maxresdefault.jpg  

Text: IGN Reviews, Gamespot Reviews