Hydroeclectic

Sony has a stable of impressive top-tier game franchises -- Uncharted, Killzone, God of War, the kind of blockbuster productions every console needs to open eyelids among the mainstream users. I, however, will remember Sony's impact on this generation in terms of what it delivered in the?? shadows of its titans. 

Flower, Journey, Unfinished Swan -- the less glorified games that gave the PlayStation 3 more personality and charm than any of its glossy, big-budget properties. Games often as beautiful as they are bleak, understated games that nonetheless make more of an impact on the player than any billion-dollar expl??osion cou?ld.

Games like Rain, a latecomer tha??t nonetheless ??deserves to be counted among the PlayStation 3 games that truly mattered in the last five years. 

Rain (PS3)
Developer: PlayStation CAMP, Acquire
Publisher: Sony
Released: October 1, 2013
MSRP: $14.99

Rain is the story of a little boy who accidentally becomes invisible. More than that, the town that once was so familiar is shrouded in darkness, assailed by a downpour of rain, and plagued by mysterious beasts intent on doing him harm. Visible only when the rainfall covers his body, he comes into a contact with a similarly afflicted girl, and together they must try to find their way through the storm an?d avoid the sinister forces out to get them. 

PlayStation CAMP's tale is a simple one, but it's delivered with a subtlety and poignance that manages to hit the right note, whether it aims to make you sad or delighted. With no voice acting to speak of, the narrative unfolds by way of text placed stylishly around the game's world, something I always appreciate in a game, but one that can p?rove just a touch distracting during the more platform-oriented sections. Nevertheless, it's a pleasingly presented, thoughtfully told story that ends on a most enamoring note. 

Drawing from platformers, stealth, and puzzle games, Rain smartly turns its central conceit into a variety of interesting ideas, never dwelling on one neat trick for long. The unnamed boy cannot fight back against the beasts that stalk him, but he is only visible to the creatures when standing directly in rain. The most common way of avoiding peril, therefore, is to sneak past by walking underneath roofing, canvas, and anything else that provides shelter from the water. O?f course, since the boy is invisible in such circumstance, spatial awareness (and an eye on wet footprints) is crucial to ensure one knows where they're going. 

New twists on this idea are dripped into the adventure as time progresses. Creatures themselves start wandering, invisible and deadly, i?n sheltered areas. Large puddles can give the boy's position away, while mud clings to him and renders him visible in any condition. Some monsters must be lured away from passages by noise, or huge passive creatures may be walked under for moving cover. Worst of a?ll, the lurching Unknown is constantly in pursuit, and his regular harassment makes for some surprisingly frightening sequences. 

When the boy and the girl unite, they'll need to cooperate to progress. Rain doesn't go out of its way to be too inventive here, with a whole bunch of block puzzles, boosting to higher ledges, and mutual opening of gates providing some standard environmental hindrances. Despite the relatively unimaginative puzzles, however, it's a uniqu??e pleasure to watch the two invisible friends interact with and help each other. 

Rain excels at providing ??moments of serenity punctuated harshly by jarringly sad or scary occurrences. When the game's calming music is playing, and the children are padding through the drumming of the rain, it's hard not to smile. Such elegant sequences are, however, tinged with fear of the Unknown rearing its misshapen head, or soured by the evocatively animated sadness and confusion of the silent heroes. Bittersweet is a word best reserved for experiences such as this. 

While Rain is a largely pleasant experience, some blemishes dampen the adventure in less literal ways. Controls are a little finicky, with the boy sometimes either feeling not responsive enough for his jumps, or too responsive and twitching off a ledge or away from an interactive object. A few of the chase and stealth sequences are overly reliant on trial and error too, albeit without it being as smartly woven into the design à la something like Limbo. There's nothing that?? will?? ever keep you stumped for more than a minute or two, but sometimes the game suffers from making you try to predict what the developers were thinking. 

It's also a shame that, for all its clever little tricks, none of Rain's ideas quite feel as fleshed out as they could have been. The first time you see just a mudstained pair of feet clomp in a roofed corridor, it's a joy. However, such unique spins on the central premise are showcased once or twice, and never really given much time to shine or reach their potential. Some of the simpler uses of Rain's gimmicks seem to exist purely to showcase how clever the whole idea is, and make you look at the cool visual style. While it is, indeed, cool, it can be frustrating to think about h??ow shallow t?he use of these ideas are, when juxtaposed against the possibilities. 

I will also say that, as much as I found the Unknown to be an intimida?ting enemy, the sheer number of times he pops up to spook the player tends to have a diminishing effect over the course of the game. By the end of it, he's come back more times than Jason Voorhees, and he starts to make eyes roll rather than close up tight. Still, he's very unsettling for the first half of the game. 

Nevertheless, Rain is a pleasure, and its visuals are indeed sublime. Aside from the general enjoyment one gets from the weather and invisibility effects, the profound animation is what really makes Rain as gorgeous as it is. The way the children slide on rain-slicked tiles, or cover their faces from the incoming water mak?e them feel incredibly alive, giving them a sense of believability and sympathy that most photorealistic, Hollywood-acted games would kill to achieve. 

The art design is impeccable, too, most notably with the monsters. Abstract, and yet unnervingly familiar, the vaguely formed beasts that hound the player a?re wonderfully designed to resemble common animals while maintaini?ng an alien and utterly cold form. It's an effective style, that works well against the great, dreary, yet hauntingly pretty background. 

Rain is not quite the model of refinement that some of its PlayStation Network peers have been, but it's an overwhelmingly amiable, effectively cultivated little adventure. Calming and scary, amusing and sorrowful, Rain is a game that jogs calmly through a gamut of emotions, rather than sprints headlong into mood whiplash, and it's incredibly difficult to ever dislike it, even during its twitchier moments. Rain is, above all, a most balmy experience. 

Also, it's nice to see the PS3 finally getting a ra?in-themed exclusive with?? a good story.

The post Review: Rain appeared first on Destructoid.

October 1 for NA, October 2 in Europe, October 3 in Japan

Rain will be coming to your PlayStation 3 on October 1 for North America, October 2 for Europe, and October 3 for Japan. It'll cost $14.99/€12.99, and if you pre-order the game you'll be given three bonus items: a music? montage, five avatars, and a ??dynamic theme.

There's a new developer diary for Rain out, and this one primarily focuses on the lovely music the game will fea?ture. The music is very peaceful, and a little on the sad side too.

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Rain drops this fall, whet your appetite with this video

Rain is a neat, affective collaboration between PlayStation C.A.M.P. (Tokyo Jungle) and Acquire (Tenchu). I liked what I saw of the PSN title when I previewed it during GDC and Dale North seemed equally impressed sitting down with the small, moody title amidst the pomp, circumstance and hullabaloo of E3. Check them out if this video whets your appetite. I recommend putting the video on rep??lay while you do so you can set the mood with that lovely piano accompaniment.

This first developer diary delves into the central theme of the game, the mix of wonderment and terror that you might have experience getting lost as a youth, and discusses how the creators try to achieve that affect. Not only is Rain's protagonist lost, however, but he is invisible (even to the player), except when moistly silhouetted in the rain. Of course, in the rain there are terrifying monsters trying to eat yo?u. Yep, just like my childhood.

Will you be able to refrain from picking this one up? I know I won't. I'm a sucker for rain-soaked cityscapes, especially ones with posters for Casablanca and Metamorphoses. Rain drops this fall.

The post Get lost in this Rain developer diary appeared first on Destructoid.

Hands-on preview

C.A.M.P.'s Rain managed? to stand out among the other flashy, next-gen showings Sony had prepared for media at E3 yesterday. Its dark, moody look caught my eye, even with it sitting next? to the best looking PS4 titles. And with headphones on and controller in hand, I was instantly drawn in, immersed, wandering in the rain. 

Rain (PS3)
Developer: PlayStation C.A.M.P. / Acquire
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment 
Release: Fall 2013

Rain has you playing as a boy that began following a nearly invisible girl only to find that he has turned invisible himself. He's fully invisible most of the time, but when it rains you can just b?arely ??see his silhouette, giving him a ghostly look. In a place where rain never stops falling, this boy goes follows the girl long enough to see that she is being pursued by creatures that are just as invisible as they are. They're clearly out to do harm to her, so he runs to follow her and save her.

Rain is an adventure game built against the boy's ability to instantly disappear when he's not in the rain. It's peppered with puzzles that play with this invisibility mechanic, as well as monster encounters that requir??e careful thinking along the same lines, as the boy has no way to fight back. My instinct is to call the gameplay stealth, but the pace is much slower than a typical stealth game. It's more like hide and seek, with the boy dashing under overhangs and roof edges to evade these nightmarish creatures that seem to wander the street of this old city. 

Still, there are stealth el??ements that would make Solid Snake proud. This rainy city has plenty of rain puddles to splash in. The boy can jump in them to distract monsters with sound, running the other direction when they're not looking.  But he can't fight back, so he's mostly running for cover.

When he's not running he's climbing, using this skill to both advance and scramble away from these monsters. While this may sound like a platformer on paper, the pace of Rain is slower and and more explora??tory. Proceeding often involves puzzle solving through blocks of situations. For example, in one scene, monsters came through a gate to block my passage. I h??ad to run toward them and have them follow me to  draw them to an area where I could hide under an awning and disappear, hiding there until they gave up and left. A lot of these puzzles make you work to see something that isn't there, whether it be an object or an opportunity. It's a really neat and artful way to approach gameplay.

There's something strangely delightful about being lost and completely alone, nearly invisible, walking to find your way around this odd, gray city in the rain. The experience is almost haunting, especially with headphones on. Minimal piano music plays quietly, leaving the sound of the pouring rain to take the forefront. Other than these sounds you'll only hear footsteps and water splashes; the over?all effect is both relaxing and somehow slightly disturbing. 

Having to watch for wet footprints or moving debris while walking through areas where the boy is complet??ely invisible has a sort of my?sterious calming effect, which makes the encounters with monsters more tense. 

Mix together the constant rain, the hiding, the feeling of being alone, and the incredible sound work, and you get a game that makes for a highly unique experience. Dark, beautiful, calming. It's been a full day since I've played Rain, but I keep thinking about it. What happens to the girl?? What do those monsters want with her? Where is everyone else? Will it ever stop raining? 

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This looks so damn pretty

Rain, a PS3 ad?venture starring an invisible boy who can only be outlined by rainfall, has a new trailer and screenshots t??oday. They're worth gawping at, because this is shaping up to be one stylistically pretty game. 

If Sony did one thing right this generation, it was making sure the PlayStation Network had titles like this. I'm excited to see if Rain is as good as it looks?, but either way,?? I'm glad the PSN has interesting and gorgeous little things like this on it. I hope the PS4 continues the trend.

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Rain, rain, don't go away

Keeping in line with the offbeat and interesting games that come from SCE Japan Studio, we have Rain. It’s being developed by Japan Studio, Acquire (Tenchu, Sumioni), and PlayStation C.A.M.P. (Tokyo Jungle, Echo Chrome) for the PS3 through download from the PlayStation Store, and it’s just the sort of idiosyncratic change of pace that Sony seems to foster.

Rain is meant to evoke the feeling of fright and wonderment that you might have experienced being lost as a child in an unfamiliar place. It does so by putting you into the transparent shoes of a young boy who has faded into invisibility in a mysterious city. He is lost, as alien to this world as the player. Only in the rain can he be seen -- sort of like Ben Affleck’s vision in that terrible Daredevil movie.

Thing is, nasty beasties also lurk under the pitter patter of raindrops. Like Ben Affleck’s Daredevil. Or Elektra. Also, cool, intimidating monsters.

The most affective part of Rain for me came ear?ly on in what I was shown. Th?e invisible boy, hereafter referred to as the Boy, is wandering aimlessly around the city to a pensive, somber, delicately keyed piano accompaniment. He wanders into an alleyway, at which point he completely vanished from view. Yes, your player avatar is entirely invisible when you’re not getting wet, save for some initial footprints in dry areas, damp vestiges of the feet that should be seen.

Going through this hallway invisibly, the Boy stumbles into all sorts of debris and obstacles, causing a cacophonic clack of tumbling crates and the like wa??s surprisingly poignant. There’s something profoundly sad about his -- in turn, the player’s -- inelegant fumbling and stumbling around. While the Boy may be able to recognize his own existence when he’s invisible, he almost becomes nonexistent to the player, a fle?eting remnant of what is there. Even when you’re initially scanning the ground for his footprints, you’re only ever seeing where he once was as you progress. There’s something to that metaphor.

Not surprisingly, the idea of creating an entirely? invisible protagonist has been quite a challenge for the development team. Even now as they currently?? work their way towards their 2013 release, director Yuki Ikeda has explained challenges still arise from their undetectable main character.

Exposition text occasionally fades in and out of the screen in stark white offering some commentary on what’s going on as you navigate the Boy throughout the world. The portion I was shown saw the Boy following an equally invisible girl who always seems just out reach. It’s not all somber navel-gazing, though. At one point, two Tim Burton-esque, dog-like monsters get a whiff of the Boy and give chase. Like the Boy, they’re invisible, given form by the rain, so finding covered areas is the key to safety against them. You have to effectively lose yourself ??to save yourself. It&rsquo?;s like a 90’s alt rock lyric.

Additionally, there was another chase scene, as well as a hints of organically integrated stealth-based gameplay and puzzle solving. Stealth makes sense, as you navigate covered (safe) and uncovered (unsafe) portions of the enviro??nment while the dog-likes patrol, snarl and snap. What I saw was a little facile; pattern recognition and sprinting between?? cover, but it works well enough.

As for puzzling, one scene has you teetering across some scaffolding. The dog-likes bark menacingly below, chomping at the bit to get at you, eventually knocking it over. A little later, some scaffolding is blocking a path you ne??ed to take, and so you intuitively realize you should go in the other direction and lure the dog-likes smashing into the scaffolding to break it down. Hooray for human bait.

There is a cool unrecognizable familiarity to Rain’s washed out cityscape. It doesn’t draw influence from a particular city, but influence from many different ones can be felt metastasizing in the cobblestone floors and Metamorphoses and Casablanca posters on the walls. Everything comes t??ogether with the music, though, as Ikeda has carefully chosen tracks from the overall score to fit into the style and pacing of variou??s points of gameplay. it won’t all be pensive and somber, either.

While it falls back on some traditional gameplay mechanics, I’m definitely excited to see more of Rain and explore it unique design featur??e, as well as its slightly nostalgic, rain-soaked world. I’m a sucker for rain.

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An introductory slice of gameplay

Not long ago, we got a look at some screenshots for Rain, an upcoming PlayStation Network title from SCE Japan Studio, Acquire, and PlayStation C.A.M.P. Having completely forgotten that it was originally announced back at gamescom, the images ?didn't make much sense to me (des??pite looking generally interesting).

Thankfully, this gameplay footage helps set the stage. Playing as a ghost-like child, the primary mechanic is centered around the fact that he's only visible while in the rain. Creepy apparitions will chase down the boy until he finds cover where the water cannot ge??t to, and this is only the very beginning of the game. Imagine what other creatures might lie ahead.

I'm loving the presentation, as well as the sound design of the rain itself. I could just close my eyes for a quick second and drift away. Rain has definitely? earned itself a?? spot on the ol' radar.

The post Explore the? mysterious world of Rain in this trailer appeared first on Destructoid.

These ought to 'wet' your appetite

Sony has unveiled a drizzle of new screenshots for its upcoming PlayStation Network game, Rain. It's got nothing to do with Quantic Dre?am's heavier alternative, instead telling the tale of a little boy who is invisible until the water reveals his outline. 

The images reveal scenarios ??before and after a torrent of rain, the water revealing both people and dangero??us creatures. An interesting little idea, and a rather beautiful effect. 

I've got a real thing about rain in general. Love the stuff. I'm officially??? keen on seeing more of this game.

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