Heavy Rain being adapted into movie. Is it possible? Will it work? And will it help prove that video games can be art?

I have not played Heavy Rain all the way through. It is a game, ironically, that I did not finish. Maybe I”ll rent it this weekend and burn through it in few hours. I’ve heard that the play-through time is only six to eight hours.

However, despite not playing it, I know the story well and know how important the game was to the industry. I’ve played “Indigo Prophecies” and that other David Cage game before that. Maybe someone who knows will comment at the bottom and remind me.

Regardless, I know this shit well and think Heavy Rain might be the game to finally do it: Bring widespread acceptance of video games as art.

Video games are, indeed, art. I’m not going to argue why in this post, but will someday put together a balls-out article which, hopefully, will close the case for good.

Roger Ebert, probably the most influential voice on films in my life, does not think video games possess the capacity to be art. But Heavy Rain, as a film, might be able to show that it indeed does. Yes, you can talk all day about the aesthetic and visceral experience of, say, Shadow of the Colossus. You can also chat about the moral ambiguity that Bioshock provides. The problem with these works is they don’t translate well to non-gamers.

Heavy Rain‘s main innovation is that it takes a fundamentally traditional story that every knows (a whodunit mystery) and applies all the big questions we’ve wondered about the characters back on the player, letting them decide.

This has been done before. But never to the degree of Heavy Rain. Making it so almost every decision impacts the outcome of the game. My brother even refuses to replay the game, feeling it is too hard to watch characters he liked die off in the “new reality” of that scenario.

David Milch is considered by many to one of the greatest TV writers of the past two decades and has signed up to for an adaptation of the innovative game. Variety reported: “David Milch is heading into “Heavy Rain,” signing to adapt the noir-style videogame with Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne producing through their Unique Features banner”

So we have the legendary Milch writing the script. Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne are the producers, both of which, if my memory serves me, were heavily responsible for snatching up Lord of the Rings from Miramax and expanding it into three films, not two. So basically it is one of the most important filmmaking decisions in cinema history. So a holy-trinity is forming around this adaption. No Wes Anderson or Uwe Boll here. (darn)

Anyway, I’m excited. I don’t get excited often…I’m fucking pumped. I’m excited about The Wolverine and now this. That is about it. Hopefully this film will help squash the perception that games are just sensory-overload, but also can provide deep, emotional insight into human beings.

All I know is I might have to burrow my brothers PS3 move, rent HR, and play through it couple times in celebration.

-Collin