Heavy Rain is a unique next generation game, in every sense. With a compelling storyline, high-end graphics, and a fresh control system, it’ll be your pleasure to play through this game, or at least a few scenes, twice.
Heavy Rain takes place in 2011, in which the majority of time takes place within the fall season, consisting four distinctive characters: Ethan Mars, Scott Shelby, Norman Jayden, and Madison Paige. Ethan Mars is a loving father who lost his first son, Jason, in a tragic accident. Scott Shelby is a warm-hearted private investigator, hired by the families of children murdered by the “Origami Killer” to investigate these strange homicides. Norman Jayden is an FBI agent, teaming up with a local police force to track down the “Origami Killer.” Madison Paige is a lovely woman, cursed with a terrible case of insomnia, who happens to cross paths with Ethan Mars. The choices you make with these four interestingly diverse characters will decide how major plot points in the story will unfold. This makes the game very interesting, considering the rumored variety of twenty-two different endings.
Ethan, you dog.
The game presents itself beautifully, from the main and pause menu, down to the loading screens, and across the opening and closing credits. In some ways the story can be found to be similar to Quantic Dream’s Indigo Prophecy (Otherwise, known as Fahrenheit), but Heavy Rain breaks away from any cliche storyline and retains it’s originality with ease. David Cage is a brilliant story-teller, who keeps a great pace once he gets going. The story can start off a little slow, but by the second scene, it becomes a thrilling experience that will keep your fingers glued to the controller.
Scott! Your face... it's beautiful.
The graphical detail found in Heavy Rain is stunning. The lively faces found on every loading screen will give quite a few gamers an unprecedented feeling of astonishment. There were only two snags I came across in the beauty of this game. The first, being a small texture issue found on a few objects in the game, especially concerning food. “Son, would you care to have orange-isosceles-triangles with your chicken and shamrocks?” The second, being a frame-rate issue that lasted for about a minute when I was fairly close to completing the game. However, the issue did not reoccur during my second play-through. Other than the two small issues found in the game, Heavy Rain sets a very high standard for artistic graphical achievement.
The sound in this game is a case of “bad-cop, good-cop.” While the game has an amazingly profound original composition of music, the voice-acting suffers in some areas. Every voice actor in the game is great, except when they’re either yelling, or it’s just Jason being Jason. Madison, Scott, and Blake (a Lieutenant on the local police force) are the only characters that don’t sound like they’re pretending to yell into a cave to hear just to hear the echo, they might as well be sitting in the corner with a shell, listening to the sound of the “ocean.” While the voice acting does throw the game off at some points (mainly in the beginning), the intensity of facial expressions and background music will pull you right back in.
"Madison Paige, 27, Single, Graphically H.O.T."
The gameplay is probably the most subject to prejudice, considering the majority of the time will be spent pressing buttons during cutscenes. Without a doubt, the game will feel like a movie, but the gameplay does just enough to make the players feel that they are making a major impact on the storyline… and they are. A majority of games will make you feel fully immersed into a game with controls. This is not entirely the case with Heavy Rain. You will feel as much as a part of the game as any decent home-console game on the market today, but very few games will make you feel as a part of the story as much as Heavy Rain makes you feel. The controls do feel awkward when you’re found in a corner, or small space, but most of the game is in a fairly open area. The gameplay in Heavy Rain is unique and interesting, certainly not repetitive, but it’s not for every gamer out there.
Why so down, Jayden? At least I still like Quick Time Events.
With every play-through being quite unique, the replay value moderately high. Most gamers will easily find themselves playing the last few scenes over, and over again through the chapter select. It doesn’t stop there, surprisingly, a good amount of the decisions you make early on can greatly effect the ending, giving quite a few gamers incentive to play the entire game over again. As a helpful suggestion, if you’re one who likes to experiment, get with one or three of your friends and take up a portion of characters, for example, in one play-through, I played as Norman Jayden and Scott Shelby, and my friend took Ethan Mars and Madison Paige. Psychologically, the storyline can be quite interesting when you limit your control over characters and put them in the hands of someone else. For a single player game, the replay value is impressive.
"Just give me the verdict already."
Overall, Heavy Rain is a unique, thrilling experience that most gamers can enjoy. I would advise buying this game, but if you want to have one hell of a fun weekend, or take it slow through a week off of a work, rent the game and make sure you finish it. Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain is a must-play for any gamer, or even any frequent movie-goer, that is remotely interested in a good storyline.
Tags: Heavy, Playstation 3, Rain, Review