- A unique emotional experience that makes you “feel” as if you’re IN a psychological crime thriller
- Stunning graphics, animation and technology combine with a strong narrative that delivers a movie-like experience
- Mature content, reflecting a realistic world setting that explores powerful themes
- Accessible gameplay via intuitive, contextual controls and interface
While there is a story, it changes drastically depending on the choices you make throughout the game.
The story takes place in a city down on the East Coast of the United States. The public is gripped by fear as the city is being terrorized by the "Origami Killer", whose victims are all discovered drown four days after they have gone missing. The only clues seem to be an Origami figure and an orchid discovered on each of the victim's bodies.
Ethan Mars is a young architect living on the east coast of America. In 2008, his eldest son was killed in a car accident that also left Ethan in a coma. Once a successful and happy family man, Ethan is now grief-stricken and depressed two years later, separated from his wife and distant from his other son, Shaun. Ethan soon discovers that Shaun may become the next victim of the Origami Killer, and is forced to confront how far he is prepared to go to save his son. He is played by French actor Pascal Langdale
Madison Paige is a photojournalist living alone in the city. Suffering from chronic insomnia, she occasionally checks into motels, as they are the only place she can properly sleep. She eventually finds herself involved in the latest Origami Killer case, conducting her own investigations. Her likeness was based on Jacqui Ainsley, while her voice and facial motion capture were given by actress Judi Beecher.
Norman Jayden is an FBI profiler sent to support the police force with their investigation into the Origami Killer. Jayden possesses a set of experimental augmented reality glasses called an "Added Reality Interface", or ARI. It allows him to rapidly investigate crime scenes and analyze evidence. He is also struggling with an addiction to the drug triptocaine. He is played by British actor Leon Ockenden.
Scott Shelby is a retired police officer, currently working as a private investigator. On behalf of the previous victims' families, he is conducting his own investigation into the Origami Killer. He is played by actor Sam Douglas.
The game will use a unique control scheme. A trigger button on the controller will move the character forward. It will take advantage of the button's analogue function, allowing the user to control the speed of the character's movement by pressing harder or softer on the button. The left analogue stick will control the movement of the character's head and the direction the character moves in relation to where the character is looking. The rest of the game is played using a series of context sensitive actions such as picking up a bottle in a grocery store and hitting a robber on the head with it or pressing the "X" button to call the player character's son, Jason, and quick time events, normally for chase and combat sequences. Players are able to bring up a selection of their character's current thoughts by holding the L2 button and pressing corresponding buttons to say or do what they're thinking. These thoughts will sometimes blur, and selecting them at the wrong time will affect the character's reaction, causing them to say or do something in the wrong way.
Action sequences, such as when the player is being attacked, will be played out as quick time events. Players will be presented with various symbols, requiring them to either press buttons, move the right analogue stick in a certain way, or shake or tilt the controller. Failure to execute these commands take the story along a different path, and certain mistakes will lead to a character's death. In scenes like these, a 'timer' scene (a portion of the screen that is devoted to show the player how long he or she has until their time runs out, or another event is scripted to occur, which is shown through several different camera angles) is shown at the bottom of the screen, indicating how long the player has to escape from his/her predicament. If a character dies, the game does not end, and play control switches to another character, with the events of the previous character's death affecting the story. In the event that all four characters die, there is a proper conclusion to the story and the game ends.
If you're planning on skipping the bulk of this text and heading straight to the review score to decide whether or not you should play through Heavy Rain, just know this: the game starts slow. It'll take you a couple hours to get into the meat of the experience and for things to really pick up, but once it does, you'll be on the edge of your seat until the end and you won't want to put the controller down. In other words, if you stick with it, Heavy Rain will give you a ride like you rarely see in games.
Having said that, it's also worth quickly pointing out that I'm going to keep this review completely spoiler-free, so feel free to read it without fear of anything being ruined for you (and trust me, you don't want anything ruined).
Quantic Dream's last title, dubbed Indigo Prophecy in North America and Fahrenheit pretty much everywhere else, tried to bridge together intricate storytelling with gameplay by using what were essentially quick-time events (think Dragon's Lair). A button prompt appears on the screen, and if you press it in time, the game continues and you get another one. If you don't, you fail and usually wind up staring at the words "Game Over".
With Heavy Rain, the studio took this control mechanic to a completely different level by removing the win/fail result and instead turned it into what can best be described as a branching narrative. You can't ever actually fail in Heavy Rain. There is no Game Over screen, and nothing will force you to have to replay anything. No matter what you do, the game, its characters and the story move on.
This has multiple effects. If you're in an action sequence, missing one prompt might not mean much other than that the fight or chase would play out a little differently. Rather than taking out the bad guy right then, you might get knocked down but get another chance right after that. Miss too many and the bad guy might get away, but like I said, the story will continue on, no matter the result. In other instances, these options (as there is often more than one button available to you at any one time) will decide what a character says, how they react to something, what you interact with or so on and so forth.
The result is that although you're still matching button prompts, Heavy Rain feels much more like you're choosing and influencing what happens in the game, rather than simply reacting to it. This is a major and key element of the control mechanics that separates Heavy Rain from the likes of Indigo Prophecy, Dragon's Lair or even God of War's boss takedown sequences, and it's really what makes the actual gameplay work quite well.
What's really interesting is that Heavy Rain manages to always keep you on your toes, and if you don't pay attention and keep your cool, you'll pay for it. There are action sequences that happen when you least expect them, and if you're not ready, you may "fail" them. In other cases, the opposite is true: events can happen very quickly and your gut instinct may be to react to them, when the best option may have been to wait for a better opportunity (or not react at all). The first time this last bit happened to me, I had to stop playing for a minute and think about what I'd done and what the consequences would wind up being. Things can get pretty intense, to say the least.
The great thing about all of this, and the reason that Heavy Rain may not have worked with any other control scheme, is that everything in the game revolves around the story. This isn't something where Quantic Dream came up with some cool scenes and then wrapped a story around everything to tie it together; the story is the utmost focus, and everything that you do and everything that happens directly feeds into it, without exception. Without having a "defined" control scheme that only allows you to perform a set number of actions, the changing control options allow the mechanics to adapt to what makes sense for your character to do at any point to keep the storytelling as unopposed as possible.
My one complaint about the control scheme is that it's sometimes hard to tell what you're supposed to do. When your character is frazzled, the button or text options that pop up can be blurred and jittery to show that the person is tense as well as make it a little trickier to choose the right thing (you might say something wrong if you're not careful, like in real life). The problem is that button prompts will also pulse if you're supposed to tap them quickly rather than hold them down or do a single, quick tap, and distinguishing between these variants can be tricky. It's not a game-breaking problem, but I messed up in a few places where I wouldn't have had the prompts been clearer.
Now, as I mentioned, the controls do a great job of allowing the story to shine through, and what a story it is. Each of the four, main playable characters is interesting, developed well and important to the story. The way that everything comes together and winds up feeding into the story progression is nothing short of fantastic. Games have come pretty far in terms of how well stories are told and the level of writing quality that some of them are able to achieve, but Heavy Rain is easily amongst the best that's ever been put onto a disc. Were this filmed as a Hollywood picture, it would perfectly fit the body of work of someone like Martin Scorsese or David Fincher.
Now, that doesn't mean that the story is told flawlessly. Like I said at the start of this review, the first couple hours are a little slow. As I've mentioned in previous coverage for Heavy Rain, this is largely due to the fact that, with a film, you're able to edit out dull bits like walking down stairs or going from the kitchen to the living room. The exposition and character development that happens in these opening chapters wind up being very important to what happens later, but the pacing is a little on the sluggish side. And, when some of the first things that you're able to do include drinking orange juice and taking a shower, it may seem like things will get lost in unimportant actions and details of everyday life. But, like I've said, after you get into the meat of the game, it picks up quickly and pulls you in.
An important element of Heavy Rain's design is that it isn't an entirely linear story (and therefore game). Depending upon how you handle situations, you can start steering the story that you experience in a different direction than others. If a main character dies, the game will continue on anyway, but you'll miss story clues and scenes that the now-dead character would have come across.
From my experience, your choices don't result in major changes throughout the game, instead sending slight ripples through the dialog and character interactions for the bulk of it but resulting in vastly different endings. After finishing the story with one of the best possible endings, I went back and played it a second time as poorly as I could; that is, killing off characters, intentionally skipping over clues and that sort of thing. I wasn't able to kill off (or generally lose) any of the main characters until about three-fourths of the way through, and up until that point, the only differences that I noticed were largely related to dialog changes. There's a lot of subtlety there, where people will talk to each other differently or reference earlier actions (quite well, I might add), but you'll still play the same sequences.
However, as I mentioned, the ending can change extensively depending upon what you've learned, who's still around, things you've done earlier and so forth. Obviously I'm not going to spoil anything here, but just know that if you're going through a second, different playthrough, you won't see a ton of changes until the conclusion, but it'll be worth it. And, fortunately, all of the endings that I either saw myself or heard about from others (it would take you forever to earn them all yourself) are great.
Given the weight of the story and the fact that it's the absolute crux of Heavy Rain, the game's various presentation aspects weigh in just as heavily on the experience as its controls do. Generally speaking, the presentation is handled quite well, but none of it is perfect.
The graphics, for instance, are great with regards to characters' faces, but clothes, hands and especially some objects in the environment aren't as detailed as you would hope. Lip syncing is actually not bad, but the mouths on some characters (not all) don't have a ton of detail so the speech animation winds up looking off at times. And, while the character animation is top-notch in terms of the little details that Quantic Dream has tossed in (feet taps from a bored character, jaw movements while someone thinks, etc.), you can tell that the motion capture data isn't as detailed as what you'll see in, say, Uncharted 2. Hands will sometimes twitch a tiny bit, or fingers won't quite bend right on occasion.
The voice work is similar. Some characters are great, while others are only so-so. One standout flaw is that while most characters are supposed to be American, some of the actors clearly aren't and their accents tend to slip through, making their line deliveries sound weird at times.
On the flip side, however, is the fact that the dialog is generally spectacular. Most every line is natural and written in an unforced manner, lending a great deal more realism to the characters. While I'm not talking about elongated monologues that would give Shakespeare a run for his money, the little things that people say are damn near perfect. Again, the delivery isn't always spot-on, but the content certainly is.
Really, when compared to most games, Heavy Rain has what would be considered very good voice acting. It's just that when so much of the experience is focused on it, you tend to notice the flaws a good deal more.
One last nice bit to the presentation that I want to point out (because people will certainly ask) is that you can indeed skip back to already-played chapters. You'll be asked whether you wish to save or not, which means you can try out individual scenes without impacting your "main" save, which is nice.
Closing Comments
Heavy Rain is a hell of an experience. Its controversial control scheme actually works really well in allowing the fantastic story to dictate how events play out, and many of the game's scenes will keep you on the edge of your seat. It starts slow and the presentation isn't perfect, but the character development, dialog and story twists will hook you like few games can. Heavy Rain is not to be missed.
Another Take
from Greg Miller
WARNING: This section may contain potential spoilers...
How good is Heavy Rain? I blew off the Superbowl to play it. Mind you, I beat Quantic Dream’s latest long before the big game’s kickoff, but what I found myself doing for the next several hours was playing the final handful of chapters over and over again. I cared about these characters, and I desperately wanted to see how each of their tales unfolded when I switched tiny things. What happens when I say this? What happens when I pick the wrong place? What happens when I let one of them die? What happens when all of them die?
These experiments might sound mundane, but the payoff can be astounding. Seeing your favorite character live happily ever in one ending only to go back, change one thing, and see him or her take their own life in another is a crazy thing.
Roper goes as far as to say that Heavy Rain’s story would be a Scorsese plot if it was translated to film, but it’s important to note that not everyone will feel that weight as they get going. In the beginning of the game – in the slow portions you’ve been warned about – I was laughing as I tried to get the hang of the control scheme and banged plates on the table and couldn’t figure out how to open sliding doors. However, as time went on, I found the admittedly unique scheme completely immersive with the exception of confusing shaky button prompts with ones I needed to tap. I also wish that you could skip conversations you’ve already heard when you replay missions -- as you’ll do the same thing again and again if you’re looking to see it all -- but no game’s perfect.
Heavy Rain won’t be for everyone (namely kids or people just looking to blow stuff up) but its deep story, branching paths, and fleshed out characters make it a title that should be played by anyone looking to see what videogames are capable of in terms of heartfelt experiences. I cared about these people by the time the credits rolled, and that’s what made me want to go back and get their stories right.
Rating
9.0 Presentation
Fantastic story that's one of the best in gaming. Stellar dialog as well. Some of the line delivery sounds a little odd, however.
8.5 Graphics
The characters look great, but some low-res items in the environment make some scenes look a little disjointed. Animation is good overall, but a little spotty at times.
8.5 Sound
Some voice actors let their native tongue slip through so line delivery isn't perfect, but it's quite good overall. The soundtrack is great.
9.0 Gameplay
For a game that's so heavily focused on presentation, the gameplay does a great job of giving you control while not getting in the way. Some great action scenes and intense moments top it off.
8.0 Lasting Appeal
One playthrough won't take you all that long (eight hours maybe), but you have lots of reasons to go back and try new stuff. Experimentation is rewarded well.
9.0
OVERALL
(out of 10 / not an average)
Having said that, it's also worth quickly pointing out that I'm going to keep this review completely spoiler-free, so feel free to read it without fear of anything being ruined for you (and trust me, you don't want anything ruined).
Quantic Dream's last title, dubbed Indigo Prophecy in North America and Fahrenheit pretty much everywhere else, tried to bridge together intricate storytelling with gameplay by using what were essentially quick-time events (think Dragon's Lair). A button prompt appears on the screen, and if you press it in time, the game continues and you get another one. If you don't, you fail and usually wind up staring at the words "Game Over".
With Heavy Rain, the studio took this control mechanic to a completely different level by removing the win/fail result and instead turned it into what can best be described as a branching narrative. You can't ever actually fail in Heavy Rain. There is no Game Over screen, and nothing will force you to have to replay anything. No matter what you do, the game, its characters and the story move on.
This has multiple effects. If you're in an action sequence, missing one prompt might not mean much other than that the fight or chase would play out a little differently. Rather than taking out the bad guy right then, you might get knocked down but get another chance right after that. Miss too many and the bad guy might get away, but like I said, the story will continue on, no matter the result. In other instances, these options (as there is often more than one button available to you at any one time) will decide what a character says, how they react to something, what you interact with or so on and so forth.
The result is that although you're still matching button prompts, Heavy Rain feels much more like you're choosing and influencing what happens in the game, rather than simply reacting to it. This is a major and key element of the control mechanics that separates Heavy Rain from the likes of Indigo Prophecy, Dragon's Lair or even God of War's boss takedown sequences, and it's really what makes the actual gameplay work quite well.
What's really interesting is that Heavy Rain manages to always keep you on your toes, and if you don't pay attention and keep your cool, you'll pay for it. There are action sequences that happen when you least expect them, and if you're not ready, you may "fail" them. In other cases, the opposite is true: events can happen very quickly and your gut instinct may be to react to them, when the best option may have been to wait for a better opportunity (or not react at all). The first time this last bit happened to me, I had to stop playing for a minute and think about what I'd done and what the consequences would wind up being. Things can get pretty intense, to say the least.
The great thing about all of this, and the reason that Heavy Rain may not have worked with any other control scheme, is that everything in the game revolves around the story. This isn't something where Quantic Dream came up with some cool scenes and then wrapped a story around everything to tie it together; the story is the utmost focus, and everything that you do and everything that happens directly feeds into it, without exception. Without having a "defined" control scheme that only allows you to perform a set number of actions, the changing control options allow the mechanics to adapt to what makes sense for your character to do at any point to keep the storytelling as unopposed as possible.
My one complaint about the control scheme is that it's sometimes hard to tell what you're supposed to do. When your character is frazzled, the button or text options that pop up can be blurred and jittery to show that the person is tense as well as make it a little trickier to choose the right thing (you might say something wrong if you're not careful, like in real life). The problem is that button prompts will also pulse if you're supposed to tap them quickly rather than hold them down or do a single, quick tap, and distinguishing between these variants can be tricky. It's not a game-breaking problem, but I messed up in a few places where I wouldn't have had the prompts been clearer.
Now, as I mentioned, the controls do a great job of allowing the story to shine through, and what a story it is. Each of the four, main playable characters is interesting, developed well and important to the story. The way that everything comes together and winds up feeding into the story progression is nothing short of fantastic. Games have come pretty far in terms of how well stories are told and the level of writing quality that some of them are able to achieve, but Heavy Rain is easily amongst the best that's ever been put onto a disc. Were this filmed as a Hollywood picture, it would perfectly fit the body of work of someone like Martin Scorsese or David Fincher.
Now, that doesn't mean that the story is told flawlessly. Like I said at the start of this review, the first couple hours are a little slow. As I've mentioned in previous coverage for Heavy Rain, this is largely due to the fact that, with a film, you're able to edit out dull bits like walking down stairs or going from the kitchen to the living room. The exposition and character development that happens in these opening chapters wind up being very important to what happens later, but the pacing is a little on the sluggish side. And, when some of the first things that you're able to do include drinking orange juice and taking a shower, it may seem like things will get lost in unimportant actions and details of everyday life. But, like I've said, after you get into the meat of the game, it picks up quickly and pulls you in.
An important element of Heavy Rain's design is that it isn't an entirely linear story (and therefore game). Depending upon how you handle situations, you can start steering the story that you experience in a different direction than others. If a main character dies, the game will continue on anyway, but you'll miss story clues and scenes that the now-dead character would have come across.
From my experience, your choices don't result in major changes throughout the game, instead sending slight ripples through the dialog and character interactions for the bulk of it but resulting in vastly different endings. After finishing the story with one of the best possible endings, I went back and played it a second time as poorly as I could; that is, killing off characters, intentionally skipping over clues and that sort of thing. I wasn't able to kill off (or generally lose) any of the main characters until about three-fourths of the way through, and up until that point, the only differences that I noticed were largely related to dialog changes. There's a lot of subtlety there, where people will talk to each other differently or reference earlier actions (quite well, I might add), but you'll still play the same sequences.
However, as I mentioned, the ending can change extensively depending upon what you've learned, who's still around, things you've done earlier and so forth. Obviously I'm not going to spoil anything here, but just know that if you're going through a second, different playthrough, you won't see a ton of changes until the conclusion, but it'll be worth it. And, fortunately, all of the endings that I either saw myself or heard about from others (it would take you forever to earn them all yourself) are great.
Given the weight of the story and the fact that it's the absolute crux of Heavy Rain, the game's various presentation aspects weigh in just as heavily on the experience as its controls do. Generally speaking, the presentation is handled quite well, but none of it is perfect.
The graphics, for instance, are great with regards to characters' faces, but clothes, hands and especially some objects in the environment aren't as detailed as you would hope. Lip syncing is actually not bad, but the mouths on some characters (not all) don't have a ton of detail so the speech animation winds up looking off at times. And, while the character animation is top-notch in terms of the little details that Quantic Dream has tossed in (feet taps from a bored character, jaw movements while someone thinks, etc.), you can tell that the motion capture data isn't as detailed as what you'll see in, say, Uncharted 2. Hands will sometimes twitch a tiny bit, or fingers won't quite bend right on occasion.
The voice work is similar. Some characters are great, while others are only so-so. One standout flaw is that while most characters are supposed to be American, some of the actors clearly aren't and their accents tend to slip through, making their line deliveries sound weird at times.
On the flip side, however, is the fact that the dialog is generally spectacular. Most every line is natural and written in an unforced manner, lending a great deal more realism to the characters. While I'm not talking about elongated monologues that would give Shakespeare a run for his money, the little things that people say are damn near perfect. Again, the delivery isn't always spot-on, but the content certainly is.
Really, when compared to most games, Heavy Rain has what would be considered very good voice acting. It's just that when so much of the experience is focused on it, you tend to notice the flaws a good deal more.
One last nice bit to the presentation that I want to point out (because people will certainly ask) is that you can indeed skip back to already-played chapters. You'll be asked whether you wish to save or not, which means you can try out individual scenes without impacting your "main" save, which is nice.
Closing Comments
Heavy Rain is a hell of an experience. Its controversial control scheme actually works really well in allowing the fantastic story to dictate how events play out, and many of the game's scenes will keep you on the edge of your seat. It starts slow and the presentation isn't perfect, but the character development, dialog and story twists will hook you like few games can. Heavy Rain is not to be missed.
Another Take
from Greg Miller
WARNING: This section may contain potential spoilers...
How good is Heavy Rain? I blew off the Superbowl to play it. Mind you, I beat Quantic Dream’s latest long before the big game’s kickoff, but what I found myself doing for the next several hours was playing the final handful of chapters over and over again. I cared about these characters, and I desperately wanted to see how each of their tales unfolded when I switched tiny things. What happens when I say this? What happens when I pick the wrong place? What happens when I let one of them die? What happens when all of them die?
These experiments might sound mundane, but the payoff can be astounding. Seeing your favorite character live happily ever in one ending only to go back, change one thing, and see him or her take their own life in another is a crazy thing.
Roper goes as far as to say that Heavy Rain’s story would be a Scorsese plot if it was translated to film, but it’s important to note that not everyone will feel that weight as they get going. In the beginning of the game – in the slow portions you’ve been warned about – I was laughing as I tried to get the hang of the control scheme and banged plates on the table and couldn’t figure out how to open sliding doors. However, as time went on, I found the admittedly unique scheme completely immersive with the exception of confusing shaky button prompts with ones I needed to tap. I also wish that you could skip conversations you’ve already heard when you replay missions -- as you’ll do the same thing again and again if you’re looking to see it all -- but no game’s perfect.
Heavy Rain won’t be for everyone (namely kids or people just looking to blow stuff up) but its deep story, branching paths, and fleshed out characters make it a title that should be played by anyone looking to see what videogames are capable of in terms of heartfelt experiences. I cared about these people by the time the credits rolled, and that’s what made me want to go back and get their stories right.
Rating
9.0 Presentation
Fantastic story that's one of the best in gaming. Stellar dialog as well. Some of the line delivery sounds a little odd, however.
8.5 Graphics
The characters look great, but some low-res items in the environment make some scenes look a little disjointed. Animation is good overall, but a little spotty at times.
8.5 Sound
Some voice actors let their native tongue slip through so line delivery isn't perfect, but it's quite good overall. The soundtrack is great.
9.0 Gameplay
For a game that's so heavily focused on presentation, the gameplay does a great job of giving you control while not getting in the way. Some great action scenes and intense moments top it off.
8.0 Lasting Appeal
One playthrough won't take you all that long (eight hours maybe), but you have lots of reasons to go back and try new stuff. Experimentation is rewarded well.
9.0
OVERALL
(out of 10 / not an average)
When discussing the evolution of video games as artistic entertainment, commentators and pontificators alike have asked a simple question: "Can a game make you cry?" Let's get this out of the way first: Heavy Rain will most likely not make you cry. It does, however, provide one of the most emotional experiences I've ever had playing a videogame.
If you've been following coverage of Quantic Dream's latest title you know that Heavy Rain focuses on four protagonists as they fight to track down and capture a serial murderer known as the Origami Killer. But what stands out from this simple premise is the unapologetically adult story. I don't mean adult in the sense of gratuitous sex and violence or even in the game's mature rating. Rather, it's adult in the way that it doesn't talk down to its audience. Heavy Rain encourages you to empathize with its characters, and in so doing allows you to experience a more satisfying and genuine role-playing game than what we typically consider an RPG. It also puts you in adult situations that, on paper, seem ridiculous, but you'll find yourself standing in awe at doing something as pedestrian as changing a baby's diaper.
You interact with the world through a non-traditional control scheme: Holding down R2 lets you walk around the environments and the Left analog stick changes directions. At best, this process is cumbersome and by far the weakest part of the experience. It's never out and out bad, but I was never completely comfortable doing it either. When trying to maneuver around a desk or chair I'd often find my character pacing back and forth because there seemed to be a small amount of input lag when changing directions.
The other part of the control scheme lies in your interaction with the environment. This is accomplished by following on-screen prompts to press face buttons, performing motions with the Right analog stick, and sometimes using Sixaxis control movements. Again, it might seem clunky on paper, but it's elegant in execution. If you have the opportunity, I would absolutely implore you to play this game with a DualShock 3 controller; I don't think any game has used the rumble feature this effectively since the original Metal Gear Solid.
The motions and button presses don't always directly correlate to the motions of your character, rather they approximate the feeling of those actions. In one instance I had to struggle to get my character up a muddy hillside. By holding a series of buttons down in a finger-twisting series of motions, I actually felt like I didn't have a firm foothold -- it's little things like this that help further your immersion into the world.
But a game that prides itself on its story is only as good as its writing and actors. The quality and detail of Heavy Rain's sets are truly spectacular -- whether it's a faded wallpaper pattern or dilapidated apartment, this is a world that feels lived-in and genuine. The characters have a similar gritty realness, but occasionally veer into uncanny valley territory due to some inelegant animations. Regardless, the game conveys a subtlety of emotion that very few games have ever succeeded at.
Despite their occasionally wooden appearance, I genuinely came to care for the protagonists. I liked these people and wanted them to complete the task before them. Before going in I knew that any and all of them could potentially die, which adds a stressful layer to an already tension-filled story. There were moments in Heavy Rain where I found my heart rate rising -- not because of a cheap, momentary fright caused by something like a dog jumping through a window in Resident Evil, but because of a sustained level of tension that would leave my hands shaking. Heavy Rain portrays pain, suffering, and death with a stark frankness that doesn't elevate horror as something to be entertained by. Instead, you're regularly put in positions where you must choose between two equally horrific outcomes.
Talking to others who've played through Heavy Rain, I don't think I'm overstating it when I say that no two people will have the exact same experience. And I would encourage you to not cheat yourself on your first time through the story. When you first boot up the game you're taken directly to the opening rather than the main menu; avoid the Chapter Select screen and keep your experience more organic.
Though shorter than other epic, multi-disc titles, there's more than enough content in Heavy Rain to warrant a purchase. At the end of my first playthrough I was left utterly satisfied with the conclusion of the story and wanting more titles of this caliber. Heavy Rain may not appeal to every twitch-shooter fan out there, but if you believe games can evolve beyond Pac-Man and Mario then I suggest supporting the amazing work Quantic Dream has done.
If you've been following coverage of Quantic Dream's latest title you know that Heavy Rain focuses on four protagonists as they fight to track down and capture a serial murderer known as the Origami Killer. But what stands out from this simple premise is the unapologetically adult story. I don't mean adult in the sense of gratuitous sex and violence or even in the game's mature rating. Rather, it's adult in the way that it doesn't talk down to its audience. Heavy Rain encourages you to empathize with its characters, and in so doing allows you to experience a more satisfying and genuine role-playing game than what we typically consider an RPG. It also puts you in adult situations that, on paper, seem ridiculous, but you'll find yourself standing in awe at doing something as pedestrian as changing a baby's diaper.
You interact with the world through a non-traditional control scheme: Holding down R2 lets you walk around the environments and the Left analog stick changes directions. At best, this process is cumbersome and by far the weakest part of the experience. It's never out and out bad, but I was never completely comfortable doing it either. When trying to maneuver around a desk or chair I'd often find my character pacing back and forth because there seemed to be a small amount of input lag when changing directions.
The other part of the control scheme lies in your interaction with the environment. This is accomplished by following on-screen prompts to press face buttons, performing motions with the Right analog stick, and sometimes using Sixaxis control movements. Again, it might seem clunky on paper, but it's elegant in execution. If you have the opportunity, I would absolutely implore you to play this game with a DualShock 3 controller; I don't think any game has used the rumble feature this effectively since the original Metal Gear Solid.
The motions and button presses don't always directly correlate to the motions of your character, rather they approximate the feeling of those actions. In one instance I had to struggle to get my character up a muddy hillside. By holding a series of buttons down in a finger-twisting series of motions, I actually felt like I didn't have a firm foothold -- it's little things like this that help further your immersion into the world.
But a game that prides itself on its story is only as good as its writing and actors. The quality and detail of Heavy Rain's sets are truly spectacular -- whether it's a faded wallpaper pattern or dilapidated apartment, this is a world that feels lived-in and genuine. The characters have a similar gritty realness, but occasionally veer into uncanny valley territory due to some inelegant animations. Regardless, the game conveys a subtlety of emotion that very few games have ever succeeded at.
Despite their occasionally wooden appearance, I genuinely came to care for the protagonists. I liked these people and wanted them to complete the task before them. Before going in I knew that any and all of them could potentially die, which adds a stressful layer to an already tension-filled story. There were moments in Heavy Rain where I found my heart rate rising -- not because of a cheap, momentary fright caused by something like a dog jumping through a window in Resident Evil, but because of a sustained level of tension that would leave my hands shaking. Heavy Rain portrays pain, suffering, and death with a stark frankness that doesn't elevate horror as something to be entertained by. Instead, you're regularly put in positions where you must choose between two equally horrific outcomes.
Talking to others who've played through Heavy Rain, I don't think I'm overstating it when I say that no two people will have the exact same experience. And I would encourage you to not cheat yourself on your first time through the story. When you first boot up the game you're taken directly to the opening rather than the main menu; avoid the Chapter Select screen and keep your experience more organic.
Though shorter than other epic, multi-disc titles, there's more than enough content in Heavy Rain to warrant a purchase. At the end of my first playthrough I was left utterly satisfied with the conclusion of the story and wanting more titles of this caliber. Heavy Rain may not appeal to every twitch-shooter fan out there, but if you believe games can evolve beyond Pac-Man and Mario then I suggest supporting the amazing work Quantic Dream has done.
The goal of every story is to form some degree of connection with its observer. Most often, this link is fleeting at best, but every now and then, a much deeper bond is formed. This bond is one in which the observer is less of a passive participant and more of an emotionally engaged accomplice. Though many video games (as well as most novels and movies) strive to be the latter, Heavy Rain is one of those few games that can claim to have truly achieved this lofty objective. A powerful interactive drama, Heavy Rain is an intensely absorbing experience that meticulously conveys the tension, urgency, surprise, and tragedy that its characters feel. Though the overall direction of the plot cannot be changed, the ongoing narrative adapts to your every action and cultivates a deeply personal journey that leaves everyone who undertakes it with something different.
How far are you prepared to go to save someone you love? This is the central question of Heavy Rain and one that the protagonist, Ethan Mars, is compelled to answer. After Ethan's son goes missing and is presumed to be the latest victim of the mysterious Origami Killer, he vows to do whatever it takes to rescue his boy. Besides Ethan, you also take control of three other seemingly unrelated individuals that have been drawn into the case: private investigator Scott Shelby, FBI criminal profiler Norman Jayden, and insomniac Madison Paige.
Though it takes a little while to pick up, Heavy Rain is an immersive interactive drama that sucks you in and doesn't let go. As you control each of the four characters, onscreen prompts have you press buttons in sequence, move the right analog stick in specific directions, shake the controller, and more to interact with the scenes. Each input is proportionally difficult to the task being performed, and when a character is scared or stressed, the floating prompts tremble accordingly. This unconventional control scheme does a fantastic job of grounding you to the characters and their emotional states. Your actions approximate theirs, and the often short amount of time you have to react to new situations mirrors their own reaction time. There is plenty of action to be found in the form of brutal and violent brawls, heart-pounding chases, and deadly gunfights, but even such mundane tasks as brushing your teeth or rocking a baby to sleep are surprisingly engaging, and help to strengthen your bond with the characters.
Unlike other games that make extensive use of quick-time events, Heavy Rain does not track your progress in terms of success and failure. There is no right or wrong way to play; thus, no matter what your outcome is, the game will move forward and adapt to the consequences of your actions or lack thereof. Though the overall narrative framework is unyielding, your performance throughout the game can have a variety of effects, ranging from subtle changes in how a scene plays out to much bigger adjustments. Entire events may not occur because your actions and choices caused the plot to branch in a different direction. It's even possible for key characters to die, thus eliminating any subsequent contributions to the story that they might have made. No matter what happens in your play-through, the adaptive plot of Heavy Rain becomes a deeply personal sum of your experiences.
Though Heavy Rain's involving story is its greatest strength, it is also somewhat of a weakness in terms of the game's replayability. Clocking in at an intensely satisfying eight to 10 hours, Heavy Rain is full of branching plot points and permutations, but it's hard to actually go back and play through the game differently once you've completed it. Your story--the one that you got so caught up and invested in--has already been told; thus, the characters you bonded so closely with won't be the same if you do things differently. A chapter-select screen allows you to smartly play through some of these "what if" scenarios if you like, but scenes are rarely as impactful the second time. Minor issues with replayability aside, Heavy Rain is not a flawless narrative experience--it suffers from some bigger problems as well.
Scene to scene, the game does a fantastic job of drawing you into the action and the minds of its characters. However, there are a number of plot holes and inconsistencies that work against this immersion. For example, there are several obvious leads and key pieces of evidence in the case of the Origami Killer, which the police department seems completely unaware of. And a major plot point that haunts Ethan throughout a number of early scenes is never explained in the slightest. Depending on how you play through the game, you may be left scratching your head wondering what happened or how characters that never seemed to meet know each other. The story also features a number of over-the-top or cliche villains that seem out of place in the realistic setting, including an overly-aggressive detective and a super-sleazy nightclub owner.
Heavy Rain's problems aren't strictly limited to the plot either--there are a number of other flaws as well. You move your character forward by pulling the R2 trigger and alter the direction he or she is facing by moving the left analog stick. On paper, this is a sound system, but in practice, it is clumsy and imprecise. The frame rate is inconsistent, screen tearing is frequent, and noticeable texture pop-in occurs almost every time something is closely examined. Rare immersion-breaking glitches can also occur, including audio that doesn’t match what’s happening onscreen, and textures failing to load and leaving you with either an all-black environment or a silhouetted character.
These technical issues are particularly unfortunate, because Heavy Rain is generally a beautiful and fantastic-looking game. The visual design of the various environments is outstanding, and whether you're visiting a dirty double-wide or an intensely creepy room filled with webcams streaming live video to nearby TVs, the painstaking amount of detail that went into constructing each locale is incredible. Character models are hyperrealistic--particularly in how they move and interact--and in many ways, they emote just as well as any real person. Occasionally, a stiff or awkward animation will crop up such as a robot-like march upstairs, but for the most part, characters move extremely well. Finally, an excellent orchestral score stirs up your emotions in just the right way, and the mostly great voice acting completes the human element to round out the experience.
Though it suffers from its share of plot and technical problems, Heavy Rain is nonetheless a bold and visionary step forward in the medium of interactive storytelling. Part adventure game and part psychological thriller, Heavy Rain is far from the quick-time-event-powered movie that it may appear to be at first glance. Every action you perform or decision you make--from the simple and mundane to the dark and disturbing--brings you closer to the flawed but realistic characters you manipulate. Their stories become your story, and their hardships become obstacles that you feel compelled to overcome with them. No matter how your adventure plays out, Heavy Rain is a profoundly personal experience that should not be missed.
How far are you prepared to go to save someone you love? This is the central question of Heavy Rain and one that the protagonist, Ethan Mars, is compelled to answer. After Ethan's son goes missing and is presumed to be the latest victim of the mysterious Origami Killer, he vows to do whatever it takes to rescue his boy. Besides Ethan, you also take control of three other seemingly unrelated individuals that have been drawn into the case: private investigator Scott Shelby, FBI criminal profiler Norman Jayden, and insomniac Madison Paige.
Though it takes a little while to pick up, Heavy Rain is an immersive interactive drama that sucks you in and doesn't let go. As you control each of the four characters, onscreen prompts have you press buttons in sequence, move the right analog stick in specific directions, shake the controller, and more to interact with the scenes. Each input is proportionally difficult to the task being performed, and when a character is scared or stressed, the floating prompts tremble accordingly. This unconventional control scheme does a fantastic job of grounding you to the characters and their emotional states. Your actions approximate theirs, and the often short amount of time you have to react to new situations mirrors their own reaction time. There is plenty of action to be found in the form of brutal and violent brawls, heart-pounding chases, and deadly gunfights, but even such mundane tasks as brushing your teeth or rocking a baby to sleep are surprisingly engaging, and help to strengthen your bond with the characters.
Unlike other games that make extensive use of quick-time events, Heavy Rain does not track your progress in terms of success and failure. There is no right or wrong way to play; thus, no matter what your outcome is, the game will move forward and adapt to the consequences of your actions or lack thereof. Though the overall narrative framework is unyielding, your performance throughout the game can have a variety of effects, ranging from subtle changes in how a scene plays out to much bigger adjustments. Entire events may not occur because your actions and choices caused the plot to branch in a different direction. It's even possible for key characters to die, thus eliminating any subsequent contributions to the story that they might have made. No matter what happens in your play-through, the adaptive plot of Heavy Rain becomes a deeply personal sum of your experiences.
Though Heavy Rain's involving story is its greatest strength, it is also somewhat of a weakness in terms of the game's replayability. Clocking in at an intensely satisfying eight to 10 hours, Heavy Rain is full of branching plot points and permutations, but it's hard to actually go back and play through the game differently once you've completed it. Your story--the one that you got so caught up and invested in--has already been told; thus, the characters you bonded so closely with won't be the same if you do things differently. A chapter-select screen allows you to smartly play through some of these "what if" scenarios if you like, but scenes are rarely as impactful the second time. Minor issues with replayability aside, Heavy Rain is not a flawless narrative experience--it suffers from some bigger problems as well.
Scene to scene, the game does a fantastic job of drawing you into the action and the minds of its characters. However, there are a number of plot holes and inconsistencies that work against this immersion. For example, there are several obvious leads and key pieces of evidence in the case of the Origami Killer, which the police department seems completely unaware of. And a major plot point that haunts Ethan throughout a number of early scenes is never explained in the slightest. Depending on how you play through the game, you may be left scratching your head wondering what happened or how characters that never seemed to meet know each other. The story also features a number of over-the-top or cliche villains that seem out of place in the realistic setting, including an overly-aggressive detective and a super-sleazy nightclub owner.
Heavy Rain's problems aren't strictly limited to the plot either--there are a number of other flaws as well. You move your character forward by pulling the R2 trigger and alter the direction he or she is facing by moving the left analog stick. On paper, this is a sound system, but in practice, it is clumsy and imprecise. The frame rate is inconsistent, screen tearing is frequent, and noticeable texture pop-in occurs almost every time something is closely examined. Rare immersion-breaking glitches can also occur, including audio that doesn’t match what’s happening onscreen, and textures failing to load and leaving you with either an all-black environment or a silhouetted character.
These technical issues are particularly unfortunate, because Heavy Rain is generally a beautiful and fantastic-looking game. The visual design of the various environments is outstanding, and whether you're visiting a dirty double-wide or an intensely creepy room filled with webcams streaming live video to nearby TVs, the painstaking amount of detail that went into constructing each locale is incredible. Character models are hyperrealistic--particularly in how they move and interact--and in many ways, they emote just as well as any real person. Occasionally, a stiff or awkward animation will crop up such as a robot-like march upstairs, but for the most part, characters move extremely well. Finally, an excellent orchestral score stirs up your emotions in just the right way, and the mostly great voice acting completes the human element to round out the experience.
Though it suffers from its share of plot and technical problems, Heavy Rain is nonetheless a bold and visionary step forward in the medium of interactive storytelling. Part adventure game and part psychological thriller, Heavy Rain is far from the quick-time-event-powered movie that it may appear to be at first glance. Every action you perform or decision you make--from the simple and mundane to the dark and disturbing--brings you closer to the flawed but realistic characters you manipulate. Their stories become your story, and their hardships become obstacles that you feel compelled to overcome with them. No matter how your adventure plays out, Heavy Rain is a profoundly personal experience that should not be missed.
Talk about the game, don't talk about it, talk about it a little, talk about it a lot. Just post your opinions and stuff here, along with anything relating the the game. Please be mindful however of story spoilers, put the spoilers in spoilers. o:
