Heavy Rain is definitely not for everyone. First of all it’s rated Mature for two reasons: it’s designed for the mature gamer, and it has tits, ass, blood, death and all that cool stuff. Besides, I just don’t see young gamers (those MW2 fanatics) having the patience to sit through it.
You play the lives of four characters: Ethan Mars, Madison Paige, Scott Shelby, and last but not least, Norman Jayden. Their paths cross when Ethan´s son, Shaun, is kidnapped – they have four days to find him otherwise he will turn up as bloated corpse with an Origami figure in one hand and an orchid on the chest. To begin with you must sit through a mandatory 4GB install that takes five minutes or so. Meanwhile you can view the instructions on how to make your very own Origami swan. Once the install is complete you are ready to start playing.
The story begins like a normal Saturday morning. Ethan Mars wakes up, takes a shower, shaves, brushes his teeth, gets dressed and prepares himself for the day. This is gameplay of course so the gamer must do these things himself – and down to the tiniest detail. For instance, once Ethan has had a shower the player must move the Sixaxis controller up and down in order to dry Ethan with a towel. Although this is optional, the player can also shave and to do so the player must gently use the right thumb-stick to move the the shaver – any sudden movements could cause Ethan Mars to accidental cut himself.
Once Ethan is dressed he is ready for the day. He can spend the morning watching television, reading books, playing with his son’s toys, relaxing in the garden, or actually working. These are of course all pass-times until your wife comes home with your kids. When you’re wife gets home with the kids you can help her set up for lunch or just go straight out and play with the kids. It’s the playing with the kids part that truly demonstrated what the game is all about. Your son, Jason, challenges you to toy light-saber fight – using what a lot of people consider quick-time events you battle him. Here the choice can be made whether you let your son win or not. You can successfully go through the event and beat your son or deliberately mess it up letting Jason win. This is the first real choice moment in the game, and only a taste of things to come. This prologue works as a clever tutorial that helps you get used to the controls.
To set the difficulty the games ask you a very simple question: how often do you play videogames? The balance between each difficulty is perfect although I’d recommend playing it through on the hardest setting because it intensifies the experience. Each task, or choice, is carried out by a variation of button sequences that attempt to recreate the actual feel and intensity of the movement – and I must say, it is done to perfection. The controls are probably the most innovative controls out there.
Even the basic tasks like lighting a match and putting it out feel authentic. I found myself frantically shaking the controller just to put out a lit match before it burned my finger – and this is just barely scratching the surface of how awesome the controls can get. During intense action scenes you will need to do more than just hit the right button, you will need to make choices – so these quick-time events are more like real-time choice events and that’s what the game thrives on; choices – in return it rewards you with it’s consequences.
Heavy Rain has the best, and most photo-realistic, graphics to be seen on console to date. The amount of work Quantic Dream put into even the tiniest detail is just crazy. The thing that stands out the most is the character models; the definition in their complexion is unbelievable – you can see the pores in their skin, the acme scars, and every little crease and wrinkle. The character´s facial expressions are pin-point precise. Unfortunately though, the game does suffer from a lot of screen-tearing and even though it might not ruin the experience it is certainly a nuesance, especially when the graphics are as good as they are. The frame-rate does dip from time to time, but mainly during loading and saving times – I have yet to come across any dips during intense action scenes.
The score that accompanies Heavy Rain is moving. It fits the theme and sets the mood perfectly. It also changes according to game-play – one such moment is when Ethan sees a drawing that his son, Shaun, did off the accident; the music changed enough for me to get the sense of dread that Ethan must have been feeling. I have also noticed that the audio sometimes cuts for a second but, again, not enough to ruin the experience. The voice acting is not on par with the amazing soundtrack. At times it feels awkward, unnatural, and just badly delivered but since the characters seem so real already the voice acting does not bother you so much.
There are a few things that should have been in the game that I think weren´t. Does anyone remember the Taxidermist demo? In that demo the Taxidermist actions were random: the time of his arrival and what he would do when he got home, whether it was grab a beer and watch television or walk straight upstairs and goto the bathroom. These random A.I. moments seem to be missing from Heavy Rain. If they are there than they passed me by unoticed – and I´ve played the game through four times already.
Another thing that pissed me off at first was that there are some scenes that only create the illusion of choice. There were only a couple of these scenes and I guess it it didn´t really matter how these scenes ended because they would not have affected the story at hand – but it would have been nice to have them there anyway. I didn´t notice them until my second play through, and after some long hard thinking I finally let it go – the game was just too awesome forme to be upset about something like that.
After playing Heavy Rain mind was running wild with ideas of how Heavy Rain could have been better; more choices, of course – but I know, that means another thousand pages of script (still, it can be done). Also, a little more freedom with the small choices – get rid of those choice-illusion moments. These are just little things but like this game proves – even the little things count.
Heavy Rain is the fresh mint this industry needed. We don´t need another first-person shooter, we need new creative and innovativeve games – that´s exactly what Heavy Rain is. It gave me my fix and restored my faith in gaming. Heavy Rain is definitely a strong contender for Game of the Year. It is one of the best games I have played and I will continue supporting David Cage and Quantic Dream with their new found gaming genre, Interactive Drama. This game is a must buy for everyone who owns, or knows someone that owns, a PlayStation 3.
Somebody give Mr. Cage a Nobel Peace Prize. -claps-
http://www.nextgn.com/2010/02/09/heavy-rain-review/
