Your Top 50 Games: 2011 Discussion Thread

[SvennoJ]

#41 Heavy rain played on PS3, released 2010

Big budget adventure games are a rare breed nowadays, luckily Heavy rain turned out to be excellent. The atmosphere is extremely well done. The sense of dread and hopelessness you get when watching the dad failing to interact with his son in a gloomy appartment, after losing his other son and wife, is almost too much to bear. My wife didn't even get that far. She did not want to play any further when Jason got lost in the mall and hit by a car.
The locales are all very well made with lots of little details and beautiful lighting to draw you into the game. It reminds me a bit of Quentin Tarantino's film style, slow well realized wide shots with lots of detail to take in. Only the tension is still lacking a bit.
The picture in picture effect is well used and adds to the story telling. Interacting with other characters is top notch, crowds are well realized in the mall, station and club scene and the investigative tools are all fun to work with.
There could have been a few less endings imo. I would have liked to see fewer well realized endings instead of going for quantity. Also some of the action scenes didn't really fit in for me. I rather drive, run and shoot myself instead of pressing button prompts.
Not perfect but definitely worthy of a spot in my top 50. I can't wait to see how David Cage's next project will turn out.

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