The Origami Killer has kidnapped another victim. You control four different characters, dictating their decisions, choosing their paths and dealing with the consequences that follow. How far are you willing to go to save someone you love?
Heavy Rain has some of the most impressive visuals for a console based game. The environments with a very high level of detail, be it a hotel room in the run down slums or an ancient electrical power plant that possesses ill tidings. The real cake-taker, however, are the flawless character designs. Armed with a state of the art facial recognition engine, the Quantic Dream team captures the facial expressions and character animations with life-like realism (there's a phrase heard often not). Emotions explode from the characters and you can see it just by looking at their face. Very impressive stuff.
The three point deductions come from a couple of small albeit noticeable instances where graphical presentation falters ever so slightly. The biggest of the lot: terrible kissing. Now, I've seen a ton of movies where it was like watching cousins trying to kiss. I also know that a lot of games out there that include kissing scenes aren ain't great because they haven't gotten the collision physics and the like perfected yet. It's just really bad to watch, especially in a game where they succeed in pushing the envelope as far as graphics go.
The last two nit-picks go to the occasional robotic walking when controlling certain characters and the fire in one of the ending sequences. Now, the characters are all motion captured and that means that this is more of the fault of the actors (mainly the two that played Ethan and Madison). When they walk up and down stairs, their arms hang at their sides and don't move unless you perform an action requiring their hands. And turning around one hundred and eighty degrees seems a bit clunky. Those are two real instances where the animations seem a bit silly.
As for the fire? They are some of the weakest fire effects I've seen in a video game to date. Most elements in the game are displayed at such a realistic and grounded level, which is complicated given the untamed nature of said elements, fire being one of the hardest. Yet, in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the Fury did very outstanding work with the fire and fighting for its time, surpassed everything else, including anything on the Xbox (which graphically, was usually superior). Heavy Rain's generic fire images get doused in favor of the water. Water, another element not well portrayed in most games, gets a huge amount of attention dedicated to (given it's an important factor in the game) and Heavy Rain does a great job at nailing it.
Apart from three small complaints, the over-all visuals and effects are top notch.
I have no hesitation at giving this game perfect marks in the sound department. Heavy Rain floods out the competition with top of the line voice acting from everyone involved (with only one or two hiccups) and the pitch perfect orchestral score that always matches the tone at any given time. My personal favorite is when you're pressed for time but in an extremely dire situation. Then, from out of the uncomforting silence, a violin enters with a voltage inducing and heart pounding piece. I always became panicky when I heard this start because I knew that some serious sh * was going down. The sound effects, the score and the voice acting all deserve a tip of the hat and a standing ovation.
This game is the definition of some of the easiest controls in a video game EVER. You walk around and perform actions through a series of controlled and timed button presses. Again, easy. The deductions come from the sometimes finicky tank controls and the occasional glitch where you input the correct button or perform the right action and the game doesn't do what you tell it to gold doesn't recognize the action at all (It makes getting one trophy in the game particularly troublesome to obtain). In a nut shell, the controls are easy to pick up but hard to put into play.
Heavy Rain has great graphics, superb sound and catchy controls. It's also a game that almost isn't considered a game by today's standards because of its STYLE. It's an interactive drama, even more so than the Metal Gear Solid series (for those of you who haven't played my favorite gaming series of all time, you know what I mean by being an AMS interactive, sci-fi action game). This video game has all of the elements of a full length motion picture. The biggest attribute is the fact that it immediately sucks you into the story emotionally. You become so engrossed with all of the characters and with the way the game is structured, it forces you to become attached. Quantic Dream and with much praise and respect to the head, David Cage, he smartly leaves the way the game is played out up to you. It's almost like a choose your own adventure aim with the substance of a black/thriller movie. You are in complete control of the characters and how you choose to approach any given situation thrown your way. Just at the start of the game, you can decide to be the responsible husband and father, who cleans up, works around the house and goes and spends time with his children. However, you can refuse to shower and shave, shirk your duties and basically do nothing. And that's only the tip of the dark and chaotic iceberg light hearted.
The theme of the game is "How far are you willing to go to save someone you love?" You will come to multiple points in the game where you will cringe as you press down on a button, choosing between equally sadistic and Wiesner troubling decisions. As I said, the game draws you in until you are consumed with the euphoria, anger, sadness and pain that the characters feel. No. game has done this with more artistic finesse. Apart from the occasional (and I mean very) occasional gameplay glitch, it's not enough to detract from the experience.
Oh yeah! And there are twenty two different endings in the game, meaning you'll have to play through the game multiple times making different yet equally pressing choices. In a very literal sense, it is very soul destroying to watch the characters controlled and watched grow from the start and you see them make drastically different decisions that you saw (and made them do before. And nearing the end, it becomes almost heart breaking to watch.
In any case, this game has more style than many games. And it's all because of formula that deviates from your routine type of game (run, jump, point, shoot, 32xp, teabag, repeat). Heavy Rain is like a PB & J with a glass of milk. It hits the spot.
Honestly, this game gets-10 because of how not fun it is making the decisions you're being forced to make. It's not really a game because you are so immersed and caught up in the moment that it doesn't really feel like you're playing a game. There are no fun moments. There is nothing but tension mixed with a multitude of coinciding emotions. At the same time though... it is a game.
This section is normally for aspects of the game that are given deductions that the reviewer (that's me) thinks deserve a special mention. In this case, the few problems are addressed in their sections just fine.
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