Review: Heavy Rain – Hodgi92

Developer: Quantic Dream
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Heavy Rain always had me intrigued. The unique gameplay, the realistic characters and the promise of a phenomenal story that you could control all had me licking my lips at the very thought of playing it. The story is based around four main characters that all lead their separate lives until the case of the Origami Killer brings them all together.

For me, Heavy Rain is more than an interactive movie, it is the best story I have ever witnessed in a game. The story has so many twists and turns that you will just keep on playing and playing. The control scheme is simple but effective; it may seem unorthodox but the interaction between you and your character really immerses you into the gameplay. The game may have the perfect story but the game is less than perfect.

Even though I have complimented the controls I also have quibbles with them. The action controls, such as opening a door or swinging a punch, feel authentic and really suck you into the whole game. How you control your character, on the other hand, is a different matter. Like most racers of this generation, one of the triggers on the controller accelerates the car, as you can easily control how much pressure, and therefore speed, you want. A similar control method has been implemented in Heavy Rain, where you use R2 to make your character move at various speeds, and use the left stick to control the direction. This will have you twisting and turning all over the place as you try to walk to a destination. The left stick is primarily used to move the head, making it easier to interact with objects but could have easily made the R2 button a head modifier, then allowing the player to control the characters head. That, though, is my only real problem with this game so now on to the good; I’ll try not to spoil it.

The story throws you about all over the place, but in a good way. One minute you are doing a mundane task and the next you are in a fight or running for your life. This is all what makes Heavy Rain so special: the scenes when you could die. As the story draws you in more and more, you get attached to the characters; you don’t want them to die. Any other game, when you die, you would just hit retry but in Heavy Rain the story can progress without one or more of the main characters. When the pressure builds up and you have to make an important decision, you really consider your choice as there is no retry. With this in mind some of the scenes had a real emotional effect on me and the fact that it all worked out in the end, with a relatively happy ending, made it all worth while.

Overall Heavy Rain is a phenomenal experience, but you should really only play through the story once to get the whole experience (unless you really want the trophies). This makes it difficult to rate; the high number should mean it is a buy, but the game, in my opinion, should only be played through once. Although if you’re not like me, which I assume most of you are, you would probably want to play it over and over to see all the possible endings.