(review) Heavy Rain

I bought Heavy Rain on a whim, after it being recommended to me by the ASM at work. I had heard a lot of good things about the game beforehand, though I was a little hesitant on buying it due to it's notoriety for being theatrical based and your whole interaction with the game was quick-time events (plus, someone had told me it was a horror game which is an instant no for me). Besides this, the storyline for it was said to be fantastic. After playing a few games lately that were quite hard pressed for storyline (namely Rune Factory 3 on DS and Pokémon Rumble Blast for 3DS), I felt like a change. And Heavy Rain was a fantastic change of direction.

The game starts quite slowly, taking you through the usual tutorial section at the beginning of every video game ever, introducing you to one of the four main characters, Ethan Mars; stay-at-home, architect dad who has a wife, two sons and a really nice house. After you get through the somewhat overly tedious tutorial, the game doesn't waste time on getting into the story, already reaching tragedy at about 15 minutes in (depending on how long it took you to do that tutorial), his eldest son dying in a car accident and Ethan himself winding up in a coma. Fast forward two years, you find out that Ethan was stuck in a coma for six months afterwards, now experiences black outs, separated with his wife, lives in a dingy apartment (you never see that nice house again ): ) and is currently seeking therapy so he can rid himself of the guilt of the death of his first son and be a proper father again with his youngest. When he finally starts to connect one day, his son is conveniently kidnapped after Ethan has one of his trusty black outs and you learn that the kidnapper is a known as the "Origami Killer", a mass murder who targets little boys who go missing then turn up dead three to five days later.

You also follow the story of three other characters along the road as well; Norman Jayden, a drug addicted FBI agent called into the case who dons a cool pair of sunglasses that makes looking for evidence about 5000x easier, Scott Shelby, an asthmatic, semi-overweight ex-cop who now works as a private detective and is investigating the current case of Shaun Mars (Ethan's kidnapped son) and Madison Paige, a journalist who suffers from insomnia who is also investigating the case but gets wrapped up in a way she did not expect.

The gameplay is extremely simple; walk around and interact. Not exactly rocket science but it works quite well for this game. Whatever it lacks in general gameplay it makes up in its extremely intricate storyline which can change direction at any quick time event. You'd think quick time events would be simple and easy, but no, those bad boys can get quite challenging when it comes to fight scenes. Interaction is optional between your usual Playstation controller or if you have the Playstation Move patch update or the Move Edition (like myself), the Playstation Move controller is usable. It doesn't really matter which you choose, I found both options worked well. If I had a choice though, stick with the usual controller if you're not confident. A few times I found myself shaking the Move controller vigourously only to discover that I was holding the controller the wrong way. Walking gets awkward at times, the character in play often walking into random walls as the camera changes randomly as you walk into each new section of a room. They seem to lack proper brakes, often walking a little more even though I let go of the analog stick.

The graphics and voice acting were quite fantastic, the face models communicating each emotion effectively. I checked out the actors who their faces were modelled off and wow, what a fantastic job the designers did. The whole theatrical feel about it, the quick time events, it feels like a movie. And that's the whole point of it!

It's a great game for those who are just starting to get into video games as the gameplay is extremely easy to understand and the compelling plot seems to come straight from a 10 hour episode of CSI. Even if you don't want to play, it has that pull-me-in effect that games like Bioshock where you just want to watch it because it looks so cool. Definitely pick it up if you see it around, it's worth the $25/$30.