Heavy Rain

This review is nearly impossible to do. Heavy Rain is a kind of murder mystery, so giving away any details could ruin the plot. On top of that, the style of gameplay is familiar, yet completely unique, and even people with a better vernacular than I have trouble describing what it's like. But...I shall try.

Heavy Rain is set in the near future, where a serial killer known as the Origami Killer has been on the loose for years, killing young boys by drowning them in rainwater, covering their faces with mud, and leaving an origami figure in their hand and an orchid on their chest. You play as 4 separate characters: Ethan (a father), Madison (a journalist), Scott Shelby (a private investigator), and Norman Jayden (an FBI agent). Each has their own motivations and stories, and each is involved in the hunt for the Origami Killer in their own way. Past that, there isn't much I can say, you just have to experience their stories for yourself, especially because of how the game plays.

When Heavy Rain first came out, it was mostly noticed for its unique style of gameplay, but also the fact that if one of your characters dies, the game is designed to continue going. Think of it like a choose your own adventure novel that doesn't stop even if you reach a page that kills you. The game plays much like a movie, with each scene presenting you with varying choices and consequences that effect how the rest of the game plays out.

How you play through these choices is the most familiar and yet completely unfamiliar aspect of Heavy Rain. If you've ever played God of War or similar titles, you're often asked to complete what's known as a quick-time event (QTE). A QTE is essentially where you are asked to press a series of buttons in the correct order in order to accomplish some task (like bringing down a cyclops). At first glance, all Heavy Rain is is a series of QTEs. You are asked to do various things like the traditional press buttons at the right time in the right order, but also sometimes hold down buttons at the same time or shake the controller in a certain way or move the right analog stick in the direction indicated. So essentially it is just complicated QTEs....but at the same time it's so much more. For example, to get someone off the floor, you hold R1 to get their arm around you, hold L1 to grab their legs, and then tap X repeatedly, straining your legs to pick them up. Each button press, each flick of the analog stick, each shake of the controller just feels right. It feels appropriate to the movement your character is performing. The timing of it mimics your character's state of mind perfectly. It's all so tied to everything that happens that it never feels like a QTE. It just feels natural.

It also allows you to feel more invested in what happens than in any other game I have ever played. Not only does it invest you mechanics-wise however, it also invests you emotionally. The story is like an Oscar winning drama. This unfortunately means that some parts are quite predictable in that it follows a somewhat Hollywood formula, but with all the different choices available you never quite know what's going to happen. The true miracle is that it manages to keep you completely emotionally locked in with four distinct characters, each with their own personalities, for the entire game.

It's not without faults, however. There are some odd glitches here and there, some of the voice acting (especially the childrens') is rather terrible, and moving your character around can feel so clunky that it takes you right out of the experience. Also, the story has its gaps along with some transitions that feel like they didn't fully flesh out the path you actually took. It seemed as though they just didn't get to realize every possibility and so had to condense things late in development. If these guys teamed up with Bioware, who make the incredibly detailed branching storylines in games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, they could take on the world. One just gets the sense that with a couple more months in development all of these problems would've been fixed, but as it is there's just enough problems to keep it from being the best game ever made. But overall it's easily one of the best games I've ever played, and is by far the most emotionally investing. I don't know if they're even considering a Heavy Rain 2, or something in the same style at least, but I sure hope they do, cause with a few tweaks the developers could easily make not just one of the most original titles of all time, but one of the greatest as well.

Heavy Rain gets a 10/10.