These past couple of days I played Quantic Dream’s interactive psychological thriller, Heavy Rain. The game was released in 2010 and was highly anticipated. It tells the story of the hunt for the Origami Killer. A murderer who kills young boys by drowning them in rain water and then disposes of their bodies and leaves a origami in their hands. Ethan Mars’ son, Shaun, is one of the latest victims. He has only a certain amount of time to find his son before he will be killed. There are 3 other characters involved in the story, a photographer named Madison, an FBI agent named Norman Jayden, and a private investigator named Shelby. The game centers around Ethan’s search for his son, and how the other characters get involved in the story.
The game has overall, a very interesting story. One of the most intriguing stories in a game ever. While there are 4 different characters to play all their stories seem to go in sync with one another so there is never any confusion. As far as knowing what is going on that is. After completing one part of the story players will play as another character. When you return back to a certain character their story will fall inline from where the player last left off. During the loading process of the next part players will be shown a closeup of the character they are about to play.
The graphics in the game are amazing. The characters are all very well defined. My only complaint is that their facial emotions aren’t that distinct. The use of mocap was used for capturing facial movement, unlike L.A. Noire which used MotionScan. The environment is very well detailed. Throughout the game players will have to look at other objects in order to gain knowledge about the current quest, such as clocks, cabinets, dressers, and so forth.
The gameplay is interesting. It’s not the best gameplay in the history of gaming. The game makes you hit one to several different buttons at a time in order to do one action. In fact, while I was playing it seemed to remind me of another game that I had played years ago, Indigo Prophecy. Come to find out that Quantic Dream did both of that game and Heavy Rain. Throughout the whole game different buttons will appear in the screen that correspond to what the player has to push. In the beginning it seems like a cool concept, but after awhile it got kind of ridiculous. Sometimes 5 different buttons had to be pushed at once in order to get through the action. If the buttons are not hit in the right order and held down then the action is failed and has to start over. The one thing that makes video games interesting is the fact that the player can control the character. However, this is way too much control. Some of the actions seemed pretty pointless such as taking of the character’s coat, or opening a car door, starting it, putting it into gear, and driving away in it. Overall the game is pretty short. I was able to finish it in a 24 hour period of time with breaks. And I wasn’t slacking on sleep in order to play it. Initially it takes 8-10 hours to play. Of course, if someone is wanting to complete 100% then it will take longer to find everything and of course will take longer to play. If the developers had spent less time on the button commands and more time on other ways to explore a scene then I could see the game being better.
Overall the game was a good play. Something that everyone should play and complete to the max. I hope to purchase it to keep someday. I give Heavy Rain an 8/10.
Heavy Rain is rated M for Blood, Intense Violence, Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Use of Drugs.
