Review - Heavy Rain

Heavy Rain is an "interactive drama" that focuses on four protagonists, as they fight to track down and capture a serial murderer known as the Origami Killer. The game's emotionally driven premise encourages its players to empathize with its characters. In doing so, it allows one to experience a more satisfying and genuine role-playing game, which we call an RPG. Though it is an adult story with a mature rating, the game has been tastefully done and does not talk down to its audience.

You interact with the world through an unconventional control scheme: Holding down R2 and waggling the Left analog stick to walk around. This process, may appear cumbersome at first, but due to the nature of its gameplay, it simple takes some getting used to. Interaction with your environment is accomplished by following on-screen prompts and it varies with following arrow directions with your Right analog stick, or having to go through quicktime events, where you press buttons ala God of War style. This is one game which fully uses to SixAxis, as you may be required to perform motions via shaking up your controller.

 This game wins in visuals, throughout the game, players will play into and out of cutscenes with seamless transition. The quality and detail of Heavy Rain's sets are spectacular, making a world that feels rich and genuine. Whether it is broad daylight, night fall, rainfall, water effects, environmental hues and object textures, a lot of detail have been put in, to bring out the game's gritty realness. Sound-wise, the game's musical track plays well to enhance the feel of the game, with its melodramatic tunes.

The game adapts to your actions. This means every mistake you make, every quicktime button you miss, every detailed action you do, affects the outcome, and the way the story is played. In a nutshell, no two play-throughs are the same, and with a plethora of actions you can choose for each scenario, the game makes you feel like the director, taking control on how you want the scene to play out.

 

 When Quantic Dream released Indigo Prophecy, a.k.a Fahrenheit, they brought a whole new gaming experience to the plate. The non-traditional controls, cinematic gameplay direction, and a compelling story, made us asking for more. Today, Heavy Rain is the evolution of this predecessor, and although, this time, its slower and more dramatic, has kept it promise of giving players the interactive cinema experience.