[Review] Heavy Rain

By Michelle March 3, 2010

The much awaited Quantic Dream release, Heavy Rain, has finally hit the shelves. Written and directed by the company’s founder and CEO, David Cage, this game received much publicity and hype before its release, due to the realistic graphics and multiple playable protagonist angle, but does it live up to all the talk?

The game commences with playable character, Ethan Mars, awakening to a picture perfect day in his ideal suburban home. Straight away the graphics have an immense impact. As Ethan walks around the house; showering, dressing and generally investigating, it all looks very real. It actually feels like you are somehow playing a movie. From the running water in the bathroom basin to the dust particles and dandelion flowers flying through the air, the game looks good, there is no denying that. This aspect of Heavy Rain continues for its entirety, with the copious amounts of rain and various settings.

So, Ethan’s life is presented to us as being pretty perfect. Nice house, good career, pretty wife, two kids-the whole deal. This clearly isn’t going to last and a little way into the game tragedy strikes the Mars family. We join Ethan two years later where we see him a little down on his luck and struggling with some pretty serious psychological issues. It is at this point Ethan’s son, Shaun, is kidnapped, believed to be held by a serial child murderer known as The Origami Killer. It is around this time that the other playable characters are introduced in turn. Scott Shelby, a private investigator hired by some of the families of the murdered boys’ families, Maidson Paige, a young woman who has a chance meeting with Ethan Mars, and Norman Jayden, an FBI profiler assigned to The Origami Killer case.

Heavy Rain plays out by switching between the four protagonists, each on their own quest to gather clues as to the identity of The Origami Killer and the whereabouts of Shaun Mars, before he too, suffers the same death as the other victims. Every decision you make, as each of the playable characters, has an impact on the telling of the story. Not only the decisions made but also how successful you are at the various challenges put forward. All characters can be killed at various points throughout the game and this, of course, can impact greatly on the rest of the story and eventually the climax. Certain scenes can be played out differently or omitted entirely depending on your actions.

There are many things to love about this game. As mentioned, it looks amazing. The use of water is especially stunning. Playing as different characters, getting into their heads and following the story from their perspective, is also a refreshing change. There are multiple endings and it is interesting to watch how different turning points in the game lead to different outcomes.

While Heavy Rain is enjoyable, enthralling and accessible to a range of people, many of whom may not normally get into video games, there are drawbacks. For one, the initial play through doesn’t take that long. I was expecting it to take at least a few days to get to the end, but I was done in a day. Sure there are many different endings, and I’m sure you won’t be satisfied with witnessing just the one, but the scenes are quite slow to get through, making multiple plays difficult. You can pick up a current saved game at chapter points, so staring the game again is not necessary, but trying to get a glimpse at the various endings is quite tedious. I often wished I could just skip through the dialogue and cutscenes.

I found the controls frustrating at times also. All parts of the controller are used throughout the game, which is great, it can sometimes be confusing though. When I decision needs to be made, an action taken or something spoken to another character, the button selections appear on the screen. These prompts move about the screen and the movement of which are affected by the character’s mood or the level of tension in the scene. Now, I know that this is done intentionally, perhaps to add to the intensity-decisions are harder to make when you’re stressed, but I just found it really annoying. How can you choose what you want to do when you can’t properly see the options? Having said that, it doesn’t have a huge impact on the game-well it didn’t on mine anyway.

The FBI agent, Jayden, is assisted by a futuristic device ARI (Added Reality Interface) which enables him to collect and analyse evidence more efficiently. I wasn’t convinced by this. If it were a reality, then it would definitely help with solving crimes but it just didn’t wash in this circumstance, especially seeing as the rest of the game world does not reflect these apparent leaps in technology (the game is set in 2011, by the way). Jayden is also battling and addiction to the fictional drug, triptocaine. I’m not really sure that this adds anything to the game either but it’s really of little consequence.

All in all, Heavy Rain is an innovative, exciting and unique gaming experience. It had me thinking about it at work and looking forward to playing on my return home (this plan was foiled on one occasion by the so called apocalyPS3). In spite of the the down points noted above, I really enjoyed this game. I felt like I connected with the characters: Jayden’s frustration of not being able to find the killer, Ethan’s desperation and grief at having lost a son-it all came across clearly. I also really wanted to know who the killer was and where Shaun was being held.

Rating: B