This is an ongoing list where I attempt to do the following: Play, Complete, and Rank every video game in the known universe in order to finally answer the age old question "What is the greatest game of all time?" For previous entries find the links on the attached spreadsheet.

How did I do?

Saying David Cage's name probably brings up a set response in a lot of people who visit this site. However, you may feel about him, I think he most closely resembles the Director M. Night Shyamalan. For every time he makes a somewhat competent film, and everyone thinks he is back, then he makes something like "The Happening." To tie the comparison together, Heavy Rain is like the movie "Signs." A relatively well reviewed game, but one where the more you poke at the seams it starts to unravel and each subsequent playthrough makes the enjoyment drop dramatically.

Now, before I get to talking about the experience I need to set the stage. I had played Fahrenheit a long long time ago. I thought it was ok, and knew that Heavy Rain is the game that allowed David Cage to keep pumping out future games. Any spoilers I learned around the release of the game were out of my head when I finally got around to playing it and in fact the only thing that stuck with me, was the knowledge that characters could die and that the game would continue without them. Operating out of that belief, made my experience a better one. I knew that death was on the table, and it meant that I took the events seriously, it made me less likely to "play" around, because I wanted to do a good job.

However, we should pause here to talk about how the game is played. Heavy Rain is a very heavy story based game. It operates a lot like an adventure game, with controls that "try" their best to be as immersive as possible. By that I mean that doing something as simple as trying to open a door or turn on a faucet, has you operating the controller like the item you are trying to interact with. You might have to pull the trigger, and pull the joystick back to open a door, or rotate the joystick in a circle to twist on a faucet. However, the large swath of the game has you walking around in 3rd person interacting with items in the background, talking to characters, and doing QTE (quick time events) to progress through the story.

I think its easy to trash the controls, and I won't sit here and pretend that they are great, but as someone who has played a lot of adventure games, and someone who did in fact enjoy the first Shenmue, I got accustomed to the controls very quickly and was able to instead focus my attention on the story of the game, which is obviously the main draw in this game. If you haven't played Heavy Rain, and you are looking to get into it purely for the "gameplay" then you might as well sit this one out, because this is an 85% story and 15% gameplay kind of game.

Of course to discuss this game without diving into the story of the game would be an incredible injustice, but I will try and do my best to avoid spoilers in case this is a game that people haven't played (11 years since it came out). Heavy Rain is a mystery game that involves the disappearance of a child and the race against the clock to save the kid before something really bad happens to them. You play as multiple different characters including the father, a reporter, a P.I., and a FBI agent who are all attempting to get to the bottom of the case. Each character approaches the case differently and they don't necessarily interact with each other in order to solve the case. For instance the FBI agent might be looking at a crime scene for clues, the P.I. might be hitting up the seedier parts of town to see if anyone has seen or heard anything. The promise of the game however is that if a character does die off, the story continues with the other 3 characters, and you as the player potentially miss out on some important clues. However, you never know when a character could be in a situation where they could actually die, which gives you the belief that each QTE you complete, or each activity you partake in could be a bad decision.

Now, I have to digress here just a little bit. When I first played Heavy Rain it was within a year of my twins being born, it gave the story perhaps even more weight then it normally should, because I was able to empathize with the father with what he was feeling throughout the story. No, I never had a kid kidnapped, but it was far easier to place myself in his shoes knowing I had two boys sleeping upstairs, then if I played the game 5 to 10 years ago when kids were not a part of my life. This isn't a statement saying that, if you play this game sans kids you won't "get" as much out of it as I did, but the game, at least for me, left a bigger impact because of that empathy I could feel.

I will block off the bottom section for some spoiler discussion, but I won't be spoiling the story, because if this game is anything worth playing, then it is simply because of the story, but I think there are some spoiler-y bits that are worth noting, because I think it affects the rating of where I think the game belongs on the greatest list. However, if any of this review/discussion made you want to play the game for the first time, I would advise you to go in with the belief that your characters can die at any point in the story.. Ok now get to playing:

While you will know very quickly if this game is for you, the biggest negative outside of those reasons (Controls, don't like adventure games, etc.) is the fact that this game you can really only play once. Like most adventure games and especially mystery games, once the ending is spoiled and you know what causes all the evil there isn't a lot of replay-ability. Sure, you could attempt one of the many different endings, or try and make it through the game with more people (if any of yours died off), but the twists and turns will be the same and your playthrough will be less and less enjoyable. Not every game needs to be endlessly re-playable, and maybe that doesn't matter to you, and you can ignore this "negative." Outside of that, I honestly felt the game was well done. I was engaged with the story, liked most of the characters, and thought the voice work was pretty competent.

Is this game the Greatest game of all time: not today

Where does it rank: I suspect that I might have liked Heavy Rain more than most, but I had a pretty good time playing it. I understand its not everyone's cup of tea, but it worked for me. I have it ranked as the 21stGreatest game of all time out of 54 games. It sits right above "NBA 2k20" and below "Empire of Sin"

Up Next: A trio of Indie Games.

Anyone looking for it: here is the link to the list and more if you are interested in following along with me (this is not a self promotion). Here. I added links on the spreadsheet for quick navigation. Now if you missed a blog of a game you want to read about, you can get to it quickly, rather than having to scroll through my previous blogs wondering when it came up.

Thanks for Listening.