Heavy Rain

Oh, Heavy Rain. You were thrown out as a sign of how video games have matured, and how they can be taken seriously by the average consumer. How well did you deliver on those hopes? Better than I could have imagined or hoped for.
 

Setup

Heavy Rain is a fairly simple game. The player takes control of four different characters throughout the game. They don't have any unique abilities (besides Jayden and his matrix-style ARI), but each one feels different from one another. The main gameplay element is one of a pseudo-adventure game, with a bunch of quicktime events. These events range from mundane tasks like making a child dinner, to fighting for your life in a brawl. The way these events are mapped to the right analog stick allows the player to feel like they're actually doing the motions. For instance, when you open a car door, you have to push in on the stick, then rotate 90 degrees, just like opening a   
 
For the FBI agent Norman Jayden, there's a detective element in the game, that has the player actually track down the killer finding clues and analyzing leads. This stuff looks amazing, and is really well done. That's the absolute, basic element of the gameplay.   But somehow, Quantic Dream uses that method to not only give the player a sense that they're impacting the world they are in, but never become dull or repetitive at the same time. In a game where a contraversial game mechanic like QTE's, the fact that the gameplay always feels fresh is an amazing accomplishment.  

 

Technical Stuff

 The graphics, simply put, are incredible. Where can I start? The eyes. DUDE, the eyes. One of my biggest pet peeves in gaming are the poorly animated eyes, mouth, and facial expressions that many characters have during in-game scenes or cut-scenes (I'm looking at you, ODST). Not so in HR. It's almost creepy how accurately the mouth movements, and the behavior of the characters eyes is. It's almost jarring.
 
Heavy Rain is probably the best looking game in terms of how the people feel and look. The rain sets up an amazing atmosphere that always feels fresh, despite the fact that, you know, it's always cloudy and raining outside. 
 
I don't want to ruin anything for anyone, but the opening of the game is perhaps the most beautiful and realistic scenes I have ever seen in a game.
 
The way the water interacts on the faces of people is astonishing. It's so damn life-like. 
 

Story

Lets get this out of the way. Fear not, Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit for you evil foreigners), the story telling is top notch and believable (mostly), for the entire game. No crazy sci-fi stuff here. The story of Heavy Rain is one that speaks of redemption, sacrifice, revenge, love, fatherhood, death, and a whole lot more. It's incredibly emotional, and the game is still playing mind-fucks with me.
 
The backdrop is the quest to find the Origami Killer, a serial killer who targets young boys. The four characters, while individuals, all have some sort of linkages together. There's the issue of choice in the game. Christ, that stuff is brutal. I mean, fuck. It's still messing with me right now. One decision I had to make really cut to the core of me. After I made the decision, I immediately questioned it. I felt like I made the right choice I thought, and immediately tried to justify it to myself, as I tried to ignore this little alarm in my head telling me otherwise.
 
The fact that this game has stuck with me this much is testimony to how well done and thought-provoking the story is. Once again, I don't want to ruin the game, but there is one event, that when it occurs, WILL fuck you up mentally. You'll question everything you've done in the game. You'll wonder how you didn't see it coming.  The way this event is executed is flawless. Even better done than the way Bioshock had you kill Andrew Ryan, or Prince of Persia had you revive Elica. It's that amazing.
 
Some of the choices I made make me wonder what would have happened had I done something different. What if I drank beer instead of OJ? What if I was captured instead of escaping from custody? What if I jumped off that building?

I feel like I don't want to say anything more, for that I want people to get this game and see what I am speaking about. I'm really interested to see what the DLC has to offer in the future. The game seemed like a nice conclusion to the story, with little room for a sequel.  This game is right up there now with Mass Effect 2 in the GOTY nominations. It's only February, and we have 2 bona fide contenders. 
 
Heavy Rain is an instant classic, a game that will be remembered as a turning point we will look back upon and see how it forever changed narriatve in video games. It's without a doubt a must buy. Get it. Like, now. 
 
 
I'm waiting.