Let's start off with what Heavy Rain does right since it does so much right. The game succeeds at doing something with video games that many try to do and very few actually achieve. That is to evolve gameplay mechanics past the tired and true go here, shoot that, and repeat. Heavy Rain tells the story of four main protagonists who are all wrapped up in the mystery of the Origami Killer. This killer goes around and kidnaps young boys, drowns them, and dumps their body with an Origami figure in their hand and an orchid flower on their chest. Through out the course of the game you will find clues and unlock the mystery of the illusive serial killer piece by piece through the eyes of the four main characters: a journalist, a private investor, an FBI agent, and grieving father. The game will switch control between these characters at will, weaving an intricate story and developing each characters back story, their motivations, and their role in the mind bender that is the mystery of the Origami Killer.
Heavy Rain is all about your choices and your choices having a direct impact on the events of the game leading all the way up to end. You may think you've seen that done before in games, like Mass Effect or Fable but I promise you that you have not seen anything like this before. When you finish the game you will undoubtedly end up with a story and an ending drastically different then what your friends ended up with. Everything you do in this game matters from a simple choice of drinking a beverage to a utterly reprehensible decision such as choosing to kill one guy over another. The game not only presents you with these kind of decisions at every turn it also does a remarkable job of making you care about your choices. I can personally tell you that when I was presented such a choice that I literally felt sick to my stomach after making a nearly impossible decision. The developers paced Heavy Rain very methodically with a slightly slow beginning that steadily picks up speed until the incredibly tense finale. They did an excellent job of not only making you feel like you had direct control of these characters lives and whether or not they lived or died but actually making it so. You can literally make decisions that leads to the deaths of all of these characters. However I did everything in my power to keep my characters alive not because I wanted to get the "good" or "bad" ending but because I genuinely wanted them all to live.
As a result of this kind of a game structure it might be tempting to immediately start the game over again upon completion to see how different choices effect the game. This may be especially true since so many games like Mass Effect encourage this kind of mentality, however I strongly recommend against it, at least not for a while. The people at Quantic Dream have stated that they do not wish people to play through the game multiple times. They want you to make your own story the first time through and not try to go back and find all the possible different avenues as not to spoil the version that you crafted. After completing the game I most certainly agree with them. Never the less I plan on playing the game again in about a year or so when I forget all of my choices and their consequences. I'm not necessarily wanting to find a different outcome, I would just like to experience the game again.
The control system that is at play here is very unique from any other game that you've probably played (unless you've played the developer's previous titles like Indigo Prophecy). Instead of having a control scheme that setups specific buttons to fire a gun, jump, or run the game is designed around using realistic gestures that fit each situation. For example to flip a page in a book you might have to flick the right analog stick to right. Everything is based around this concept, even with the cut scenes and action scenes. Some might be quick to call this game one giant quick time event and while that is some what technically accurate it manages to feel completely natural. Instead of the normal quick time event where if you miss a button the cut scene resets and you'll have to try all over again, Heavy Rain will keep moving a long accepting your "mistake" and altering the game accordingly. For example in a fight scene you might miss a button press that would have resulted in blocking an incoming punch so you'll get hit in the face and for the rest of the game you will probably have a bruise or a scar as a result of missing that punch. In this manner the game avoids punishing you for missing a button press. Instead it crafts the story around your actions. Something else you'll find that Quantic Dream did with the control scheme was to included motion controls. Now I'm not a big fan of motion controls in general, I utterly can't stand playing the Wii. However Quantic Dream has managed to make motion consoles a positive experience for me. Instead of trying to tack on motion consoles as a gimmicky selling point they use it to actually enhance the experience. For example game has you yanking up on the controller to open a jammed window or jab right with the controller to slap somebody. It feels completely natural without completely throwing away the traditional controller that many of us have spent decades using. The Sixaxis controller worked amazingly well in these situations. Unlike with the Wii I never had any trouble getting the game to recognize my gestures. In fact after a while I figured out I didn't need to be so aggressive with my motions for the system to recognize what I was trying to do.
Unfortunately not everything is perfect in Heavy Rain. While the developers crafted a brilliant story they seemed to miss a few steps on the technical side. The facial animations are probably the best you'll ever see in a video game however some of the object models seem to be a bit on the dull side and sometimes just look odd. I wish they put as much effort into modeling the objects as they did with modeling the characters. They also should have spent more time casting either people that can do better American accents or actually cast Americans. You can tell the developer is based in Europe and that they used European actors to do the voice work as their accents tend to slip through quite often. They probably should have just set the game in Europe if casting American actors wasn't possible. The voice actors also can't seem to agree on the proper way to pronounce Oragami. In addition I had the game freeze on me several times and once even froze my entire system.
Fortunately none of those issues kills the overall experience. You will still end the game having experienced something truly unique and amazing. Quantic Dream managed to craft a story that rivals even some of Hollywood's best efforts. It will keep you thinking and second guessing your conclusions until the very end and the final plot twist. I for one can not wait to see what they have up their sleeve next.
