The Origami Killer has kidnapped another victim. You control four different characters, dictating their decisions, choosing their paths, and dealing with the consequences that follow. How far are you willing to go to save someone you love?
Heavy Rain has some of the most stunning visuals for a console game. Environments with a very high level of detail, whether it’s a hotel room in the slums or an old power plant that has bad news. However, the real hit is the impeccable character designs. Armed with a state-of-the-art facial recognition engine, the Quantic Dream team captures the characters’ facial expressions and animations with true-to-life realism (there’s one phrase you don’t often hear). Emotions erupt in the characters and you can see it just by looking at their faces. Very impressive stuff.
The three-point deductions come from a couple of small, but notable, instances where the graphical presentation falters ever so slightly. The greatest of all: terrible kisses. Now, I’ve seen a lot of movies where it was like watching cousins trying to kiss. I also know that a lot of games that include kissing scenes aren’t great because they haven’t perfected the collision physics and stuff like that yet. It’s really bad to watch, especially in a game where they manage to push the limits when it comes to graphics.
The last two details go to the occasional robotic walking when controlling certain characters and the fire in one of the ending sequences. Now, all the characters are motion captured and that means this is more the fault of the actors (mainly the two who played Ethan and Madison). When they go up and down stairs, their arms hang at their sides and don’t move unless they perform an action that requires their hands. And turning one hundred and eighty degrees seems a bit clumsy. Those are two real cases where the animations look a bit silly.
As for the fire? They are some of the weakest fire effects I have seen in a video game to date. Most of the elements in the game are shown at such a grounded and realistic level, which is complicated by the untamed nature of said elements, with fire being one of the most difficult. However, in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Fighting the Fury did an outstanding job with fire, and for its time, it outclassed everything else, including anything on Xbox (which was generally superior graphically). ). Heavy Rain’s generic fire imagery fades in favor of water. Water, another element that isn’t well represented in most games, gets a fair amount of attention (since it’s a big factor in the game) and Heavy Rain does a great job of nailing it.
Aside from three minor gripes, the visuals and overall effects are top notch.
I have no hesitation in giving this game perfect marks in the sound department. Heavy Rain floods the competition with top-of-the-line voice acting from everyone involved (with only one or two hiccups) and the perfect orchestral score that always matches the key at any given moment. My personal favorite is when you’re pressed for time or in an extremely dire situation. Then, from the awkward silence, a violin enters with a heart-pounding, tension-inducing piece. I always panicked when I heard this beginning because I knew something serious was going on. The sound effects, the score, and the voice acting all deserve a clap and a standing ovation.
This game is the definition of some of the easiest controls in a video game EVER. You walk and perform actions through a series of controlled and timed button presses. Again, easy. Deductions come from the sometimes finicky tank controls and the occasional glitch where you input the right button or take the right action and the game doesn’t do what you tell it to or doesn’t recognize the action at all (makes getting a trophy in the game particularly difficult to obtain). Simply put, the controls are easy to learn but hard to put into practice.
Heavy Rain has great graphics, great sound, and catchy controls. It is also a game that is hardly considered a game by today’s standards due to its STYLE. It’s an interactive drama, even more so than the Metal Gear Solid series (for those of you who haven’t played my favorite game series of all time, you know what I mean when I say MGS is a sci-fi action game). interactive). This video game has all the elements of a full-length movie. The biggest attribute is the fact that it immediately sucks you emotionally into the story. You get so wrapped up in all the characters and the way the game is structured that it forces you to get attached. Quantic Dream and with much praise and respect at the helm David Cage cleverly leaves the way the game unfolds in your hands. It’s almost like choosing your own adventure but with the substance of a thriller/noir movie. You are in complete control of the characters and how you choose to approach any situation that comes your way. Right at the beginning of the game, you can decide to be the responsible husband and father, who cleans, works around the house and spends time with his children. Or, he can refuse to shower and shave, shirk his duties, and basically do nothing. And that’s just the cheery tip of the dark and chaotic iceberg.
The theme of the game is “How far are you willing to go to save someone you love?” You’ll reach multiple points in the game where you cringe at the press of a button, choosing between equally sadistic and morally problematic decisions. As I said, the game draws you in until you are consumed by the euphoria, anger, sadness, and pain that the characters feel. No game has done this with more artistic finesse. Aside from the occasional (and I mean very occasional) gameplay glitch, it’s not enough to detract from the experience.
Oh yeah! And there are twenty-two different endings in the game, which means you’ll have to play the game multiple times making different but equally compelling decisions. In a very literal sense, it’s very destructive to see the characters you controlled and watched grow up early on and watch them make drastically different decisions than you saw (and made) before. And as you get closer to the end, it becomes almost heartbreaking to watch.
In any case, this game has more style than many games. And it’s all thanks to a formula that deviates from your usual gameplay (run, jump, aim, shoot, 32xp, teabag, repeat). Heavy Rain is like a PB&J with a glass of milk. Hit the nail on the head.
Honestly, this game gets -10 because of how much fun it is to make the decisions that you are forced to make. It’s not really a game because you’re so immersed and caught up in the moment that it doesn’t really feel like you’re playing a game. There are no fun times. There is nothing more than tension mixed with a multitude of coincident emotions. Although at the same time… it’s a game.
This section is normally for aspects of the game that receive deductions that the reviewer (which is me) thinks deserve special mention. In this case, the few problems are addressed in their sections very well.
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