It's been said many times, but Heavy Rain is not your typical game, it features an unorthodox control scheme. However, what does this exactly mean? Basically, you can control the movement of the character, although even walking is controlled differently compared to your typical game. The analog stick only changes the direction of movement, you have to press and hold down a button to actually. This isn't the best way to do things as often, the character walks in a direction that's not the one you wanted them to go. Anyway, another large portion of the game involves context sensitive buttons. The first type is just onscreen prompts to show an interactable object or when picking choices. There are many parts of the game where there are two to four choices to choose from which affect what happens next (some are more serious which affects the rest of the game, while others just affect the next scene), the game is like a choose-your-own adventure. The second type are Quick Time Events (QTE). Sometimes the QTEs can be a bit hard to follow as the button prompts can seem too similar to each other and it takes you a bit longer to realize what it wants you to do. However, the action sequences where the QTEs happen are very satisfying and intense, especially when you know you can fail them and it'll have repercussions in the story (e.g. the character dying or you've missed some clues which prevents that character from realizing something later on).
Not knowing which events you can afford to fail and which ones will have unwanted repercussions makes you feel as if you have as much on stake as the character you're currently playing as. Wait... character you're currently playing as? You play four characters, experiencing the story from their perspective, you swap between them occasionally. Anyway, motion controls are implemented heavily into the game, and I mean the sixaxis, NOT the Move controller (although you can still use that). They were implemented quite well which surprised me as they didn't seem to feel like an avoidance annoyance like so many other games that try to force sixaxis into them gameplay. Except for the ones where it's not just a simple shake/tilt of the controller, but using it to control a vehicle or something. In those scenarios, the onscreen prompts isn't too clear on what you're supposed to be doing and the action onscreen is oftentimes too fast paced to deduce what you need to do (I'd imagine this becomes even worse in the hard setting, as I had difficulties in the "normal" setting). The tutorial at the beginning of the game was somewhat boring as nothing happens and you're just waiting for the good parts to start. So that's the controls, now with the story... and wow, this is the best part of the game, it feels as if you're watching a crime thriller, it's that intense and good.
The plot revolves around a father who's son has been kidnapped by a serial killer knowing as the Origami Killer. As mentioned, the earlier parts aren't super interesting but the story picks up pace and ramps it up exponentially after the first twenty chapters or so (which doesn't take that long to get to). Once the main characters starts to gain clues about the Origami Killer and the mystery starts to reveal itself. There were some very intense moments, made even more so time limits, so you gotta make the decision fast, just like you would in real life. This doesn't impact you too much until you've made your choice and the impact hits you. The last third of the game gave you a few twists and just turns everything you've understood so far, on it's head, repeatedly. You thought you had your head around the killer? Nup, something happens and turns that around. In the last twenty chapters (a total of around 50 chapters), the characters' storylines start to converge but still not in a huge way and you're left frustrated and wondering why you're playing from four perspectives when they don't seem to interact much. That said, it is quite interesting to see the different angles and paths each character takes to get to the same point in the end. The last chapter/ending was amazing, it was intense as everything could just tip one way or another. The 'good' ending (the one you see where you make most of the 'correct' choices) will be the hope you hope to see after investing so much (emotionally) into the game.
The ending where it feels like everything is going to be okay only for it to turn bad doesn't feel much sense from the police perspective. Once the identity of the killer is finally revealed (after so many twists and turns, and teasing you when one of the character finds out but doesn't let the player know), it's not a huge bombshell where you're like "ahhhh, everything makes sense and slots into place now". This is because the actions of the killer, before you knew he was the killer, isn't always consistent with his motives (I won't say anymore as it's starting to get into spoiler territory). Some of the characters have weird traits and seem a bit unstable, a bit out of the blue, you can't help but think that it was a bit exaggerated. There is huge replayability in the game since future scenes can change depending on your choices and there are a ton of offerings. Although for some of them, you'd have to go back pretty early into the game and play through the game again in order to see the other scenes which can be annoying, especially since you can't skip cutscenes. You can't just go to one chapter and skip to another one to see the outcome, you have to play through all the chapters in between (this makes getting some trophies time consuming). The graphics are average, it won't blow you away although you have to consider that this was released back in 2010.
The colors are more dull and grey-toned, to keep with the theme that it's bleak and always raining (hence the title). The animations can seem a bit stiff at times and the lip syncing isn't always the greatest. It can feel inconsistent as other times, you can pick out some great detailing. The voice acting is great and gives life to the characters. It helps you get extremely emotionally attached to them, caring about their fates. I didn't think that the music was great at first, but like the rest of the game, it grows on you. The piano just makes the sad scenes even sadder, especially towards the end of the game (the atmosphere helps, with the patter of the rain and the gloomy and bleak surroundings). This version (the budget range version) includes some neat extras, like the soundtrack, making of videos and prologue to the game (I think it was originally DLC). The game's story doesn't take too long, roughly 6-9 hours, depending if any of your characters die. I wasn't a fan of the game in the beginning, since the controls seemed too weird and the story didn't seem that interesting. However, it grows on you and the story turned out to be one of the best I've ever experienced in a game, and rivals any movie, tv show or book. It's intricate and clever, with some great moments as well as emotional attachment to the characters. It blows you away at multiple points in the story and definitely warrants a play.
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