Heavy Rain Review

Heavy Rain, a game that developers Quantic Dream promised would give players total freedom of choice, with a notable consequence for each small action they took in the game. Does the final product live up to this though, or is it just more marketing talk?

The game's story revolves around a serial killer, known as the Origami Killer; the man is quite clearly intelligent and methodical. He puts an orchid on the chest of his young victims and places a small origami figure in their hand. One of the characters we are in control of is Scott Shelby, a private investigator contacted by the victim's families to find the killer. The other controllable characters in the game are Madison Paige, a woman who has constant bouts of insomnia, Norman Jayden, an FBI agent trying to track down the killer, and Ethan Mars, who is arguably the game's main character.

The introduction is a sort of 'how-to' of the game's basic controls, where you are in control of Ethan going about his morning routine before helping to organise one of his sons' birthday party. This is where you'll get introduced to the game's relentless need to make you do everything. While this sounds good in theory, there's only so many times you can do things like shave and brush your teeth before you start to feel the nasty hand of boredom on your shoulder.

Thankfully this introduction is really just that, an introduction. After this, we are given full scope of what the game intends to throw us into. The controls are what drive the game, along with the story, letting you do every little action given the situation. If you're in a bathroom you can quickly nip to the toilet, if you're in a kitchen you can go over to the fridge to get a quick drink of juice. All these actions add to the immersion and after the painfully slow introductory period, never really feel like a chore to do.

The game switches between the four main characters and allows you to see multiple scenarios from different perspectives. The entire game is played out like this, with you performing most of the actions the characters themselves take. As you get to action scenes in the game, such as fights, everything moves to quick-time events. You'll have to hammer at the X button during a struggle, or move the analogue stick in the right direction quickly to avoid a blow. These never feel tiresome like they usually do though, thanks in part to the ability to 'fail' an action. In most QTE based moments in games, if you fail you have to start again: Heavy Rain simply lets you continue on, sometimes with consequences you won't see coming.

All the characters control identically, with the exception of Jayden. As an FBI agent, he has access to a high-tech pair of sunglasses and glove, which is known as ARI. Using this you can scour crime scenes, looking for clues to help in your case. This is a great little system, with you hitting a button to 'scan' the local area revealing any potential clues. It makes you feel like you are actually investigating something, not forcing you to find clues. If you miss something, you've missed it, there probably won't be a chance for you to go back, so it's a good idea to fully search each area when you can as these clues can all be accessed later in Jayden's office.

Playing the game on the hardest difficulty is a good piece of advice here, it'll really lend to the tense moments where you need your reflexes to be quick. If you are playing on easier difficulties, it's far too easy to not care about the situation at hand, as it's so straightforward to do. On hard you'll occasionally have your fingers twisting about the control pad trying to hold down the buttons it's telling you, letting you feel the frustration the character is feeling at that point.

The graphics are hit and miss, contrary to what you may have heard. The character models are superb, as are the animations for the most part, but some really bland textures in the background and foreground can spoil the immersion sometimes; a particular example being when Madison is putting on a pair of jeans, you see a close-up of a chair with clothes draped on it, and they flat out look horrible.

The music is among the best I've heard in a game for a long time, the soundtrack constantly fits the mood of the current situation, and the sound effects that accompany it do a stand up job. The voice acting, however is a different story. Some characters are wonderfully cast, and you can sympathise with them and their plights through the solid voice work. Others, however, sometimes sound frankly ridiculous and out of place. It's a shame more effort didn't go into the voice acting, as a heavily story driven game such as this is defined by how well the characters can carry the story.

The game has multiple 'endings'. These however are no more than different clips of the characters, spliced together into an ending depending on your actions throughout the game. I believe the number to be somewhere in the twenties for these different segments. They are genuinely good to see once you have found out the identity of the killer, where you find out about the characters you've been helping for the past nine or ten hours and what they get up to after the game's events.

A game I can wholly recommend to those that enjoyed Quantic Dream's last foray into gaming; Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy. This is basically more of the same, with extra emphasis on player control and choices, and thankfully, no focus on the paranormal. As one of the trophies says, 'Thank you for supporting interactive entertainment'.