Finally, the moment has come. I will finally shut up about the Heavy Rain hype and talk about the product itself...because I played it! The bravado of Quantic Dream was finally meeting the judgement of the cruel video game clientele. Would it hold on to what it said it would be or would it be a pathetic excuse for a video game?
No matter how prepared I was to play Heavy Rain, I never could really expect such a game. It's a game that tries new things and has to be treated as such...an experiment. Quite an enjoyable one if you weight in all the new and unknown variables that were played with...
STORYLINE
Talking about the storyline is easy, but grading it is hard. This isn't something that can compare to the maintstream storytelling as it doesn't rely on the same things. Heavy Rain is mainly the story of Ethan Mars, who loses his son Jason in a car accident, which leaves him also completely wrecked. Ethan's other son Shaun gets kidnapped by a serial killer and Ethan has only a few days to find him back.
When I say that Ethan is the main character, it's really how it is. The storyline revolves around four character...and three of them, Norman Jayden, Madison Paige and Scott Shelby, revolve around Ethan and his drama. Ethan is the only character that keeps coming back without ever leaving his place to another. He's portrayed with vigor by Pascal Langdale, who sometimes gave shiver down my spine with his portrayal of despair. Madison Paige is also very convincing, but she's plays a support role. Scott Shelby and Norman Jayden seem a little weaker, but it's due to their use.
There are plot holes and a few broadly colored segments that don't feel on par with the the of the story, but it's all good in the end because you grow attached to the characters. You get a sense of their vulnerability and get to love them for who they are, to want to make them feel better again. Even in the low tension moments, Heavy Rain fascinates with it's insight on the moments that make life unique. Absolute character psychology and emotional attachment make this game ahead of whatever I've played so far in terms of video games story.
NOTE: 25/25
GAMEPLAY
This also has to be reviewed with caution. It's a story-driven game so gameplay is, at all time at the service of the story. Whenever the situation needs it, you'll have different controls that will be displayed on screen like quick time events. The gameplay is kept minimal and story oriented so you will experience every surprises and aspects of the story at the same time than the characters. More complicated actions require multiple button pressing. Sometimes they get borderline impossible (I.E. the high voltage line) and are ideal to kill your character. This is not a bad thing in itself because there is so much branching in Heavy Rain that I'm just dying to do it all over again. I just showed the introduction to my girlfriend and it played out completely differently than the first time.
What buggered me a little bit though was the control. The R2 - Left Stick combo doesn't work, it makes camera a big problem. It's hard to figure out where you go and the control scheme change as soon as the camera changes angle. It's minor, but it's a piss off. Another of these is the sometimes tunneled action. Once I had to repeat a panic attack ten times to figure out I had to shake the controller gradually harder & harder. Once again, it happened like twice in the game, but these get under your skin when you are relying so much on the story.
NOTE: 23/25
PRESENTATION
What was marketed as one of the best looking games in the business is a puzzling mix of amazing and amazingly poor graphics. Some sequences are breathtaking (the remote car in the beginning) and other are lifeless (texture-less too). Madison's appartment for example is a disaster of weird looking furniture.
Overall the graphics are stunning, there are hiccups, but if you're a good public and you're looking into immersion, you won't have to worry about the texture. They disappear behind the amazing storyline. It's made minor because it doesn't interrupt the flow of action. When you pass by running a store...a store is a store, beautiful or not, you don't have time to analyze. That's probably what Quantic Dream told themselves when they shipped out the game.
It has been brought to my attention that the game was suffering a lot of technical issues, but I had yet to experience it. It's been smooth like silk on my system, but I'm playing with the old 60 gig backwards compatible,which is renowned for his stability
NOTE: 22/25
AWESOMENESS
This game will be remembered for years for it's gritty, risky approach to video game design. You get as much fun playing Heavy Rain than you would reading a Dennis Lehane novel or watching a dark cop movie. The game is not scared to play with your emotions and to show you human nature in video games...which is...unprecedented! You have to appreciate a balls-to-the-wall attitude when it comes to believing in your products. If you don't like certain characters you can even kill them and make a story without it...I mean, I wish I could've killed Nathan Drake.
NOTE: 25/25
ACES
-Pascale Langdale
-A game about human nature
-Little things made important
FAILS
-You can't walk a character the same way you drive a car.
-Minor annoying technical problems.
-Jayden is useless to the story.
Maybe it's not perfect, but it's as close as it gets to the greatest story ever told in video games (doesn't quite hold up to classics like Zelda for example). It's a strong contender for Game Of The Year. This game is manlier than you, it will try to crush you down.
FINAL NOTE: 95%
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