Heavy Rain Review - Playstation 3 - CheshireCatStudios.com

I start installing Heavy Rain (requires 4GB of HDD space) when they tell you that included with Heavy Rain is a piece of highly decorated paper you can fold your own origami bird with. So as I'm installing Heavy Rain and the game's patch, I'm folding this origami bird. Even after the installation is done, I'm still folding the origami bird (incorrectly, obviously).

Anyways, so about 5 minutes after Heavy Rain is installed and waiting for my paper-folding ass, I finally hit start, configure the game, and get rolling. The first action is to get the father character, Ethan, out of bed. I stall a little bit to see what happens, but nothing, so I slowly raise my character out of bed.

So, to retrospect my first half-hour of playing Heavy Rain:
"I spent more time folding a fucking paper bird than playing the damned game."

However, the next TEN HOURS I spent on Heavy Rain were the most nerve-wrecking, heart stopping, action packed and dramatic moments I've ever experienced in either a game or a movie.

Story

Heavy Rain is the story of four people trying to find solve the mystery of the Origami Killer. The Origami Killer is a serial murderer who abducts young boys and, roughly four or five days after they have been abducted, they are drowned in rain water, and their bodies are found around landfills or wastelands around rail road tracks, with an orchid flower on their chest and an origami figure in their hands.

You play as one of the four characters depending on where you are in the overall story:

The father of Sean Mars, the latest kidnapped child. Ethan Mars once had it all: a successful career as an architect, a nice home, and a perfect family life. Tragedy struck two years ago, and now Ethan is an empty shell of what he once was. Once a happy family man, he now lives a depressing life in a bad side of town with his son Sean. Ethan suffers from chronic blackouts that resulted from the accident that ruined his life. After Sean goes missing, Ethan receives a letter in the mail that is the first piece in a long series of sadistic trials that he must overcome in order to save his son, Sean.

An ex-police Lieutenant who now works as a private investigator. Hired by family members of the victims of the Origami Killer, Scott Shelby is determined to discover the identity of the Origami Killer, and he begins his story by questioning one of the mother of the most recent victim, Lauren Winters, in a sleazy hotel.

Likely a rookie FBI agent, Norman Jayden is a Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) look-alike assigned to the Origami Killer case as a profiler and as an active investigator. Norman is equipped with an experimental apparatus known as ARI, a highly advanced detective tool that can instantly analyze DNA samples, organize clues, and can create a virtual world for him to work within. However, the ARI system is still experimental and the effects are yet unknown. Norman Jayden is also addicted to Triptocaine, which he uses frequently to calm his nerves and to cure his frequent dizzy spells brought on by his addiction. Further hindering his investigation is his partner, a violent officer named Blake who will stop at nothing to get the information he needs to solve the case.

An aspiring journalist investigating the Origami Killer serial murders in order to further her own career. Madison Paige is brash and impulsive, as he will take often unnecessary risks in order to get a story. She is plagued by nightmares and visions of being stalked and murdered in her own home by faceless, knife-weilding assailants, and only feels comfortable enough to sleep when she is staying in hotels.

As far as the plot...
Oh God, where to begin and how to keep this spoiler free...

I'll just try to summarize it the best I can: Heavy Rain took an extremely interesting concept and a good overall story, but then they cut holes in it.

For instance, towards the end of the game, Character A can make a phone call to either Character B or Character C. However, how A ever got C's phone number is a complete mystery because neither have ever met during the course of the game. EVER. In fact, neither A nor C are really aware of each other's involvement in the whole story. So how the fuck can A call C?

Plus, characters do things that no rational human being would ever possibly do. For instance, when a child is kidnapped, the Origami Killer leaves clues for the parent. So why the hell don't the parents ever tell the police about these clues? Heavy Rain also falls into the "SAW" trap, where you wonder how in the hell could the killer find not only the money and resources to build these "trials" but where did the killer find the TIME?

Here is my theory: Heavy Rain was meant to be this great big, cinematic, brilliant story... and then the developers fell behind. Cuts had to be made, Sony needed their big project finished, and some higher-up probably wanted some of the 'boring story-driven parts' cut from Heavy Rain so that all of the ADHD shit heads (myself included) would get their jollies without being bogged down by 'plot' or 'character development'.

Either that, or the guy who wrote this story fell into "the George Lucas trap" where his ego was so inflated that not only could he not squeeze his head through a standard doorframe, but he figured that he didn't need professional writers and editors because he was already a certified fucking genius.

But I will admit, I really did like a majority of Heavy Rain outside of my nitpicking because I really did feel for a lot of the characters towards the ending of the game. If Heavy Rain didn't have the plot holes, it would have been a fantastic experience because of the development and the journey of each individual character. Probably the most emotional part of Heavy Rain that I experienced was when you learn the identity of the Origami Killer and the killer's tragic past.

Gameplay

You don't use either controls sticks to walk, because apparently that would actually make sense. In Heavy Rain you point your character in the direction you wish to go, and hold the R2 trigger to make him walk.

You know, because VIDEO GAME DRIVING MECHANICS WORK SO FUCKING WELL FOR A THIRD-PERSON DETECTIVE GAME. Seriously, are the French so stuck-up that they can't just "go with the flow" but they have to be totally ass-backwards to feed their snail-sucking egos? It's like if something makes too much sense, the French have to be 'artistic' and fuck it up. Just like the five-day, 40 hour work week.

The left stick is used strictly for looking, and almost half of the actions you make involve use of using your right stick to make motions not dissimilar to Fight Night 3. Quarter circle movements control anything from opening car doors, to knocking on doors, to retrieving clues, unhooking bras, and even using your asthma inhaler. The remainder of Heavy Rain involves quicktime buttons ala God of War to defend yourself from attacks, climb objects, press buttons, and have foreplay with Madison Paige. For once, use of the six-axis motion sensors are not a gimmick but a viable part of Heavy Rain and you use it to kick down doors, push away your assailant in a brutal fistfight that lasts nearly three minutes, and make Madison Paige dance for you while wearing nothing but a thong. I love immersion in video games.

An accurate comparison to Heavy Rain's gameplay is Dragon's Lair. For anybody who is unfamiliar with Dragon's Lair, it is a game where you essentially watch a film and pressing the correct buttons keeps the story flowing, and missing key sequences will result in a brief death cinematic. This sort of 'interactive movie' technology was made infamous by early CD based game systems like the Sega CD because the games that did this were horrible to play; however with the developer Quantic Dream and their games, Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain, the interactive movie gameplay seems to have evolved greatly from early games like Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Time Gal, and Road Avenger to name a few.

The gameplay in Heavy Rain is simplistic and extremely limited to being one damned long quicktime button sequence, but it is RARELY dull. As you frantically try to press the correct buttons on your Sixaxis controller, or make the correct motion control movements, cars are flying past you, your enemies are pursuing you through crowds, or you're running from psychopaths who are trying to kill you with knives, drills, and even a gun. The name of the game is 'INTENSITY', and I was literally standing on my feet for a majority of Heavy Rain because I physically could not sit down and remain comfortable.

Another problem with Heavy Rain play is that when a joystick movement or a button needs pressed the most urgently is often when you can't see the fucking command because either furniture or Madison Paige's ass is between an object and the camera. Yes, we get the fucking clue that Madison Paige is a sex symbol. We realized that after the first three fucking hours of keeping her (hypnotic) ass in frame, you don't need to have it block me from my fucking fire exit.

While that problem can be surpassed by shifting to 'Camera 2' by pressing L1, it's still a pain in the ... yeah, a pain in the ass.

Decisions

Like Quantic Dream's previous game, the critically acclaimed 'Indigo Prophecy' (or 'Fahrenheit' outside of North America), the outcome of Heavy Rain is determined by the choices you make with each character. During the course of Heavy Rain you are given several choices to make, and they can vary between simply choosing a direction for your character to escape, to decisions that truly test your own sense of morality such as the treatment of your virtual children, inflicting bodily harm upon yourself, and even killing characters in cold blood.

However, over the seven or so times I've played the game, the outcomes are relatively indifferent depending on the severity of what you say or do. For instance, whether or not you bribe someone will have little effect in the overall scheme of things, and the same goes with making moral choices that lie outside of outright killing off characters, completing the Origami Trials, and a select few character relation options. Despite as hyped as Heavy Rain was for your ability to "choose your destiny" the whole game is fairly linear, so don't sweat the little things.

Unless you are absolutely the most cruel bastard on the face of the earth, or if you get your jollies burning SIMs alive, more than likely you'll be like 99% of the rest of the game playing population and you will do all of the 'good' actions during your first play-through in Heavy Rain. You will fight to save people's lives, you will show mercy, and you will fight to find Sean Mars in time; and in the end, you will likely get some of the happier endings for each of the characters. That is, of course, unless you were to have accidentally had a character killed during the course of playing Heavy Rain, which would immediately alter the final outcome of the story.

So you will sit for a moment and reflect on the (possibly) bitter sweet ending you received and you will feel rewarded and proud that you made all of the right decisions like a good human being.

You reset the game. Will you save the convenience store clerk from the armed robber? No, was rude to you, so fuck him. You will make Ethan cut off his finger with a pair of rusty scissors instead of showing him the swift mercy of a nearby hatchet, you will force Madison Paige to dance topless for your own amusement before you laugh as you burn her alive like one of the characters of the Happy Tree Friends, and you will let Norman Jayden get crushed to death in Mad Jack's scrap yard!! PUNY MORTALS! YOUR SCREAMS OF HELP ARE BUT THE BUZZING OF FLIES FOR I AM YOUR GOD AND YOU ARE BUT PUPPETS! DANCE! DANCE FOR MY PLEASURE ELSE I CUT THE STRINGS THAT BIND YOU TO THIS MORTAL COIL!! CRY IN FEAR AND REJOICE WITH TREMBLING FOR MY NAME IS 'THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA'!!

Graphics

The atmosphere is intense, and the whole theme of Heavy Rain appears to be extremely cinematic (in a good, interactive way). The environments are pure eye candy; you see trees sway in the wind, you see the rain drops on mud puddles, and the lighting effects have that cinematic quality that aid in emphasizing a mood or an environment (I'm thinking of the light through the horizontal blinds in the hospital scene in particular).

The details are amazing. From fabrics on a couch, to the French cartoons that play on the televisions in the background, to the faces of the characters themselves, Heavy Rain creates a world that is not only engrossing but believable, and I think that this is part of the magic that almost makes you forget about some of the many plot-holes in the story.

The motion captures that were done for Heavy Rain are overwhelmingly natural in most cases, as not only do characters move realistically, but they also have small, normally unnoticeable mannerisms such as leaning against objects, fidgeting when they stand still for too long, and even their faces have quirky twitches and movements that subconsciously convey emotion. You can pick up a lot about a character before you even get too far into Heavy Rain, which is an amazing and (again) often intense experience.

The graphics, while obviously pretty, are not perfect. There are a lot of scenes that lack a degree of polish and refinement, and they stand out like a sore thumb. Lighting can be poor in some areas, making the textures look bland and washed out (most noticeably on the characters themselves). Other times, small details like the hands of characters don't quite look that believable when they grab items and open doors. Physical interactions between characters is spotty at best; while fight sequences look good when they're fast and furious, the slower, more intimate scenes give you the time to really scrutinize the visuals. Oh, and incase you're wondering, the sex scene between Ethan Mars and Madison Paige looks like crap. The two kiss like the puppets from Team America: World Police, I shit you not. (And "no", the sex scene is not even that erotic because all you see is the foreplay and none of the action; it was basically a bedroom scene in a PG-13 movie. I was hoping to use the joystick and the Sixaxis motion sensing if you know what I mean.)

Despite some lack of polish, there are also presently technical issues. Textures tend to 'pop' into place (essentially, you see a blurry texture one moment and then 'pop' it's high resolution all of a sudden) and they always seem to jar me out of my immersion. Screen-tearing is also frequent, as are frame-rate slowdowns, and character model distortions (when a 3D character looks disproportionate or warped for a fraction of a second).

For Heavy Rain's amazingly natural and believable character movements and high quality visuals to be brought down by issues revolving around minor details and the technical-aspect of the game is really one of Heavy Rain's biggest tragedies.

Sound

The music of Heavy Rain is awe-inspiring to say the least, and composer Normand Corbeil created an auditory masterpiece. Each track is produced and performed like nothing short of a Hollywood blockbuster's score. I'm a sucker for good piano music, and Heavy Rain really put me into a trance during the opening credits.

The main theme of Heavy Rain is so melancholy and moving, so sad and serene that it so perfectly sets up the story of a father's loss and his pain. The piece starts out with a somber horn and string piece that gradually shifts emphasis on a fantastic piano piece that not only seems to reflect an aura of sadness but almost seems to follow the beat of falling rain. It is a great piece without a doubt one of my new favorite depressing musical scores.

Another fine example of Heavy Rain's dynamic musical score is the theme of Ethan Mars, the father of boy that the Origami Killer kidnapped.

Ethan's theme starts of fairly somber with a piano piece not dissimilar to the Heavy Rain main theme, but it quickly picks up the pace with a rising horn section that is driven by strings that push the song forward, reflecting Ethan Mars's own drive that pushes him forward to overcome obstacles in order to save his son. A percussion piece escalates towards the middle of the song, further strengthening the determination and will, and the choir resounds a powerful sense of hope that there will be some happiness to be found at the end of the pain.

There is one thing that is bothering me about Ethan's Theme. I could swear I've heard it, or something very similar to it before...

Ethan Mars's Theme in Heavy Rain does follow very closely to the piece "Lux Aeterna" from the 'Requiem for a Dream' soundtrack. While it's not close enough to call it an outright plagiarism, it does mimic a great deal of Lux Aeterna.

While I do like most of the voice actors in Heavy Rain, some parts of the performances are infinitely weaker than others. For instance, the voice actors for Norman Jayden, Scott Shelby, and Blake are fairly good in my opinion. The voice actors put some good vocal range into the parts, and really turn the reading into a decent performance. However, some parts fall flat and wooden, such as one potential ending involving Scott Shelby falling to his death where, instead of screaming "NOOO!" in the Hollywood cliche, you get what sounds like a simple "No" like he accidentally dropped his ice cream cone on a sidewalk. Other follies of the voice acting (and not the dialogue, which is part of the train wreck that is the story) include characters, in this case Detective Blake, trying to sound "more Brooklyn than Brooklyn". Another minor annoyance was Norman Jayden consistantly sounding like a bad Christopher Walken impersonator.

Then there are the children, and they bug the living shit out of me. Heavy Rain company that created Heavy Rain is based in France by my understanding and despite finding some pretty good voice actors for a majority of the English parts (I have no clue if other languages got dubbed), the children who speak in English don't sound at all English. Instead all of the children have a heavy accent that honestly sounds like all of the child voice actors were stuffing peas in their noses prior to their recordings and they couldn't dislodge them so they recorded them with hopes that no one would notice.

My final MAJOR complaint is not so much the voice acting, but the dialogue spoken by Madison "Girl" Paige. Madison Paige not only talks to herself, but she always, always, ALWAYS mentally refers to herself as 'Girl'.

"Good going, Girl."
"You better watch out, Girl."
"This is a dangerous place, Girl."
"You go, Girl." (I'm honestly NOT making that one up.)
"I need to pick up a quart of milk from the store, Girl."
"Strut that ass when you walk, Girl."
"Remember when you were a little girl, Girl? Oh, Girl, you had the girlish glee of a school girl, Girl."

It literally sounds like the guy who wrote Madison Paige's dialogue had no clue what these strange creatures we call 'women' are really like, so he rented the Spice Girls Movie for research into their strange culture and habits. I just have a hard time believing that women refer to themselves as 'Girl' as much as Madison Paige does, but whether they actually do or not, it gets really fucking annoying.

Replayability

My very first Platinum Trophy on any Playstation 3 game. I tried hard to get them for Uncharted 1 and 2 but I fell short. The repeat play throughs under higher difficulties wasn't enough to keep my interest, and searching high and low for trinkets and treasures was an exhausting pain in the ass I'd rather never repeat.

But for Heavy Rain, I was compelled to complete every aspect of it. There were no fucking silver spoons and ugly-ass statues in the bushes to spend hours finding, and there was no 'harder difficulty' to piss the fuck out of you in a vein attempt by the developers to fake extended replay value. Granted, you did have to replay Heavy Rain multiple times through, but each time you got to play it a little differently, and your reward for your tenacity were new scenes and an entire new outcome for each character. And after the credits rolled on even your third play through, you still thought to yourself, "What if..."

In short, the replayability for Heavy Rain is extremely high, and FINALLY for the right reasons.

Picture playing a Final Fantasy game... one of the good ones... basically 6 and 7...

Here you have a game that is very rich in presentation, story and character development, which would normally result in a gamer growing attached to the characters because of their character traits and their depth. Now pretend that many of your major decisions would actively affect the outcome of the story. In other words, in one play through of Final Fantasy VII, you can prevent Aerith's death and you receive an entirely new ending, while in a different play through, the world gets obliterated by the villain, Sephiroth.

Heavy Rain works in the same manner. The character development, while flawed, is still deep enough that you find yourself caring about a lot of these characters, relating to a select few, and completely hating a lot more (ie: Lauren, the whore, and Blake, the violent prick cop that never should have made it past the police academy psyche exam). What you do in Heavy Rain effects the outcome of those characters, and in a manner that is actually compelling enough to do so.

So, is it worth spending the extra hours replaying a game to see a different ending?

Oh, hell yes. While the events within Heavy Rain change only slightly, the 18 possible endings (3-5 endings for each of the 4 characters, 4 endings per play through) are your reward for your perseverance. You can watch the characters that you have ultimately grown fond of succeed and live their lives happily, or you can watch them fail, leaving the story bittersweet or hauntingly beautiful. There are obviously shades of gray depending on a few choices your characters can make, but regardless, it is worth your time to see all of the possible outcomes to this fantastic game.

For those who would rather not repeat Heavy Rain SEVEN times to see all of the possible endings, you are allowed to replay previous chapters at will, play them differently to see a possibly new outcome, and continue forth to the end where a new ending possibly awaits. Not only is it extremely convenient for anybody who got caught up in Heavy Rain's story and wants badly to see all of the endings in the game, but it allows trophy whores to easily pick up any missing achievements and it allows casual players to re-experience some of the game's defining moments.

Luckily there is no replay counter system that tallies up which chapters got played the most, or else the chapter where Madison Paige is forced to strip in a club would be through the roof.

Expansion Packs

As of writing this there has only been one expansion pack, or 'Chronicle' released for Heavy Rain: "The Taxidermist". Since I preordered Heavy Rain, I received a code in my email that entitled me to download and install this downloadable content. The size of this chapter or chronicle was just shy of a gigabyte so it was safe to assume that the content was not just an unlockable feature that was already on the disk you purchased, which in essence is the same as purchasing the same content TWICE (a practice that received a lot of backlash due to Capcom's "Resident Evil 5" and 2K Games' "Bioshock 2").

I don't know when this new prequel chapter will be made available to the general public but if you pull anything from this review, I hope it's the following:

BUY THIS FUCKER IMMEDIATELY. I cannot express the words 'buy' and 'immediately' enough.

The Taxidermist Chronicle is THE most gut-retching, survival horror, never wrecking episode of the entire Heavy Rain game. You play as Madison Paige, and you are investigating the Origami Killer, and you have a lead that you should interview a local taxidermist (exactly how the connection between the taxidermist and the Origami Killer are determined is yet another fantastic PLOTHOLE used for the sake of expediting the story). Of course, the taxidermist isn't home, so, naturally, rather than just leaving a fucking sticky-note on the guy's door with her phone number, Madison Paige resorts to breaking and entering. I'm beginning to suspect that Madison Paige would make a better cat burglar than a news journalist, but whatever.

As you progress through the taxidermists increasingly creepy house, you find traces of burned clothing, new clothing, jewelry, and other artifacts that build tension up until you finally venture upstairs where the true horror of the taxidermists' work is brought to the surface in what is easily the goriest and genuinely disturbing part of the Heavy Rain story.

I really don't want to spoil a lot, but I will say that this chapter of Heavy Rain genuinely creeped me the hell out. Seriously, I was so damned scared that my balls were sucked up into my own asshole.

The gameplay in The Taxidermist is what I had originally expected out of Heavy Rain as a whole: Many choices, intelligent enemies, different possible outcomes, and a lot of cat-and-mouse.

It is precisely that cat-and-mouse relationship between the cat (the Norman Bates-like psycho killer with a big ass knife) and the mouse (Madison Paige (you), an unarmed and completely defenseless woman who has to hide from room to room in his house while avoiding being seen) that makes The Taxidermist a truly horrific experience.

The choices you make determine the possible outcomes of The Taxidermist. If, say, you accidentally leave a cupboard open during your snooping around the inside of his house, the Taxidermist WILL notice that someone is in his house, and it will lead into 'hide-for-your-fucking-life' style scenario where he stalks you through his house with a big knife, actively hunting you to protect his dirty secrets. You can run from room to room while the killer searches his house at random, making Heavy Rain an even more nerve-wrecking experience to the point where you will find yourself hiding under a bed, paralyzed with fear, and silently hoping that he doesn't find you. And the fact that he searches the rooms in his house at random leaves you with the following dilemma:

Will the next room that the Taxidermist checks be the one I'm hiding in, or could it be the one I will hide in next? Do I stay in hide and wait to be found, or do I try to keep moving and hope that he doesn't catch me?

If he DOES find you (and, unless you are one Solid Snake sneaky motherfucker and didn't tip him off of your presence, he WILL), you will resort to frantic button-sequence events that, if you fumble up twice, will result in a very graphic demise for poor Madison Paige.

There are FIVE possible outcomes to the story, and after you beat it the first time around, you can read the titles of each of the other four possible endings, as they will provide you some clues on how to obtain them.

The Taxidermist Chronicle is obviously a prequel to the main storyline of Heavy Rain, and I think that I now fully understand why Madison Paige is so damned afraid of sleeping in her own home, especially in the 'real ending' where the Norman Bates Taxidermist psychopath's parting words to you is his haunting intention to 'meet again'.

OVERALL

Overall, Heavy Rain was a mixed bag of simultaneously exceeding and falling short of my own expectations. Heavy Rain play is interesting, sometimes frustrating, and almost always intense. The graphics are top notch apart from some lack of polish involving hands interacting with objects. The story, while interesting and unique, would look like a wedge of Swiss cheese if it were made into a tangible object. The sound is superb on every level, but got tripped up on a lot of the voice acting. The upcoming expansion pack 'The Taxidermist' not only patched one of the many plot holes, but felt more like the kind of Heavy Rain game I was expecting.

In short, Heavy Rain should be on every Playstation 3 owner's rental list, but since Heavy Rain is fairly short you shouldn't buy unless you want to see all of the potential endings to Heavy Rain, which I encourage you to do.