Heavy Rain is the latest game published from Sony and comes from the same development team that produced the highly acclaimed Fahrenheit title for the ps2. It is one of those titles that come around once in a blue moon that brings a massive breath of fresh air which spreads through the entire gaming industry. It is redefining the capabilities of games and how expansive game genres are these days and can only excite fans for the future and unravel a whole new chapter in the gaming history book.
Heavy Rain is a game which focuses entirely on its storyline. It can best be described as a dramatic thriller and follows the lives of four separate people whose paths will all meet in the chronicles of the Origami killer; a killer who uses drowns his victims during long periods of heavy rainfall. The first of the four characters is a father called Ethan Mars. He is an architect and has two sons. Two years prior to the serial killer saga his eldest son, Jason, was tragically killed in a car accident and Ethan was put into a coma following his attempts to save his son. Now engulfed in grief and divorced from his wife he lives in an apartment with his younger son, Shaun. However things turn from bad to worse for Ethan as he learns Shaun’s life is in danger and the Origami Killer is to blame.
The next character is a photographer/journalist called Madison Page. She lives by herself in the city and suffers from chronic insomnia and spends many nights in hotel rooms in an attempt to get some sleep. She eventually gets wrapped into the Origami Killer investigation and engulfs herself in the case in a bid to solve it. The player will also play as a private detective going by the name John Shelby. He is a hardnosed ex-policeman who seems to always find himself in physical confrontations. He gets involved in the case because of his commitments to the families of victims killed in the past by the Origami killer. The final playable character is FBI profiler struggling with a drug addiction called Norman Jayden. He is entrusted with assisting the police in their investigation of the Origami Killer and he owns a set of augmented reality glasses called an Added Reality Interface or ARI which will benefit the player greatly in their attempts to solve the case.
So what really can we say about the gameplay? Well for a start it’s unique I’ll say that. The resultant actions of characters are played out on screen with initiated quick time events which allow you to choose how you want the game to play out. You can walk about whilst holding the R2 button which basically enables you to move to sections of the environment and activate an event which allows you to progress through the story. Action sequences are a tad more complicated and are reliant on your timing of button pressing and your reactions. A very unique and interesting section of the game play is that if a character of yours does die then the game doesn’t end. In fact what happens is that the characters death directly affects the stories of the other 3 characters and determines the final outcome of the game.
Let’s talk audio and looks. So the game looks fantastic to begin with. You really feel like you’re watching a movie whilst you play though as the whole game looks and sounds like a well produced film. The character models are beautifully crafted and very much life like in their appearance. The movement of the characters is also very fluid and smooth and very rarely did I witness a movement which I believed to look strange or out of place. Environments range from vibrant, cheerful, and sunny family homes to dark, damp, aggrieved city scenery. The soundtrack is truly beautiful and seems to gel with what is happening on screen perfectly. A sleek mellow soundtrack runs through the game and a pulsating , erratic , exciting musical experience occurs during action scenes which represents the characters emotions wonderfully in the game.
So overall this is a unique, wonderfully developed, masterpiece of game development. As I said it is a massive breath of fresh air in the gaming industry and brings a new style of play to thePS3 console. It is opening new doors, inviting gamers who maybe prefer PC adventures and giving players a wider choice. The storyline and gameplay accompanied by the audio and appearance are just one fantastic package and what I found out was that once I started playing Heavy Rain I was compelled to find out who the Origami Killer was and complete the game.
Marks out of 10
Story 10: Fantastic writing packed with twists and turns and pulsating, heart racing moments
Gameplay 8: A unique twist on the typical game controls and uses the full functions of the controller
Audio and Appearance 10: A truly beautiful game with a fantastic musical score which suits the game 100 percent perfectly
Replay ability 8: There a whole host of endings to play through and each one exciting and fulfilling.
Overall 9 : I know I have mentioned this maybe a few too many times but truly a unique, exciting game with huge prospects for the future
