How Far Are You Prepared To Go To Save Someone You Love?
The single player game, Heavy Rain, exclusive for the PlayStation 3, has been boasted as a game that would change the way new video games would be played and viewed.
In a way, they had been right. Quantic Dream’s previous game made in 2005, Fahrenheit (also known as Indigo Prophecy) had been successful with the new style they had attempted for their game. So five years later, they bring us Heavy Rain, the stand alone in its appealing story of a father going through whatever it takes to save his remaining son.
You start the game as Ethan Mars, a young architect who’s celebrating his son’s eighth birthday and must do household chores around his lovely home before his wife and two children return. Soon after, the family makes their way to the local shopping centre, where in a the blink of an eye, Ethan loses his son, Jason, in the crowded mall. Stuck by a thick panic, he runs through the area frantically to find him, but exits outside to see his son run across the street only to be hit by an oncoming car unable to stop. The game then pans over to two years later, where Ethan still suffers a heart wrenching trauma from being unable to save his son and he and his wife have split, meaning that he has relocated and taken their son, Shaun, with him. But suddenly, Ethan has these random blackouts, leaving him with large gaps in his memory at where he was during these times. One of these blackouts causes him to lose his son, which kicks off the whole story of Heavy Rain and the race against time to save Shaun from the well known Origami Killer, who leaves an origami figure and flowers at each of his/her victim’s bodies.
Along in the background in contrast to the main character, there are three other stories which tie in smoothly to the plot. Norman Jayden (who was introduced in the demo) is an FBI profiler, who’s put onto the Origami Killer’s case to help the police catch their culprit. He’s partnered with Carter Blake, the hot headed cop, thus creating the bad cop good cop duo. Then there’s Madison Paige, the young journalist who constantly checks in at local motels, because they’re the only place she can occasionally put her insomnia to rest. She’s searching for a large scoop on the Origami Killer and will do anything to get her story. The last person we meet is Scott Shelby, a Private Eye who’s been tracking down the Origami Killer by following up on the victim’s parents. Scott is soon joined by Lauren Winters, a woman who lost her son to the malicious Origami Killer. Each character is played in their chapters and everyone’s story adds to the main plot of Heavy Rain. Quantic Dream has said many times that they’ve put in plenty of work to make each of the characters more realistic, with the way they look, talk, move or interact with objects.
The next big thing that Heavy Rain really wanted to hit home was the controls. With your PS3 controller, there are plenty of different ways this controller can be connected with the game. Simple motions on the game will take simple controls, such as clicking ‘x’ or holding down ‘R2’ for a few, short seconds. But eventually, with diverse difficulties set for different kind of gamers, it gets harder as the game progresses and there are multiple combinations that the player must complete in order to progress. With this being said, the player has to navigate the spaces they’ve been put in when they’re not filling it in with action commands and doing so might take a while to get used to. It’s not a simple move the analog stick and you’re walking about, but you must hold down RS2 the whole time you move the right analog stick to make the character move. I found this to be a little bit annoying at the beginning but eventually, you’ll be treating it like it’s not a problem at all. So overall, the controls aren’t too bad and it’s easy to get around the game as you progress through the story.
The length of Heavy Rain completely depends on the player. They can either play the full game, without killing any characters, or play the shortened version, where all characters die. This brings me to explain that yes, the main characters can die. There are multiple death animations for the characters if an action isn’t done correctly, or if a player triggers an event that can end the character’s life. Doing so wipes them from the game and for Heavy Rain, there’s no such thing as a Game Over or a restart button. Once they’re dead, you must continue the story without that character. So overall for time, the game’s length is decent and you could even beat it on a three day rental if you have the time.
Saving, in some games, is a royal pain in the behind; either you must go to a certain location or it doesn’t save until you beat the boss or that area. In Heavy Rain, the player doesn’t need to worry about saving, as each time a new sequence is loaded, the game saves itself with a tiny origami bird flashing in the corner. Also, the game automatically saves at certain times during the chapter if the player has completed a certain event. So even if you don’t get to the character change or next chapter, you won’t have to start from the very beginning of that scene.
Second to last, players must know that this is an M game, therefore you’re only able to purchase it or rent it at stores if you’re above seventeen (at least, that’s the rule in Canada), unless you have someone eighteen or older with you. The content which keeps it at this rating includes; blood, intense violence, nudity, sexual content, and strong language.
In the end, I would give this game a 4/5 stars. I enjoyed it and I’ve even played through it twice and I’ll probably work on a third play through. There are some plot holes that left me wondering where they had really gone with this, but the shiny graphics and decently rounded characters distracted me from some of these problems that others may dwell on. Although, there are scenes and dialogue that will send shivers down your spine, making this a much more believable psychological thriller. Some scenes will have your heart pounding inside your chest and your hands still start to go clammy, while some will have you reaching for the nearest tissue. But one of the few things that bothered me were the children’s voice acting; I know it’s hard to ask a young child to speak smoothly like the next Ron Pearlman but I think they could have done much better to help keep the atmosphere together. To me, the plot was original enough to grab my attention and keep me until the end, except I found it ran into a few clichés here and there. But at the end of the day it’s a game worth playing (that’s for sure), but I’m not exactly certain if the price appeals to everyone, or if some have the patience to replay it through to get the full experience. Perhaps you could just rent it, like I had, beat it once and return it when it’s due back at your video store. Or, you could purchase it and explore the story more, unlock more trophies for your PS3 or undercover more endings, as the game is rather open ended for the final scenes you witness. So go check it out if you haven’t already done so and try not to let the loading screens creep you out too much.
-Kaitlyn M.