Review of Heavy Rain

Unbelievably complex while at the same time being completely human and nuanced, one can’t help but be immersed in Heavy Rain. Brought to being by the creators of the almost-amazing Indigo Prophecy (worth a playthrough), they have truly shown the power of storytelling through video games. By putting the player in control of the five principal characters, the story inadvertently follows them and it feels more natural, not to mention more visceral when action scenes come. While previous games rely on a simple on-a-rail type storytelling which limits the player in obvious ways, Heavy Rain innovates. It mimics the feel of a game in which there is only one ending, but your actions directly affect the direction that the story goes in—often tragically so. But in order for those tragic events to actually feel like they matter, Quantic Dream had to make you care somehow. This was pulled off in subtle but key scenes, where you strive to make your child laugh, or make eggs for someone, but it was also helped greatly by having very realistic facial renderings and lip-synching technology. The way you had to move the joysticks or press and hold buttons may seem arcade-y, but I thought they were effective in their difficulty and awesomeness in those rare cases that you do it flawlessly. There is some really great voice acting by some key actors, however sometimes I heard native accents that seemed out-of-character. Also, in times of stress, simply navigating to another side of a room is made incredibly difficult by the clunky navigation controls. Those points aside, I still loved every scene and look forward to playing through again with this compelling power I have to shape the story in a way that might be completely different now that I know who the Origami Killer is.