... is the newest game by the developer Qantic Dream, the creators of Indigo Prophecy and home to the videogame visionare David Cage. It is tempting to view Mr. Cage as the mastermind behind both games, as he is both the CEO, writor and director of the games, but the truth is that to make a game of this magnitude, it take effort and skill from the whole team, and this in short is what I've felt they have achieved; a well put together game with overall very high quality. For those of you not familiar with the concept; Heavy Rain is essentially a neatly vowen story which you, through your actions, is able to affect the outcome of. You are introduced to four characters, each with their own weaknesses and strenghts, and is asked to take care of them, invest emotionally in them, and lead them through the path you think is most suitable. The controlls are "undobund" by classical vidogames logics: They are not actions tied down to a single move. Instead the actions on the screen will require different button presses every time. This system works mostly great, and the team has been very good at linking each challenge to moves in a way that feels natural. Climbing will often reqiure you to hold down many buttons at once, while dancing will require you to maintain a continous flow of button presses.
Since the input method is so demanding, it may sometimes rob you of the sensation of really seing the whole scene unfold in front of you. You are just too concentrated to notice everything. Friends who watched me play, fequently said that they were quite happy watching, since they could soak up everything instead of sitting stressed out behind a controller.
The controlls and storytelling are the two features most important to mention. That being said, graphics, art design and music is all top notch. For all you these things you will occationally find "weak spots", but I won't bother mentioning them, as you will hopefull not notice.
If I have one lament, it is that the players are only a feature of a story that will unfold in more or less the same way anyway. For the longest time we believed that the particulars of the story could be changed, (it had the potential to do so), but the facts never change. Now matter how hard you try the facts never change their meaning in a game. By doing this they missed out on a great opportunity. The first truly interactive experience where you change not only the outcome by changing if the player is "there to see it" or not. You see: Every game has this. I my self has quit playing severaly games mid- way, and we can only assume that the bad guys won since we were the last hope. Why oh why isn't this opportunity being used?
All in all I'd reccomend the experience. However. Videogames are very expensive, so adopting a sharing- ring with friend is reccomended. Happy playing
