Heavy Rain isn't your ordinary game, it's an intense, inter-active experience that guides you into four character's worlds. You have Ethan Cole, father of two, an architect who's living his American dream. You have Agent Jayden, an FBI investigator sent to investigate the latest killing of the Origami Killer. You have Madison Page, a journalist who disguises herself as a photographer to whomever she meets, all she wants is a little inside story on a victim's father about the Origami killer, and finally you have Scott Shelby, my favourite character. A private detective for hire who's out to get leads on the Origami killer and gets closer to the truth. I won't spoil it for you, because it had me by surprise, BIG TIME.
The story shifts around chapters and events with each of the four characters to balance it out. We each get a Point Of View of how the Origami killer has or is affecting their lives. Each chapter has a very depressing tone to it, it rains nearly every single time, and the skies are cloudy, always. The game takes place in the fall season, so it's no wonder why everything is depressing, but according to the investigation, that's when the Origami killer strikes. The Origami killer takes children between ages 8 and 10 every fall, and puts them under a grated pipe with a lock. He kills them by letting the rainwater fall on them till they suffocate. That's all I will tell you for now, the rest is up to you to find out.
Writer and Game Director of Heavy Rain, David Cage writes a phenomenal story that you'd expect to see it win Oscars and Golden Globes. He manages to make you a part of the story, to draw you in. His inter-active drama is about hitting the buttons at the right time, you miss one or two, it's game over for your character, but that doesn't mean your game ends, your story will pick up on to the next 3 available characters and so on. The game is rumoured to have up to 20 different endings, which means; depending on what you do in each chapter and event to your characters or the way you interact with the other non-playable characters in the game; it WILL effect your ending.
This game screams re-playability. Sometimes you wish you hadn't made a choice in one event and you want to go back, well, you can always restart from that chapter and it will erase all your progress that you are currently on, or play the game naturally to see one of the many endings this game presents you with. This game will revolutionize the gaming industry forever and it should. It should inspire other game developers to make you have a more thorough choice and consequence system. Some RPG's do that, but are they nearly as detailed as Heavy Rain? I think not. This game will win a few awards and will be nominated for game of the year 2010. It will win in the male and female voice acting department, because all the actors behind the mo-cap suit are under-rated actors. Especially Agent Jayden, I love his east coast accent, it makes him sound legit, he even looks the part too even though his mo-cap actor is fully European.
So, if you haven't purchased this game, then you're missing out on the game of the year and the game of the decade on a top 10 list. This remarkable game gets my 10/10 for originality, no movie can do this, because it would have to have many different versions of it. Harold and Kumar 2 has an inter-active feature similar to Heavy Rain if you rent the blu-ray, but nowhere near the depth of detail of Heavy Rain. But it does use the same concept, except without pressing timed buttons, just selecting what they will do next. It gets 10/10 for voice acting; some of the best voice acting I've seen so far in a video game, it's so believable as if they were real people. Like I said, Agent Jayden is an under-rated actor as well as the man behind Scott Shelby. Hopefully this game has shun a spotlight for them to act in Hollywood because they truly are gifted individuals. 10/10 for the concept. It plays like no other game has played before. You're taken in to the story and characters, the choices you make will affect the next set of events and ending. The button timers are also a plus to the events and actions your character is doing at the moment, whether it's life or DEATH.
Finally, the game gets a 10/10 for a masterpiece of a story. Even though you can change fates and endings, the background plot that connects everything is phenomenal! The game lets you discover who the Origami killer is on his own, and even if you can't figure it out, its revelation is nuts, it hits you real hard because you wouldn't believe that, that kinda person is the Origami killer. Like I said, I won't spoil, you MUST find this out on your own. It took me by surprise big time. The story makes you like the Origami killer before the character is revealed to be that killer, then when you find out. BAM! Big surprise, your face will literally change, your eyes will widen in awe and you'll say "holy sh*t, I can't believe I never saw this". But the important question this game/story asks us is: How far are you willing to go to protect the one you love? This game will makes you answer that, but also, think about it in real life. If something happened to the one you loved dearest, how far would you go to protect them?
