The game has finally come out, Heavy Rain is now in store to buy (well it has been for almost a week now when writing this). When I had the game I had to play it and complete it within the weekend of owning it. All I can say about it is, it was worth it. So here's my overall review / opinion about Heavy Rain (for the sake of those who have not completed it yet I won’t be spoiling the ending for you. Let's just leave that to the rest of the internet).
To start off with I don't know why some people don't like the introduction / tutorial section of the game. I don't really know why people don't like it, it's a good way at introducing Ethan Mars and his situation leading into the main story of Heavy Rain and also it's a good way at getting used to how a panicky situation would work out. Now on to my views of the story.
While playing the game I became immersed into the story from the very beginning and I felt empathy towards the main characters in the story, feeling sorry for Ethan, wanting to help Scott and Norman find out who the Origami Killer is, the only person who I really had no interest in was Madison to me she really had no real part in the story (only up to the end she became useful) but that was all. The way the story unfolded towards the end and discovering who the Origami Killer is, really had me on edge when playing it as I wanted to know as much as the people who were hunting him/her down wanted to as well (this was during my first play through). I was really impressed with it all, but the only thing that brings it down is during the second play through because I know who the killer is, it's just a matter on testing whether or not a single decision really does effect the final outcome of the game (I'll be writing another overall review on that later on).
The next part I'd like to cover is the controls. It seems a bit wired holding down two buttons to have a character move but I'm not complaining about it really. The way the character moves reminds me of trying to move a character from the silent hill game series (they tried to mimic the actual movements of a normal person and not a cartoon / superhero style character who has loads of energy). Which makes it more believable then someone who can run forever and not stop for a breather. The next part about the controllers would be the QTE (quick time events) I'm not really a fan of quick time events so the medium option was good enough for me, but at some points I was put off by some QTE's resulting in the great rewind in the animation (making it pretty funny to watch) at one point you need to hold onto five buttons, I don't know how I managed it but I think you need an extra person to watch the game just to hold onto the odd one or two buttons.
Whilst playing Heavy Rain one of the main parts which I really liked about it was the soundtrack to it (or in some cases lack of as my copy sometimes doesn't play audio, don't know if it’s with all copies of the game I don't know I should really look into it), the OST (password: mikkisays.net) worked well with the QTE's and during the game play itself, making some parts a bit more nerve wrecking then others, so well done to the OST on that part well on all of it really.
Overall Heavy Rain is a game (or if some people want to call it a movie) experience. If you don't like the idea of paying £40 for it right now you can always rent it, it's worth trying before you buy. A really good game to look into and adding to the PS3 game library. One thing I still don't understand is the age rating on it, but I'll leave it for a rant later on (about game ratings in general).
