Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Worth playing"

Heavy Rain isn't just a game, it's something more than that. An interactive movie so to speak. I have to say that Heavy Rain has taught me, or given me much consideration, to avoid another game like Heavy Rain at all costs. Why? Quick Time Events. A game completely controlled, and dominated by QTEs is just ridiculous. To be fair, it's hard to critique something in which is known beforehand but if you don't like QTEs, or are on the fence about them -- avoid this game at all costs...

So, the merits on how the QTEs are implemented are great, and the timing of them and the accuracy of the QTE controls are well implemented. My personal hatred of QTE detracted from my experience, however, if you're someone who enjoys those sort of things. You're going to fall head over heals in love with Heavy Rain.

The biggest point of Heavy Rain is its story. And this interactive drama excels in bringing you into the character's way of thinking, and you will enjoy, be surprised, and be wondered or experience the tension associated with each of the fleeting moments and set pieces. The beautiful thing about Heavy Rain is the connectedness you see between the stories and events that take place in the game, how you can shape the story to how you please; though that shaping is extremely limited. And the beauty ends up falling a part as you start noticing at some disappointing plot holes -- I won't go into any detail regarding it since it would spoil the story, but be warned that the plotholes verge on coming close to Modern Warfare 2 level of silliness.

The end result of the story doesn't change no matter what, but there are many different deviations of the story that you will see depending how you play. One of the top merits of Heavy Rain comes to the sound design. The music in the game is terrific, moving, and well placed. The voice acting in the game is also very believable and very well orchestrated. Though I will admit that there are some parts in which you'll be annoyed like crazy, but for the most part, the incredible high quality voice acting will keep you immersed into the story.

The graphics are decent in a way that some parts looks terrific, and other parts look downright dismal. It's inconsistent visuals is a downer, and some obvious clipping that occurred was also disappointing. The animations are also another point that are decent, but not as good as I think they should have been. All in all, it's a good looking game, but it pales in comparison to the many other great looking games on the Playstation 3.

The wost part of Heavy Rain comes down to the annoying controls. How you control your character comes down to moving the stick and holding down R2, when your character is moving in the direction you desire, the camera angle changes and your train of thought gets screwed up as the character decides to then change direction, and then you're forced to figure out how to get your character to move in the direction you wanted before the camera angle annoyingly changed. This was a huge deal for me when I failed to accomplish a goal merely because my character screwed up, which was again to the shoddy controls and camera angles.

I really enjoyed playing Heavy Rain, but the down side is the value that is associated with it. I completed the game in around 8 to 9 hours, and there's nothing else to really do outside of the main story. You can replay the chapters, but the ending result still holds the same. I would highly advise to rent the game. It's still a good game, but its downfalls really affected my experience.

If you're looking for a moving adventure game, this is it. Don't buy it, just rent it. You probably won't regret it.