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Heavy Rain Review

Heavy Rain Review

The Origami Killer has kidnapped another victim. You control four different characters, dictating their decisions, choosing their paths, and dealing with the consequences that follow. How far are you willing to go to save someone you love?

Heavy Rain has some of the most impressive visuals for a console game. The highly detailed environments, be it a hotel room in the slums or an old power plant with bad news. However, the real cake is the flawless character designs. Armed with a state-of-the-art facial recognition engine, the Quantic Dream team captures facial expressions and character animations with realistic realism (there is a phrase that is not often heard). Emotions explode from the characters and you can see it just by looking at their faces. Very impressive stuff.

The three-point deductions come from a couple of small but notable cases where the graphical presentation wobbles slightly. The greatest of all: terrible kisses. Now, I’ve seen a lot of movies where it was like watching cousins ​​trying to kiss. I also know that a lot of games that include kiss scenes aren’t great because they haven’t perfected collision physics and things like that yet. It’s really bad to watch, especially in a game where they manage to push the limits when it comes to graphics.

The last two details go to the occasional robotic walk when controlling certain characters and fire in one of the ending sequences. Now all the characters are captured in motion and that means this is more the fault of the actors (mainly the two who played Ethan and Madison). When you go up and down stairs, your arms hang at your sides and do not move unless you perform an action that requires your hands. And turning 180 degrees seems a bit clunky. Those are two real cases where the animations seem a bit silly.

As for the fire? They are some of the weakest fire effects that I have seen in a video game to date. Most of the elements of the game are displayed at such a realistic and grounded level, which is difficult given the untamed nature of these elements, with fire being one of the most difficult. However, in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the fight against Fury did a very outstanding job with fire and, for its time, surpassed everything else, including anything on the Xbox (which graphically was generally superior). The generic fire images of Heavy Rain are turned off in favor of water. Water, another element that doesn’t portray well in most games, gets a great deal of attention (given that it’s a big factor in the game) and Heavy Rain does a great job of nailing it down.
Three minor complaints aside, the visuals and overall effects are top-notch.

I have no hesitation in giving this game perfect ratings in the sound department. Heavy Rain floods the competition with top-of-the-line voice acting from everyone involved (with just one or two mishaps) and the pitch-perfect orchestral score that always matches the pitch at any given time. My personal favorite is when you are short on time or in an extremely desperate situation. Then, from the awkward silence, a violin enters with a piece that induces tension and beats the heart. I always panicked when I heard this start because I knew something serious was going on. The sound effects, the score, and the voice acting deserve a touch of the hat and a standing ovation.

This game is the definition of some of the easiest controls in a video game. Walk and perform actions through a series of controlled and timed button presses. Again, easy. The deductions come from the sometimes meticulous tank controls and the occasional mistake where you enter the correct button or take the correct action and the game doesn’t do what you tell it or doesn’t recognize the action at all (makes getting a trophy in the game particularly difficult to obtain). Simply put, the controls are easy to learn but difficult to put into play.

Heavy Rain has great graphics, great sound, and catchy controls. It is also a game that is hardly considered a game by today’s standards due to its STYLE. It’s an interactive drama, even more so than the Metal Gear Solid series (for those of you who haven’t played my favorite game series of all time, you know what I mean by MGS as an interactive sci-fi action game). This video game has all the elements of a full-length movie. The biggest attribute is the fact that it immediately sucks you emotionally into the story. You are so engrossed with all the characters and with the way the game is structured, it forces you to stick with it. Quantic Dream and with much praise and respect to the director, David Cage, cleverly leaves the way the game is played in your hands. It’s almost like choosing your own adventure, but with the essence of a thriller / noir movie. You are in full control of the characters and how you choose to approach any given situation that comes your way. Right at the beginning of the game, you can decide to be the responsible husband and father, cleaning, working around the house and spending time with his children. Or you can refuse to shower and shave, shirk your duties and basically do nothing. And that’s just the happy tip of the dark and chaotic iceberg.

The theme of the game is “How far are you willing to go to save someone you love?” You’ll get to multiple points in the game where you’ll be embarrassed at the push of a button, choosing between equally sadistic and morally troubling decisions. Like I said, the game draws you in until you are consumed by the euphoria, anger, sadness, and pain that the characters feel. No game has done this with more artistic finesse. Aside from the occasional (and I mean very occasional) gameplay glitches, it’s not enough to detract from the experience.

Oh yeah! And there are twenty-two different endings in the game, which means that you will have to play multiple times making different but equally urgent choices. In a very literal sense, it’s very devastating to watch the characters you control and watch grow from the start and see them make drastically different decisions than you saw (and made) before. And approaching the end, it becomes almost heartbreaking to watch.

In any case, this game has more flair than many games. And it’s all down to a formula that deviates from your kind of routine game (run, jump, aim, shoot, 32xp, tea bag, repeat). Heavy Rain is like a PB&J with a glass of milk. Hit the spot.

Honestly, this game gets -10 because of how little fun it is to make the decisions that they force you to make. It’s not really a game because you’re so immersed and caught up in the moment that you don’t really feel like you’re playing. There are no funny moments. There is nothing but tension mixed with a multitude of matching emotions. But at the same time … it’s a game.

This section is normally for aspects of the game that are given deductions that the reviewer (that’s me) thinks deserves a special mention. In this case, the few problems are perfectly covered in its sections.

Visit http://www.AddictofFiction.com for more reviews, trailers, and editorials similar to the previous article.

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