HEAVY RAIN REVIEW

When I saw Heavy Rain for the first time in the form of gameplay videos I really didn’t know what genre this game could be classified in. It looked like a giant cut scene/movie which simply called upon players now and then to hit the random button. Thegame seemed worthy of tracking simply to see if it would fly or sink.

And to be honest, this demo doesn’t really answer that question - at all!

For one it’s incredibly short. The amount of story revealed here is effectively nil. The game’s also a bit weird on the technical front. For all the great character models and textures that the game boasts, objects seem very flat. At the very start of the demo, you encounter a pure brick wall that looks more like someone drew outlines of bricks on a cardboard and made a wall with it, unlike in Uncharted 2 where you could almost feel the nook and crevice on every boulder making up a wall. Apart from that, the textures themselves are really well done and objects look like they have weight. Sound feels great adding in a lot of atmosphere to thegame sucking you in completely. The heavy music gives the feeling of standing at the starting line of a very long story which somehow you just know you’re going to enjoy.

 

As you know by now gameplay is composed mostly of just walking around, being your own mind reader, investigating crime scenes, indulging in various conversations and QTEs (Quick Time Events). Conversations progress not as dialog boxes that map responses to buttons but rather the approach you end up taking (persuasive, compelling etc).

Sometimes being compassionate does the trick but adopting the tone too often might see you blowing the whole deal. QTEs are the backbone of thegame , well maybe more like the legs of it as the story is the true backbone for a change. The QTEs are not like the ones we’re normally used to and have been executed in quite a new way. To put it short, there are different ways of hitting the buttons too.