Full Review for Heavy Rain by Skaliex

Introduction

Heavy Rain is the story of four people. First, there’s Ethan Mars, an unlucky architect. His son is kidnapped by the Origami killer. He receives from the killer, a box full of clues leading to his son, but he has only a few days to find him alive. There’s Madison Paige, a journalist who suffers from insomnia. She finds herself caught in the middle of this crazy story. There’s Scott Shelby, a private investigator working on the case and finally, there’s Norman Jayden an FBI agent.

You control those four characters. They each have their own chapter and sometimes they meet each other. It can be hard to switch from a character to another because you’re into a story and then it switches to another. But you get to like each character.
The story starts really slowly. It allows you to get familiar to the unusual gameplay. It can be somewhat boring, but once you get through it, it becomes an amazing story.
What’s even more amazing, is that every decision you make will have an impact. You have to find the clues, interview suspects and try to survive fights.

Graphics

Graphics are okay. The environment is amazing. There are a lot of details inside the houses, but characters are quite disappointing, especially their teeth since they have a weird color and simply look weird. If you google the actors who were the models, they look a lot like the characters, but unfortunately, in the game they don’t look that real. Kind of lifeless, but still, it’s not bad.

Sound

The voice acting is average, but should be better since it’s a movie-like kind of game. Characters can sound angry or sad or anything like that and it sounds real. But accents are really disappointing. Some actors doing voices are British and they are trying to speak with an American accent, but the result is sometimes bad.
The music, it fits the game perfectly.

Gameplay

The gameplay is really different from most games. You have to use the right joystick to make many of the actions, such as opening doors. Sometimes you even have to shake the controller. I liked that part because it made it kind of more realistic.
The hardest part is that sometimes you have to push many buttons at the same time in order to complete an action. Besides that, it’s easy, even on the hardest difficulty level, unless you’re not familiar with PS3 controllers.
Fighting scenes are kind of disappointing. You only have to push the buttons showed on on the screen. If you take too much time, or push the wrong button, after a certain time, it may cause the death of your character.
When a character dies, it won’t take you back to the last checkpoint. He or she is dead and won’t be coming back.
The camera is not very good. Sometimes you can’t really see what you’re doing. You can use L1 to change the angle, but you can’t use the right joystick unlike many games since it’s already used to complete actions.
When you have a decision to make, choices will circle around you, but sometimes they can be hard to read. Especially since they’re moving.

Lastability

Heavy Rain is not a very long game, but if you can keep everyone alive until the end, the game is considerably longer.
The game is not repetitive as you always progress and learn new clues. The story of each character is unique and interesting. You can also play the game a second and a third time and have quite different stories if you don’t take the same decisions.

Overall

Overall, if you’re really into fighting games or perfectly designed games, then maybe Heavy Rain is not for you. But if you like games with very good stories that keep you on the edge of your seat, then go for it. I found the game amazing, it’s unique. You won’t find another game like this. Plus, you can probably find a cheap PS3 copy. Some technical stuff could be better. However, it’s still one of my favorite game ever. The story and the ending make up for the bad things. Seriously, the story is that good!

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Final Score: 86%

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