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bt455's Heavy Rain (PS3)
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| [April 25, 2013 01:12:12 AM]
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Heavy Rain is an interactive drama action-adventure video game that was developed exclusively for the PlayStation 3 by Quantic Dream. I have finished the game twice, the first time was one year ago and I just finished the game again 2 weeks ago. This game has brought me an unique experience in the gameplay and a very strong impression on the story.
-Story and Characters-
In this game, you will have 4 playable characters and the game is divided in to a number of scenes, each scene you can only play one of them and learn the story via their actions. This is like a Point-of-view type of novel (A Song of Fire and Ice is a great example of this). You will start by playing Ethan Mars, an architect who has a happy family with his wife and two sons. Later, his son Jason dies in a accident which is kind of his fault, and he blames himself so much after that. Everything falls apart after that. After that, you will learn a story about a serial killer, which is called The Origami Killer, who takes his second son Shaun and test Ethan to make him sacrifice in order to get his son back. Other characters are Norman Jayden, a detective FBI who tries to catch the Origami Killer with the police force, Madison Paige, a pretty journalist who meets and becomes friend of Ethan, then later help him find the killer and his son. The last character is Scott Shelby, a former police officer and currently working as private detective, also works on the case of the killer. All of them have their all troubles, they have different stories, motives and methods to work on this case, and their perspective help you understand the story in different way. The story of the game is intense, depressed at times but very intriguing, once the you get a better understanding about the game you will not want to stop playing it to know what happen next.
-Gameplay-
This game has very special gameplay, but it does not mean that is greater than other games. Half of the time the player has to move the character around and make them interact with other people or objects by pushing series of button of shaking the controller vertically or horizontally. Also, they can pull up "thoughts" to show clues about what they are supposed to do. Although it is quite boring and frustrated sometimes because there are not much you can do, sometimes you can still feel happy after finding an important clue about the game, which will greatly change the outcome. The other half of the time is quick time event. It is quite simple, you just have to push the required buttons showing up on the screen in a limited time, or your character will fail at that event. This is kind of easy in my opinion, and in some events, when you screw up most of the quick time events, the outcome does not actually change. It only matters in the later of the game.
The game has 3 difficulties: Easy, Normal and Hard.There are not much difference between the three level, and even the Hard difficulty is not challenging at all, so if you are a hardcore gamer who just want a tough game, you will not find it in this game.
-Design-
The graphics in this game is great. The characters are well design, and they are model after certain people in real life. The voice acting, the animation is also developed very careful, however sometimes it seems a little bit chunky and awkward (characters walk with their head straight forward most of the time). The environmental design is not just good, they are excellent, when the environmental atmosphere serves the purpose of the game very well. There are rains, lots and lots of rain, which is very depressing, and of course the story is also very depressing too. The way the Origami Killer kills his victim is by putting them in a sewer and wait for them to drown when it rains too much, so the environmental atmosphere is not just to make players feel sad, it serves the killing method as well. The sound effect and the background music of this game are also spectacular, they fit the scene perfectly. The game takes place in a real world with normal people so it is very realistic, there are no abstract levels of this game.
-Ending-
This game has so many different endings, and what makes it even more special is there are no "game over" screen. Even when player has screwed up and could not find the killer, there is still an ending. For the playable characters, they can die in the middle of the game as well, and the story still continues. When a character dies, the follow chapters in which the player can control him/her is skipped, so the player cannot learn further clues from his/her perspective. However, at a point you will still know who is the killer, only the other characters in the game might not know, and the killer might escape when the game ends. This is an unique feature of the game, and no matter what ending you get, it all makes sense.
-Replayability-
Although the game has numerous of endings, it is a very linear game and the killer is revealed the same way every time so you might not want to play it more than once. Just be happy with whatever the ending you have.
-Gamelog-
It took me about 8 hours to finish one play-through. The epilogue of this game seems a bit too long, although it is necessary as it builds up the later part of the story. After about two hours of epilogue and getting to know all the character background, the main story of finding the Origami Killer began. Every chapter is important in the game, they are not made just to make the game long enough, they are there to provide you clues about the origami killer. However, I am not a big fan of the control of this game. I started playing in hard difficulty, and I felt very frustrated after shaking my controller so many times, so I switched back to easy. The point is the hard difficulty is not hard, it has more complicated series of button but it is not more challenging, I just did not want to destroy my controller. I think it would be better if I played with PlayStation Move.
Without spoiling major things, let's just say I screwed up 2 parts when playing Ethan Mars, not because I failed at something, just because I decided not to choose to listen to the killer's instruction (I felt very sorry for Ethan so I did not want to do it to him). The result is I ended up having to guess where is his son with 3 over 5 clues he is supposed to get. Turned out later when I played Madison Paige I found who is the killer. I was very surprised and excited when I made it. Later I was able to save Ethan's son and catch the Killer, so I was very happy about the game. In the second play-through I only play to get to know better about the game and test several different things to see if it may affect the outcome. Turns out there are not many things that affect the consequences, even when I fail intentionally on some quick time event scenes. Only in the later part of the game, you will receive real different consequences if you fail at something.
-Verdict-
This is a very well made game with an intense story and detailed design. I cannot express my feeling when I first finish the game. For what I feel that is not good enough, it is definitely the gameplay and the control. Although the developer tried the best they could to deliver unique gameplay and experience, I think it would be better if the gameplay was various. For example, there was a shooting scene but all you do is still pushing buttons in the quick time event, that just feels disappointed in my opinion. However, If you are the type of player who likes to appreciate many aspects of a game, not just gameplay, I highly recommend this game. It is like reading a book or watching a movie where it is up to you to decide what the ending is going to be.
This entry has been edited 3 times. It was last edited on Apr 25th, 2013 at 01:46:50.
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bt455's Heavy Rain (PS3)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Thursday 25 April, 2013
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