Heavy Rain is a mostly interactive cinematic game, sort of like the really old Dragon's Lair games, where you're essentially watching a movie and controlling various character actions throughout the game, when prompted. You play as 4 different characters throughout the game, all involved in a murder mystery story.
Gameplay: 8.5
Unique gameplay concepts - What drives the game, and what is it similar to?
Heavy Rain is definitely not the kind of game where you're going to get a ton of thrill out of actually playing it. The story arcs are great and it's told in a very interesting way, but the actual gameplay can be as random as brushing your teeth or knocking on a door.
It's good that Heavy Rain has a lot of variety in the story. Throughout the game, the characters interact and their paths can change depending on if you make mistakes or just make different decisions than the next person. By the end of the game, a multitude of different endings can be achieved.
I would have liked to see a lot more story decisions rely on what you choose as opposed to not doing something right. It's too easy to lose a battle and then realize it might impact the story, and be tempted to re-start the battle so you can get the "good" series of events for that character. And if it's about failing or not failing at the battle scenes or escape scenes, then they need to be easier to fail or you should fail unknowingly or something. I'd bet that 75% of people that played got the "good" ending for most of their characters because of this.
Presentation: 10.0
Graphical and audio presentation (animation, texturing, overall look & artistic style)
You can tell that their presentation was their first goal with this game, since it's a lot more like a movie than a game. It looks amazing.
Theatrics: 10.0
Story, Dialogue, Cut-Scenes and Artistic Use of Camera
Heavy Rain actually tells a fantastic story, and even though you're jumping around between 4 different characters, you never feel lost or overwhelmed with story details.
Considering it's a mystery, the game does an excellent job at crafting scenes well and keeping their secrets hidden until a climactic point. You really can't ask for much better entertainment through just watching a game for it's story.
Controls: 8.5
Ease of Use and Smoothness of Controls
The controls are pretty straightforward - do what they tell you to do on the screen. Sometimes these felt needless and occasionally you can make mistakes because of the "press a button when it's shown" gameplay. It's not my favorite.
Their controls when just exploring an area can be annoying, too. You actually use L2 to walk. It's really bizarre.
Replay Value: 8.0
Total Gameplay Time versus Expected
Heavy Rain is actually a pretty long game, but I didn't feel overly compelled to play through it again since a majority of the reason to play the game is to see different story arcs and resolutions. The game is maybe 20 hours long, with lots of unique scenes and every one of them feeling necessary to the story. I probably won't play again despite it being very enjoyable.
Fun: 8.5
What were the most and least fun parts of the game? Overall, how much fun is the game?
Heavy Rain is a pretty fun game. It's like a super long, but good movie. The gameplay rarely spikes to being intense, and the intense portions of the game are essentially "Press X now.. Press square now". I usually don't like that in games, and this is all this game offers. It was pretty good, but could have been more fun and interactive than it was to provide both good gameplay and a good story experience.
Heavy Rain defines the rating "mature" and it feels like a rated R movie. I haven't seen full-on nudity in a game for a really long time and it caught me off guard. I figured since it's in a lot of movies nowadays it shouldn't be all that unusual. But if you've got a weak stomach then I really wouldn't recommend this game.
My Overall Rating: 8.9
Complexity Level: Pick up and Play. Considering it tells you every button you need to press on the screen, at the time it should be pressed, basically anybody that's picked up a PlayStation controller over the last 10 years will be able to play this game without any problems.
Gameplay: 8.5
Unique gameplay concepts - What drives the game, and what is it similar to?
Heavy Rain is definitely not the kind of game where you're going to get a ton of thrill out of actually playing it. The story arcs are great and it's told in a very interesting way, but the actual gameplay can be as random as brushing your teeth or knocking on a door.
It's good that Heavy Rain has a lot of variety in the story. Throughout the game, the characters interact and their paths can change depending on if you make mistakes or just make different decisions than the next person. By the end of the game, a multitude of different endings can be achieved.
I would have liked to see a lot more story decisions rely on what you choose as opposed to not doing something right. It's too easy to lose a battle and then realize it might impact the story, and be tempted to re-start the battle so you can get the "good" series of events for that character. And if it's about failing or not failing at the battle scenes or escape scenes, then they need to be easier to fail or you should fail unknowingly or something. I'd bet that 75% of people that played got the "good" ending for most of their characters because of this.
Presentation: 10.0
Graphical and audio presentation (animation, texturing, overall look & artistic style)
You can tell that their presentation was their first goal with this game, since it's a lot more like a movie than a game. It looks amazing.
Theatrics: 10.0
Story, Dialogue, Cut-Scenes and Artistic Use of Camera
Heavy Rain actually tells a fantastic story, and even though you're jumping around between 4 different characters, you never feel lost or overwhelmed with story details.
Considering it's a mystery, the game does an excellent job at crafting scenes well and keeping their secrets hidden until a climactic point. You really can't ask for much better entertainment through just watching a game for it's story.
Controls: 8.5
Ease of Use and Smoothness of Controls
The controls are pretty straightforward - do what they tell you to do on the screen. Sometimes these felt needless and occasionally you can make mistakes because of the "press a button when it's shown" gameplay. It's not my favorite.
Their controls when just exploring an area can be annoying, too. You actually use L2 to walk. It's really bizarre.
Replay Value: 8.0
Total Gameplay Time versus Expected
Heavy Rain is actually a pretty long game, but I didn't feel overly compelled to play through it again since a majority of the reason to play the game is to see different story arcs and resolutions. The game is maybe 20 hours long, with lots of unique scenes and every one of them feeling necessary to the story. I probably won't play again despite it being very enjoyable.
Fun: 8.5
What were the most and least fun parts of the game? Overall, how much fun is the game?
Heavy Rain is a pretty fun game. It's like a super long, but good movie. The gameplay rarely spikes to being intense, and the intense portions of the game are essentially "Press X now.. Press square now". I usually don't like that in games, and this is all this game offers. It was pretty good, but could have been more fun and interactive than it was to provide both good gameplay and a good story experience.
Heavy Rain defines the rating "mature" and it feels like a rated R movie. I haven't seen full-on nudity in a game for a really long time and it caught me off guard. I figured since it's in a lot of movies nowadays it shouldn't be all that unusual. But if you've got a weak stomach then I really wouldn't recommend this game.
My Overall Rating: 8.9
Complexity Level: Pick up and Play. Considering it tells you every button you need to press on the screen, at the time it should be pressed, basically anybody that's picked up a PlayStation controller over the last 10 years will be able to play this game without any problems.
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