![]() ![]() It thinks it’s telling a searingly mature, provocative story, but cheapens this constantly with schlocky Saw-inspired shock horror, the frequent and gratuitous sexualisation of Madison Paige, and one of the most rushed, unconvincing, and cack-handed romances in the history of fiction. I wish I had more nice things to say about Heavy Rain, but I’m spent. There’s a huge amount of rapid button-mashing in its action sequences, which to me felt clumsy and unnatural on a keyboard. Heavy Rain was designed for a gamepad-and you should play it with one. Incidentally, as a former PlayStation exclusive. But when a major mistake can, in extreme cases, lead to a character dying, the stakes always feel high. Some of the QTEs are comically easy, allowing you to fail multiple times before you’re really punished. The plot is Baby’s First Thriller and the characters are humourless and hard to love, but there’s no denying that this is an interactive story in the truest sense. However, Heavy Rain’s control scheme has not aged well, and while its story remains an entertaining B-grade oddity, poor characterisation and terrible voice-acting are less forgivable in 2016. The PS4 port has ironed out the original’s screen-tearing, while 1080p visuals now run at a consistent 30fps, making it the best version of Heavy Rain available. Six years later, Quantic Dream’s interactive drama has landed on the PlayStation 4, sporting a very attractive visual upgrade. It starts slow and the presentation isn’t perfect, but the character development, dialog and story twists will hook you like few games can. Its controversial control scheme actually works really well in allowing the fantastic story to dictate how events play out, and many of the game’s scenes will keep you on the edge of your seat. When IGN reviewed Heavy Rain on PS3 back in 2010, we gave it a score of 9, which translates to “amazing”. But most of the time you’re watching a procession of cutscenes, deciding how they play out (with varying levels of interactivity) via a series of timed, reaction-based button prompts. Occasionally you can wander around freely, and the environments are beautifully detailed. That means a lot of button-tapping and stick-waggling, whether it’s one character shaking a carton of orange juice before taking a swig or another swinging a fist in a punch-up. What exactly is Heavy Rain? Well, it’s an adventure game of sorts, with a heavy focus on Shenmue-style QTEs. FOUR CHARACTERS, FOUR PERSPECTIVES.īut I’m getting ahead of myself. This has a certain offbeat charm, but all too often makes lines that are supposed to be deadly serious come across as funny, which sits uncomfortably with the bleak story of a child-murdering serial killer. The game is set in America, but very few of the cast is American, making the already peculiar dialogue sound even more uncanny. And while Heavy Rain does have a great premise, and is dripping with a dark, occasionally beguiling atmosphere, the script is more akin to a Tommy Wiseau first draft. This sounds pretty intriguing and evocative, right? Like some lost David Fincher film.
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