Heavy Rain - Hero

Today I finished my first playthrough of "Heavy Rain" the interactive movie experience for the PS3. I'm going to shy away from calling it a game because, well it's really not. There's no game designed control scheme, the action is pre-determined with a series of button presses and controller motions putting you through what boils down to a game of Simon to determine if you "pass" or "fail" the sequence.

Now don't get me wrong, because I loved the experience. I had been waiting for this game since I had first gotten a glimpse of it and heard the concept at last year's E3 - thanks again to G4 for their live coverage. Anyway, the story is what makes this a worthwhile experience. For the "game type" a mystery is perfect. Your cast of characters are everymen (and an everywoman), not superheros, government trained killers or anything like that. No super moves, special attacks or anything other than thinking, and the occasional quick reflex. For me this was a refreshing concept.

As for the critiques, yeah it starts off a little slow in chapters that are basically tutorials design to get you immersed in the world of the game and familiar with how the controls work. But seriously, it's not much fun to take a shower, brush your teeth and get dressed. If you can just accept this opening slow moving part of the ride (like the ascent up the first hill on a rollercoaster) you'll be okay. Next, some of the button movements you need to execute are a pain. In particular the shake the controller up and down. I failed that in just about every situation it was required. Sometimes you have to do it for a while and somehow I'd go to fast or something, and then during your standard quicktime event, somehow I wouldn't do it correctly there either. I don't know, it got frustrating at the end of the "experience" and required more than a few re-loads (since I was going for the best ending on this playthrough). Finally, and this is a complaint I'm borrowing from one of my favorite game critiques (Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw - star of "Zero Punctuation" on theescapist.com ) - while throughout the game your actions change dialogue, how characters interact with each other, and what endings you'll receive upon completion - the killer is always the same. Sort of lame and it zaps away motivation for playing through again. Why exactly would I when I already know who the killer is? I suppose the developers were hoping on trophies and seeing the different endings to be the motivation, but it's sort of a weak one.

So those are my few minor complaints about Heavy Rain, but overall it was definitely enjoyable, a bit hard to watch at one point (if you play it, you'll know what I mean), and an interesting and unique experience. Well worth the price of admission for this show.