Dave's Place The internet home of David Hinkle, a guy who plays way too many video games

Quick ‘n Dirty Review: Heavy Rain (PS3)

Heavy Rain is way more grounded than Indigo Prophecy and never takes the weird, out-of-left-field twists and turns Cage's previous title did. Because of that, Heavy Rain ends up being a far more compelling and interesting narrative -- but there's still plenty of problems here.

The biggest issue is made apparent immediately: the controls. Now, I have no dislike for QTE's or any of the motion-based controls in the game, but I haven't found it more frustrating to control a character since the original Resident Evil. If you plan on playing this and haven't tried the demo yet, you basically hold R2 then point the left stick in the direction you want your character to move. It may not sound that bad, but when you're moving around small, crowded rooms or stuck in situations where timing and precision matter, it becomes a huge pain in the ass.

The other major problem is the voice acting. Everyone sucks -- period. Scott Shelby and Blake Carter seem to be the only semi-believable individuals with actual personalities in this story, but the fact that every person who is trying to play an American actually isn't takes away from the emotional impact of most scenes. Like, when you're running around an empty construction site, just two kids who grew up in Philly, but sound like they're from Quebec. Or when every single person who says "Origami Killer" pronounces it "Ore-eh-gammy Killer," completely how a non-American would. Or when Ethan Mars is running around a mall, looking for his lost son screaming "Jay-uhhhh-son" like he's not concerned for the kid's safety at all. Or how about "Nah-men Jay-dunn," the lifeless FBI agent hooked on drugs? That's surely an opportunity to present a flawed and believable man, struggling between duty and addiction, right? Well, it doesn't happen here. Then there's the argument that the only two black characters in the entire game are presented in an entirely stereotypical and racist light, but I may be off base there. Apparently, I do that.

And then there are plot threads that veer off into nowhere. I've killed people in my pursuit of the Origami Killer and his latest victim, but at the end of the game, nobody seems to care about any of that. Then there are characters introduced -- presented in such a light as to be crucial to the story -- only to never be brought up again. Or how about one sequence where you kill like 80 dudes with a single pistol clip?

All of this may seem very negative and I guess it is, but in the end I thought Heavy Rain was interesting and enjoyable despite its flaws. The voice acting really did make me laugh a lot, but the ride of seeing the story of these four characters out was very much worth the price of admission for me. I wouldn't say the game is unlike any other in existence -- after all, it does a lot of the same things that Indigo Prophecy did, sans all that crazy zombie sex and bug scene hoopla. If you played that, you should have a good idea of what to expect, in terms of gameplay and story and character development.

Highs

• For the most part, the story was pretty good. I didn't see the end coming and I definitely want to go through it again and change up some of my choices to see how it affects the outcome.

• The soundtrack was pretty good and brought the tension when needed.

Lows

• Moving your character around is clunky and often frustrating.

• Horrible French children - Scott Shelby and Carter Blake are the only two semi-convincing characters in the game.

• Certain oddities: How did Ethan make it out the back door and take his own car with all of the press there? How does he just steal that cab next to a cop car like 10 feet outside of the motel? Nobody in America calls a Merry Go Round a "carousel," but in the span of like 5 minutes, it's referred to as that about 10 times. Other hilarious mispronunciations: "Ore-a-gammy," "JaaayUUUUHsoooon" and "NAH-MEN JAY-DUNN."

• Once the Origami Killer is revealed, it makes no sense why that individual did anything that they did throughout the entire game.

• Graphical inconsistencies -- some things look amazing, like most of the character models and the facial animations, while some things look like they're rendered with one polygon (Shaun's ugly banana-yellow blanket, for example). Also, paper and cloth objects look like crap and are animated poorly.

Want more Quick 'n dirty reviews to read? They're only a link away!

Be Sociable, Share!

• 

Related posts:

1. Quick ‘n Dirty Review: Uncharted 2 (PS3)
2. Quick ‘n Dirty Review: Wet (Xbox 360)
3. Quick ‘n Dirty Review: Scribblenauts (DS)
4. Quick ‘n Dirty Review: Assassin’s Creed 2 (Xbox 360)
5. Quick ‘n Dirty Review: Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360)