Heavy Rain

Welcome back to your weekly fix of gaming from Adsactly, this week I decided to dust off a game I haven't played for many moons.

The first time I played this was about six years ago, on my good and faithful PlayStation 3, about two years ago they remastered this for the PlayStation 4 and I think I got it as a free download due to my PS Plus subscription. So last week I reviewed a very similar style of game, called Until Dawn. You can follow the link if you missed that post. While reading the comments, Hive account@kouba01 reminded me of the similarities between the two games, so I thought I should definitely review it. I decided to go check out if I couldn't find it at a nice reduced price, and low and behold I actually already owned it, thanks PlayStation Plus. You could say that this review was just meant to be, and the fact that for the first time in a very long time, there has been somewhat of a constant rainfall here where I live.

Our story begins with Ethan Mars and his family who are out shopping at the local mall.

After buying some balloons from a clown and getting a little distracted by all the people, Ethan notices that his son Jason has wandered off. Following the balloons which he can see floating above all the people, he chases after his son and eventually finds him outside in the middle of the street. Ethan runs as fast as humanly possible to reach Jason, who is in the path of an oncoming truck, he makes a jump for his son, in hope to push him out of the way. Unfortunately Ethan is seconds too late, both father and son are hit by the truck, Jason is instantly killed and Ethan is injured and goes into comma.

Two years go by and Ethan, who has blamed himself for the death of Jason and divorced his wife, now lives alone in a rundown suburban house. He has shared custody of his other son, Shaun, who is now about the same age as what Jason was when he died. Ethan has developed severe mental trauma and has started to experience blackouts at an alarming rate. One day while at the park with Shaun, he suddenly blacks out, and when he wakes up he finds Shaun to have vanished.

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When Ethan wakes up, he soon discovers that Shaun has been kidnapped by the "Origami Killer".

A serial murderer who's modus operandi consists of abducting boys during the fall season, drowning them in rainwater, and leaving an orchid on their chests and an origami figure nearby as calling cards. The local police requests the help of a special FBI investigator, Norman Jayden to assist with the investigation and the hunt for the killer. After looking into the previous origami victim, Norman concludes that the death occurred on the same day as a heavy rainstorm. The killer traps his victim in such a way, that the constant rain eventually causes them to drown. Based on weather patterns, the FBI agent estimates that Shaun only has three days left to live.

Ethan then receives a letter from the killer, which leads to a shoe box containing a mobile phone, a gun, and five origami figures and a warning to not contact the police. The killer calls him and explains that each of these figures contains instructions on how to complete a devious trial which will test how far he is willing to go for his son. If he chooses to complete the trials, he will receive a piece of the address to where his son Shaun is being held.

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"The body of Jeremy Bowles was found this morning on a patch of wasteland in the east end at about 6:30 A.M. Five days after he was reported missing. An autopsy will be conducted tomorrow to determine the exact cause of death, but going from first indications, it would seem that he drowned. The state in which the body was found suggests the methodology of the origami killer." - Captain Perry

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Heavy Rain is a thrilling experience with some top notch story telling, the game starts rather slow, but this is purposefully done, all in the name of character development.

This really pays off as you progress, because this is one of those stories where the characters are the heart and soul of this game, it all perfectly works together and will have you hooked like few games can. The stories jumps between the perspectives of a few different characters, which makes it seem as if things are rather disconnected and that the character have nothing to do with each other. The deeper you go into the story, the more the puzzle pieces starts to fall into place.

The controls are used in a very unorthodox way and ended up being more of a hindrance than a fun new way of playing, at the beginning it took me a few tries just to open the fridge. The only other major fall that I found was the dialog, which feels a bit like a B-grade movie, I cringed during the scene where Ethan was trying to find his son in the crowded mall, shouting Jason over and over again. The graphics are nowhere near that of new games from the last year or two, but keep in mind this game was released more than eight years ago. I'm a sucker for a well written story and this will keep you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end.

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Heavy Rain is an action-adventure game developed by the nice people at Quantic Dream, you might not recognize the name as they don't have a huge amount of titles under their belt.

This in no way means their games aren't great, it's quiet the contrary, an awesome game they previously developed was Beyond: Two Souls which I have just recently downloaded, and will be playing soon. Another epic game they made is Detroit: Become Human which is being released today and I would most definitely urge you to go check that out. Heavy Rain was originally released in 2010 for the PlayStation 3, then recently remastered two years ago for the PS4. Unfortunately this is a PlayStation exclusive game, and you will be able to find this for next to nothing.