Heavy Rain - 10 out of 10

When I was younger, I could usually count on a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book as a present for Birthdays or Christmas. I loved em, couldn’t get enough of them. My favorites were the 3 Indiana Jones books I got one year. I must have read “Indiana Jones and the Eye of the Fates” at least 20 times, exhausting every storyline written into that novel. Heavy Rain is essentially the “Choose Your Own Adventure” for the new millennium. A Pseudo Film Noir Thriller, this game makes you inhabit 4 main characters as they unravel the plot to find the Origami Killer. Previous video games have claimed to be “just like a movie” before, but Heavy Rain finally lives up to that claim. As Dragon’s Lair, spearheaded a graphical revolution for video games, I feel that Heavy Rain will usher in a new era of almost movie-like video games.

The gaming engine is pretty slick, and gameplay is contagious. I found myself fighting to put down the controller when I had to go to bed. As you watch the story flesh out on screen, different actions pop up, each causing your character to react. Sometimes two actions pop up, and you need to choose. Obviously, that choice will decide whether you go left or right, open or close something, or choose to let someone live or die. Just as I used to go back in my books when I didn’t like an outcome, I found myself quickly turning off the game and restarting from a checkpoint if I found myself making a decision I shouldn’t have made. The graphics are top tier, as well as the voice acting. The loading screens show the amazing detail that went into every nook and cranny of the main character’s facial features. While watching the extra content, the designers even picked up on small mannerisms the actors had, making me respect the job they did with this game even more. Another fun part of the game is when the characters get stressed, actions on the screen shake and become harder to make, adding to the realism of the game.

While Heavy Rain is a breakthrough in modern day video games, it’s probably not for the hardcore gamer. While gamers out there are used to your Halos, God of Wars, Mass Effects, Uncharted, and Madden - Heavy Rain just isn’t one of those games and would most likely frustrate those people. Being the kind-of heavy gamer that I am, I happen to LOVE games like this and would buy more as soon as they come out. If you like choose your own adventure type games, If you watch any of the CSI, NCIS, or other crime shows out there, this is YOUR game. There’s very little wrong with Heavy Rain, and if I were to nitpick, it wouldn’t be doing this review any good for having it there. Heavy Rain is strong “Game of the Year” candidate and I expect to see many games incorporating this engine in the future. 10 out of 10.