I managed to get my hands on a PS3 (temporarily) and the first thing I did was download the Heavy Rain demo, which isn’t officially out, but can be accessed early. Despite not owning a PS3, Heavy Rain is one of my most anticipated games of the year, so I was thrilled to take the demo for a whirl. My enthusiasm was tempered a little bit after playing through the demo, although I still think the title shows a lot of potential. Hit the jump to find out why.
The best thing about Heavy Rain is that it feels like you are taking part in a movie. The operative motto is “Make choices. Face the Consequences” and I really got a sense of that even in the short demo, which consists of two levels. There are four playable characters, and you will play as each of them at different times during the game. If one character dies, the story goes on, and supposedly there are a lot of different ways the story can end. I like the potential in that idea.
Heavy Rain is essentially a series of quick time events. Walking is methodical and you move the right analog stick in various ways to interact with the environment. For example, a hadoken type motion puts on your technologically advanced sunglasses. It’s neat, although it can get tedious, and one thing I found was that the controls were a bit finicky, especially since I’m not used to controlling a game that way. No big deal, but I noticed that.
The demo also consists of a “fight” between the main character and a guy, which was actually pretty cool. You see the fight from different angles (again, like a movie), and you need to perform various actions to stay in the fight. So it’s like a bunch of quick time events in a row, and if you miss one, you get punched in the face. It actually was pretty fun and tense, since it was a lot about timing. The system definitely has potential.
The game also looks phenomenal – especially the rain effects. It feels like a dark crime drama that you are playing a main role in. The story revolves around the Origami Killer: a serial killer who is targeting children. This game does not look to be a light-hearted affair. Also, I got a sense of the “Make Choices. Face the Consequences” idea from the demo. While interviewing a witness, I actually did not get to exhaust all the dialogue options. The witness cut me off, leaving me with a bunch of unanswered questions. I figure one of the other three characters might fill in the blanks, but I think it’s a cool idea to make the game feel more realistic.
What I was really disappointed in was the voice acting. Coming off of Mass Effect 2, I was expecting strong dialogue from this game, but two voices in the demo in particular sounded stilted and awkward. I couldn’t tell if one of the characters was supposed to have an accent or what. Also, some of the phrasing sounded awkward. After being immersed by the beautiful graphics, setting, and tone that the game had, the bad voice acting really took me out of the experience. Hopefully these voices were the exception and not the rule.
Anyway, I didn’t enjoy the demo as much as I thought I would. Another issue was the controls – it’s a bit tough to walk and it’s tough to tell what aspects of the environment I could interact with, and sometimes I got stuck on things. The quick time events work very well, but the other aspects are a little weird. It might be something that you get used to though. Overall, Heavy Rain still looks like a very promising title, especially storywise. If I manage to hang on to this PS3 by release date, I’ll be sure to check it out!
Has anyone else played the demo? If so, what do you think?
Just played the Heavy Rain demo last night. I thought it was pretty cool, even though it doesn’t really feel like a traditional game at times. At first I found it strange that you really don’t have any controls other than walking until you get to a quick-time event that tells you what controls to use. But after the fight scene, I began to like the way they are using the control scheme. I think they have purposefully made some button presses difficult (like holding down several buttons at the same time), because at those times the character is doing something difficult where they would need to concentrate and be careful (like climbing a muddy hill without slipping). I think its pretty inventive!
I agree that the walking control is weird though. It feels like the original Resident Evil games where you turn right or left based on where the character is facing, which I always hated. In Heavy Rain I felt like I was always walking on a diagonal instead of a straight line. But I can get over that. The story is already intriguing enough to make me want the game. Looking forward to it.