So, the dust has settled. It's been over a year since the release, so now when all the hype/rage is gone, I'm curious about people's opinion - Do you consider Heavy Rain a good game or not? No matter what's your answer, it would be awesome to hear why.
Before the start of any discussion, here's a question to all of those, who are going to say 'It's not a game, it's a movie': Why? Yeah, the style is cinematic, but we have the same deal in, for example, Uncharted. Yeah, there are QTE's to pass/fail action scenes, but that's pretty common in these days, and you don't call every single game with QTE's movies. Apart from that... Yeah I have no clue why you say that. What makes the 'push the right analog stick to do certain actions' controls and interface any less a game mechanic than 'press x to activate the switch', or 'left click to interact'? You may not like it, but that doesn't mean it's not a part of GAMEplay.
Anyway, back to opinions: I love Heavy Rain. It's my favorite game of all time, and I played a lot of games from many different genres in my life. Sure, it's not perfect. There are plot holes (although you can easily fill many of them after thinking about it for a while), it's a bit slow at the beginning (understatement), the controls are hard to get used to. Still, it's only the second game I played in my life (the first was Planescape: Torment), where I felt really emotionally invested in my own actions. Should I
And that's one of the many examples. I'll be honest - I cried twice while playing it, and so far only one other piece of fiction managed to do that before (The Last Samurai and Katsumoto's Death).
The other thing that blew me away, is a genius idea with main character's (possible) death. Usually we don't care about life or death of our characters, unless it's a really tense and hard battle you spent last few hours on. If you'll die - whatever, you'll just quickload/restart from the last checkpoint. Even in case of dead 'for real' companions (like in ME2), while it's a neat idea, a quick reload prevents us from actually feeling the grave consequences of our actions and playthroughs (that's precisely th main reason, why I didn't save the game even once while doing suicide mission in ME2. I lost Thane and Mordin, but as an overall experience, I think it was a better idea than quickloading [And Thane was my favorite companion in the game, mind you]). In Heavy Rain though, when you'll die - the game will just move on, and you can't go back (unless you'll quit it, go back to the main menu, replay the specific chapter and overwrite the save, and that's so much hassle, I doubt many people did that on their first try). After all, you still have three characters. And if you'll lose one - yeah I bet you'll fight till your last drop of blood to prevent another character's death. Sure, the illusion is shattered when you play it again, and you know where you can and where you cannot die, but still, when you CAN die, the fight will be tense every time you'll play it, whether it's your 1st, 2nd or 17th (as in my case) playthrough.
TL;DR version: Yeah, I love this game.
Before the start of any discussion, here's a question to all of those, who are going to say 'It's not a game, it's a movie': Why? Yeah, the style is cinematic, but we have the same deal in, for example, Uncharted. Yeah, there are QTE's to pass/fail action scenes, but that's pretty common in these days, and you don't call every single game with QTE's movies. Apart from that... Yeah I have no clue why you say that. What makes the 'push the right analog stick to do certain actions' controls and interface any less a game mechanic than 'press x to activate the switch', or 'left click to interact'? You may not like it, but that doesn't mean it's not a part of GAMEplay.
Anyway, back to opinions: I love Heavy Rain. It's my favorite game of all time, and I played a lot of games from many different genres in my life. Sure, it's not perfect. There are plot holes (although you can easily fill many of them after thinking about it for a while), it's a bit slow at the beginning (understatement), the controls are hard to get used to. Still, it's only the second game I played in my life (the first was Planescape: Torment), where I felt really emotionally invested in my own actions. Should I
drink the poison to get the final clue about my son's whereabouts? I mean, I'll die if I'll do it, but if not, it can lead to my son's death. What's more important: my life, or his life?
The other thing that blew me away, is a genius idea with main character's (possible) death. Usually we don't care about life or death of our characters, unless it's a really tense and hard battle you spent last few hours on. If you'll die - whatever, you'll just quickload/restart from the last checkpoint. Even in case of dead 'for real' companions (like in ME2), while it's a neat idea, a quick reload prevents us from actually feeling the grave consequences of our actions and playthroughs (that's precisely th main reason, why I didn't save the game even once while doing suicide mission in ME2. I lost Thane and Mordin, but as an overall experience, I think it was a better idea than quickloading [And Thane was my favorite companion in the game, mind you]). In Heavy Rain though, when you'll die - the game will just move on, and you can't go back (unless you'll quit it, go back to the main menu, replay the specific chapter and overwrite the save, and that's so much hassle, I doubt many people did that on their first try). After all, you still have three characters. And if you'll lose one - yeah I bet you'll fight till your last drop of blood to prevent another character's death. Sure, the illusion is shattered when you play it again, and you know where you can and where you cannot die, but still, when you CAN die, the fight will be tense every time you'll play it, whether it's your 1st, 2nd or 17th (as in my case) playthrough.
TL;DR version: Yeah, I love this game.