Heavy Rain

Jason!  Jason!.... Jason?

Heavy rain is one of the few games recently that hits every mark.  Not just every mark for a gamer, but even if your not a gamer, it will hit a mark of somesort, pro or con.

First, from a gamer perspective, Heavy rain does a LOT of things differently.  The game starts out in a suesy homemaker home.  Before the game even gets rolling you have to get out of bed, take a shower ( with a full naked ass shot, but thats nothing ) get dressed and head on down stairs.  While your in route, you can feed the bird as well as relieve yourself if your feeling a little "heavy" on the rain.  Your wife comes home and your instructed to help set the table, play outside with your two boys and have a nice dialogue about how other people are stupid in mundane life.  Additionally Heavy rain boosts a unique control system that requires specific rotations of the thumb pads in correlation to the activity your currently acting upon.  Sounds like another remake of the SIMs?  Well not quiet.

From here, still within a locked in narrative, your wifey and the two tots go to a store where one son, buys a balloon.  A red one to be exact... and then suddenly vanishes...   Chasing the red orb, you call out for your boy and almost catch him when *WAM* hes hit by a car as you try and pull him out of the way.

Finally roll the intro credits to Heavy Rain...  Your wife has left you, You've lost your son, and your remaining child is completely distant and could careless if he is in a foster care or your rundown house, as long as theres a TV to occupy his time.... and NOW its time to play...

Heavy Rain explores the narrative of a serial killer called the Oragami killer.  He prays on children, leaving them to drown, hence the title "heavy rain".   Its a good thing you still have one child right?  Well when ol dad takes little timmy down to the park, suddenly HE VANISHES TOO!  You sure are turning out to be dad of the year and lucky your wife doesn't circumcise you for killing TWO of her babies...  Atleast theres a consolation prize, and thats your new found buddy, the Origami killer..  who could infact be you...

One of the biggest and dicies parts of heavy rain is the fact that the father whom would do anything to save his remaining son, actually must, do anything to save his son.  This includes, cut off his own finger, drive 5 miles into oncoming traffic in the rain and a multitude of other feats.

BUT WAIT THERES MORE!  Not only do you get to play this insane father who thinks hes actually the killer, but also a overweight PI and a Special Fed who is addicted to super drugs that allow him to access a nano-type crime fighting interface that makes you think of Time Cop.  Pretty damn cool...

So what makes this not only a twister of mind and dexterity?  Well Heavy Rain works akin to a choose your own adventure book.  If you botch a particular part of th game, the story completely changes...  I experienced this first hand when I picked up my fiance's game ( because who really has time to play games when your a game major..   its much easier to watch your girl play while you coach her through eh hard parts..)  I really hadn't had the time to get use to the controls and was deep into a mission when i started to play and instead of escaping as she did, I was apprehended by the police....  My game instantly took a different narrative then I had watched and I had no idea that this game held so much depth.   And thats my point.  Games have come to hte point where they are the ultimate narrative entity.   I mean why watch a movie or re-read a book if you know the ending?  Well i can tell you for certain if the ending changed each time based on the choices you made, you would certainly give it a GO on round 2.  As we delve into media that has the ability to change as the reader/viewer/player chances, so do their experiences...

Still feel like watering your duck on the farm?