PC (Microsoft Windows) · PlayStation 3 · PlayStation 4
3.73 from 4532 ratings
9098 members have it in their collection · 191 playing now · 2187 backlogged · 1546 wish listed
How long? Main story 11h · with extras 11h · 100% 12h (from 47 logged playthroughs)
Review chlliens 3/5 · Sep 26, 2023
This game has cool ideas and probably have a lot potential if they can play their card right. So overall I still enjoy the game, but still it's not left me with special feeling in the end.
Review skinnyapples 3/5 · Sep 4, 2019
I don't want to be that guy but... this barely felt like a game. My criticisms mostly fall on the fact that the game mechanics we do have are horrible. Since it's a detective type of game there was a lot of ways to get the player to participate, instead, we get weird controls to make the characters perform really …
Read moreI don't want to be that guy but... this barely felt like a game. My criticisms mostly fall on the fact that the game mechanics we do have are horrible. Since it's a detective type of game there was a lot of ways to get the player to participate, instead, we get weird controls to make the characters perform really mundane and boring things. Outside of the button mashing and dumb playstyle things, the story is amazing. I really got myself immersed in this one, who was the killer? could I save the kidnapped child? It really put the pressure on and knowing that I could fail and get a tragic ending really motivated me to play better. The characters were good, although the way some of them fit into the overall storyline was not that amazing, that's just me being nitpicky and the female character was notably poorly written, yikes. Overall it is a good game that brings a lot of fresh ingredients to the dish even if there were a few things off here and there.
Review SailorStar 3/5 · Oct 3, 2018
Wonderfully innovative, and the quick time events were so stressful I often made horrible, horrible mistakes. I did noooot see the ending coming, and overall will probably never play it again. Intensely stressful, especially the DLC!
Review TheTheory 3/5 · Jul 10, 2018
On a pure enjoyment level, I was probably closer to 4 stars, however, sluggish movement made world navigation a lot more irritating than it should have been.
Heavy Rain is a mystery. A serial killer takes kids, kills them, ditches them with a bit of origami and an orchid. Throughout the story you play three, no four... wait, five? characters …
On a pure enjoyment level, I was probably closer to 4 stars, however, sluggish movement made world navigation a lot more irritating than it should have been.
Heavy Rain is a mystery. A serial killer takes kids, kills them, ditches them with a bit of origami and an orchid. Throughout the story you play three, no four... wait, five? characters as we explore the wide net of investigators, police, victims, and journalists that surround the case.
This is done via "interactive drama," ie QTEs and dialogue options. See Beyond: Two Souls (by the same developers) or any TellTale game. Unlike TellTale, though, Heavy Rain intends the QTEs to require actual skill. There's no schlubbing your way through the way you can with The Wolf Among Us, for example.
Unfortunately, I'm not very good at QTEs. Oh, I can do fine in short spurts, but start to pile too many together and my Os become Xs and my squares triangles. Though Heavy Rain goes deeper than that, required dexterous use R1, R2, L1, L2, and various directions and motions with the RS. While I guess the story itself branches via various choices made throughout the game, a lot of the actual success of your characters will boil down to these QTEs: the higher the stakes, the harder the QTE sequence, the easier it is to fail.
I imagine the average player will bumble their way to the end I found (apparently there's 12? 17? I forget): Everything awful happens. That was my impression as the credits rolled. I'm a little bit proud of that, to be honest, and it does give me the imperative to want to play through the game again and find a better ending (and some new story branches).
What I found myself missing (even more than a good ending) is the by now normal "here's the choices other players made" summary at the end of each section that TellTale popularized and even Beyond: Two Souls used. But alas, Heavy Rain lacks that, making it harder to tell what choices were key and impossible to tell how unique my playthrough was.
A fun game, an interesting story, and occasionally throw-your-controller-against-the-wall maddening.
Review ATadMad 4/5 · Jul 7, 2018
The thing that really makes this game work is the way it is directed. I love the 'movie' feel of it and enjoyed the different perspectives you can play from. I honestly did not expect the reveal of the killer (that could just be because I'm dumb) and thought the characters were really well fleshed out. I felt like the …
Read moreThe thing that really makes this game work is the way it is directed. I love the 'movie' feel of it and enjoyed the different perspectives you can play from. I honestly did not expect the reveal of the killer (that could just be because I'm dumb) and thought the characters were really well fleshed out. I felt like the decisions you make throughout the game really made an impact on the overall ending and that's a rare find nowadays. A few things I did notice such as poor voice acting sometimes and the controls can be very awkward, especially during the quick time events when it is very easy to miss a cue. However, it is a great story to get sucked into and deserves recognition in its genre.
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Review smokingfliege 5/5 · Dec 4, 2016
This was the most boring beginning of a game ever. I understand that it´s needful to do commands in a fast way, but still it needed some overcoming to run this game again because it was really frustrating to try brushing Ethan´s teeth a few times. Nevertheless, I knew why I continued after a few hours. This is such …
Read moreThis was the most boring beginning of a game ever. I understand that it´s needful to do commands in a fast way, but still it needed some overcoming to run this game again because it was really frustrating to try brushing Ethan´s teeth a few times. Nevertheless, I knew why I continued after a few hours. This is such an exciting game. Sometimes you hit the wrong button and it´s so frustrating not to be able to start again a few minutes earlier like you usually can in other games. But that´s the main reason why I enjoyed this game so much. It is exciting and challenging to make important decisions within a few seconds with the knowledge that you can´t turn back time.
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Review scottie.mick 4/5 · May 10, 2016
The story is a jumbled mess at times, lots of the voice acting is cringe-inducing, and the controls are just god-awful, but Heavy Rain is still worth playing thanks to its meaningful choices, clever plot twists, and emotionally satisfying narrative.
Review buffaling 3/5 · Jan 17, 2014
Played and beat this game with friend S, from December 2013 to January 2014. I certainly agree that Heavy Rain is an important addition to the Seventh Generation of video games, namely for its cinematic graphics, multi-perspective storytelling, and QTE mechanics. However, it is held back by technological clunkiness (e.g. the innacuracy of the PS3 move controller, making certain parts …
Read morePlayed and beat this game with friend S, from December 2013 to January 2014. I certainly agree that Heavy Rain is an important addition to the Seventh Generation of video games, namely for its cinematic graphics, multi-perspective storytelling, and QTE mechanics. However, it is held back by technological clunkiness (e.g. the innacuracy of the PS3 move controller, making certain parts like Ethan's 'crawling sequence' utterly maddening); pseudo-psychological narrative (the story is suspenseful and aspires to be moving, but too often devolves into the absurd and sentimental); and shallow character development (Madison and Agent Jayden as the worst offenders).
An ambitious but imperfect game. I had fun and that's what counts!
