Heavy Rain: the review

SPOILERS BELOW

After playing through the game twice (and thoroughly enjoying it both times), I don't think that the plot of the game is really deserving of the praise that it's getting. Playing through a second time made me realize that the characters aren't really all they were cracked up to be. For example:

Ethan Mars 1st Playthrough; a thoroughly depressed, deep, soulful character.
Ethan Mars 2nd Playthrough; a rather wooden character with a weird VA

And most of the characters ended up having similar changes. Especially the bit about the VAs. Did anyone else notice that all the VAs sounded very odd? In general, a lot of the performances fall a little bit flat for my taste. I do believe that credit should be given where credit is due, and say that Leon Ockenden fared better than most of the other VAs and played one of the more interesting characters, but even he sounded very, very off-time for most of his lines.

Also, the romantic element is very forced. And Madison Paige in general is treated like a sex object and her lines were easily the weakest of the four main characters, case in point being "Maybe a shower can give me the magic of sleep!".

I think that David Cage might've overhyped his game to an insane amount, and I'm not trying to be Jim Sterling (although his views on Heavy Rain were eerily similar to mine), but the script in this game sadly does not push gaming storytelling to new heights, nor does the acting or the choice. Heavy Rain, however, does work quite well if you can try and look past its story flaws and try to focus more on the game, something that although it claims not to be, is.

OVERALL SCORE: 7 out of 10