Heavy Rain

Okay, I think sufficient time has now passed that I can safely bang on about this game without incurring spoiler wrath.

Heavy Rain is pretty much exactly what I expected - beautiful, intriguing, unique and flawed. But that's not to say I love it any less. I adore the game 100% and I honestly think that at this stage, as a landmark game, it couldn't have been any better than it is. Any quibbles are minor and I'm confident will be worked out in David Cage's next game.

Eww. I did not sign up for this.

Take a look at Fahrenheit. It was beautiful, intriguing, unique and flawed to the point that the ending made me wonder if I'd somehow accidentally loaded a save from a different game. (Aliens? There are aliens now? Where the hell did the aliens come from and why the hell does that have anything to do with it being fucking freezing?!) It also had the most revoltingly clunky sex scene since Team America. But I still loved it and was glad to see that Heavy Rain had made huge leaps forward from this shaky start.

The ending makes sense (well, the three I tried did anyway) and the rain is a crucial plot point. Unlike the ever dropping temperature of Fahrenheit, which didn't really seem to have much to do with the aliens, or the cult, or the fact that Lucas Kane was some kind of alien hybrid immortal.

And that's for wearing that jacket!

I think the main reason internet critics had a problem with the game was that most of them are fifteen
and this, despite it's age rating, is not a game for fifteen year olds. Not because of the scenes of 'titillation' (an accusation I now feel was unfairly leveled at the game - it doesn't especially try to be titillating. In fact, the striptease scene in particular is only titillating if you choose to entirely miss the point and make Madison take her clothes off rather than escape Paco. And I think that says more about you as a player than Quantic Dream as developers.) Wow, that was such a long bracket, I think I'll just start the sentence again: This is not a game for fifteen year olds because of the emotional content, because the choices presented require a maturity of thought and because the game is very, very bleak.

It took a lot of effort to get a happy ending, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It's true of life.