Heavy Rain - Reception

Reception

Heavy Rain was critically acclaimed. The UK Official PlayStation Magazine scored the game 9 out of 10, with reviewer Tim Clark saying; "I'm convinced it's one of the freshest, most exciting, and even important games on PS3 so far." The magazine praised the effective controls of the game, as well as the pacing of the story, which the reviewer described as key, and perfectly designed to create an "exhausting, exhilarating, and, crucially, involving" experience. He concluded by saying that, "Certainly there's nothing quite like it on PS3, or indeed any other system. Put gaming conventions aside, go in with no expectations other than this is something new and massively good-looking, and you'll be rewarded with a unique experience that lurches between genius and madness, manages to be genuinely emotional, and that you'll be bursting to talk about with your friends."

Eurogamer France also gave the game 9 out of 10, saying, "The game from Quantic Dream has touched me, unquestionably, as a player because it symbolises today the culmination of a genre halfway between cinema and video game that has always seemed interesting in its intentions but rarely conclusive." The reviewer concludes, "A high score, therefore, to welcome risk-taking that represents this type of production today." British magazine GamesMaster gave the game a score of 91%, complimenting Heavy Rain for being 'incredibly original and compelling.', "The atmosphere is incredible – full of driving rain (which becomes central to the plot), fizzing neon lights, dank apartments and warehouses. It's a dark noir game, not a bright adventure." The title was given a GamesMaster Gold Award. IGN's Chris Roper scored the game 9/10 commenting on the game's "fantastic story that's one of the best in gaming." However, he pointed out that the game's beginning is very slow, and might turn off some players.

GameZone's Michael Lafferty gave the game a 9.5/10, saying, "There are some flaws, but taken as a package, Heavy Rain is a remarkable achievement in gaming that creates an interactive experience that goes beyond the pages of a good novel or film noir. This is a game that needs to be experienced." Winda Benedetti wrote about the maturity of Heavy Rain as well as Remedy Entertainment's psychological action thriller Alan Wake for MSNBC, praising both titles for being "emotionally powerful" as well as having "said goodbye to the tired alien invasions and over-the-top fantasy stories so often found in video games. Instead, they peer into the dark reaches of the very real human heart to deliver stories that are thrilling, chilling and utterly absorbing."

Interactive fiction writer Emily Short was generally pleased with the experimental gameplay of Heavy Rain, but found the game's story to be full of "stock bits" borrowed from films, leaving inconsistent characterisation and gaps and poor pacing in its plot. She cited the disconnection between the motivation of the specific character and the motivation of the game's player, such as when Ethan is challenged to navigate a maze of wires charged with electricity; Ethan the character is guided to finish it regardless of ability, but the player is given the option to abandon the challenge if they cannot do it. She also considered that the characterisation does not follow the game's claim of how choices matter, pointing out that the reveal of the identity of the Origami Killer was a "betrayal" of the way she had played the game to that point.

Ian Bogost, a video game designer and Assistant Professor of Literature Communication and Culture at the Georgia Institute of Technology, counters claims that Heavy Rain qualifies as an "interactive film". Bogost notes that "film is editing", in that filmmakers put together images and scenes in a compilation to evoke certain feelings and emotions, and to convey story and plot in a limited amount of time. However, while Heavy Rain strives for this, it retains elements of a video game, and Bogost considers the game to have a "rejection of editing in favor of prolonging"; examples given are the need to have the player provide interaction for most of the characters' motion, or having to control and watch Ethan throughout his search for Jason at the crowded mall. Bogost opined that this "prolonging" may actually be beneficial to the video game medium, as several scenes from the game's third chapter, during which Ethan runs through a routine schedule of homework, dinner, and bedtime for Shaun, allow for periods where the game waits for the player to interact with it; during these periods, simply by using mise en scène images of the house and characters, invite the player to think about what the characters are experiencing, "to linger on the mundane instead of cutting to the consequential".