As most of you probably know by now, Heavy Rain was released here in America this past Tuesday. As most of you probably do not know, I went out and picked it up this past Tuesday. In fact, my wife is the one who bought it. We had feelings about this game. I'm going to share them with you. This isn't structured nor is it a "review". Just thoughts.

Right then, now that we've gotten the intro out of the way, let's talk about what's happened here. Firstly, let me say that I've now finished the game and do feel like I can fairly judge it, regardless of how the game can "play out differently", if that's even really true. So hopefully there will be no PS3 fanboys coming in here and ruining the potentially intellectually stimulating conversation. Most likely not enough of you will read this to garner any attention, but you never know with the freaks we've got in our community.

Second, this is definitely something anybody who can get their hands on a Playstation 3 should experience. Perhaps it's not for everyone, least of all 14 year old boys with ADHD, but any mature adult should be able to take something away from it. My wife seemed to be very much into what was going on, and although the sometimes putrid voice acting got in the way, she appeared to care very much for most of the characters. One time, she even turned her head away and asked me to tell her what buttons to press during a rather tense QTE. Quite impressive for a video game. I felt the same way for the most part. Some of the voices were terrible, but the impressive facial animations help to make up for this. They do a fair job of conveying emotions. My wife agreed.



We both took turns, which probably lessens the emotional investment just a teeny, tiny bit, but even watching the game is just convincing enough to keep you interested. This is also a pretty impressive aspect of the game, as I am rarely able to watch someone play a game by themselves for more than a few minutes. On a side note, taking turns with a significant other can be pretty interesting. We chose to switch who played whenever the game switched who you were supposed to control. While be both had mostly mutual aims because we're very similar people (besides her WoW addiction), there were a few choices she wanted to make differently, and besides that she also isn't as good at QTEs as I am. So even when she chose the same thing I wanted, things didn't always go the way I planned. I'm not saying you should definitely play it with someone else like I did, but if you've got the right person you might enjoy the experience more. Of course, you might enjoy it a lot less when you realize your significant other is a heartless bitch or something like that. But what are the chances of that?

Going back to how things didn't always go as I planned, I have been wondering just how different the game can actually be based on your success or failure during QTEs. The ending credits sort of spoiled one scene for me. It was one of Ethan, the father, doing something differently than my wife did things. It seems that the outcome of the game's ending would likely have still been the same regardless, but then again there is also a choice at the end that Ethan makes on a map which kind of confuses things even more. I'm starting to get the feeling that the base outcome will most likely always be the same, but with different characters doing things slightly different each time. Or something like that. Whatever the case, I plan on playing it by myself again before God of War 3 comes out, and my wife plans on trying to kill as many main characters as possible, just to see what would happen. Maybe I'll do another blog about it in the future. Probably not, but that brings me to my last point.



I've had a lot of trouble blogging for quite some time now. Whenever I sit down to type, nothing ever seems to come out. I sit around for 20 minutes before I just give in do something else, like look at porn. While I'll probably still do that after I'm done with this, know that everything I've typed has flowed seamlessly so far. There have been virtually no pauses besides lighting a cigarette and scratching my leg a few times. That's basically some of the highest praise I can give a video game at this time in my life. The game made me think. It made me feel things, and even if they're not the deepest thoughts or the most philosophical thoughts, they're something.

And in this day and age, that sure is remarkable.