A poorly written mess.
Honestly David Cage if you decide to make a game where the story is the forefront don't you want it to be well written and directed? Heavy Rain is a mess. A cheesily written and acted cluster fuck of a story ridden with plot holes and things that make little to no sense. It presents itself as an "interactive movie" where your choices affect it's outcome. Yeah, if this were a movie it would be one of those forgettable straight-to-DVD flicks that you'd catch on T.V. one night out of sheer boredom. It just further proves the stereotype that video games just don't have good stories. Sure there are games that have GREAT stories, but it's games like this that give all story-driven games a bad name.
The plot is just sloppy. Filled with cheesy dialogue and poorly directed acting. Seriously are these characters supposed to be American? They have to be the most French sounding Americans I've ever heard. The actors (who are French if you haven't figured it out) just can't seem to mask their extremely French accents. The children especially. Seriously did they HAVE to get actual children to do the voices? It's a little fucking ridiculous when an American born child with a total French accent grows up to have a totally different American accent. PROFESSIONAL VOICE ACTORS, HIRE THEM. If you don't have the money then WHAT'S THE FUCKING POINT IN THE FIRST PLACE? You're NOT going to get quality, all it does it strip away another layer of believablity. There's a scene in the game where two brothers are playing in a construction site and the older brother continues to yell over and over again "MOVE EET YOU AYSS". I couldn't hold back, I laughed. I laughed at how fucking ridiculous it sounded. Don't get me started on some of the dialogue. There's a scene towards the beginning of the game, where Private Investigator "Scott Shelby" finishes questioning a prostitute named "Lauren" about the death of her son and its relation to the Origami Killer. After finishing with the questions he leaves her room. Suddenly a bald headed rapist man decides to bust on in and do the dirty with her. Shelby runs for the door and knocks. The rapist man answers,
"What do you want assHOHL?!"
Clearly he's another French immigrant. Shelby looks into the room,
"Lauren is everything alright?!"
He exclaims with worry. The rapist man grins,
"She's going to be just SWELL. Now beat it LOSER!"
The door gets slammed in Shelby's face as I laugh my ass off. Was he supposed to be a rapist or a high school bully from the 1980s? It's writing like that, that prevents me from taking Heavy Rain seriously at times. Well that and the fucking huge plot holes. There's a plot twist that comes out of the left field due to a CHEAP EDITING TRICK. The game LIES to you in order for you to be surprised at the "big reveal". It's complete bullshit, and I know you were pissed off when you found out as well. Things like the second challenge (butterfly) make no fucking sense. NO ONE would've been able to put a challenge like that together, ESPECIALLY when you find out the "big reveal". There SO MANY plot holes that it's ridiculous, though I don't want to spoil anyone but it's a fucking MESS.
The reason to actually play Heavy Rain is THE GAMEPLAY. Yes it's quick-time-event-the-game and all but the cool thing is that it DOESN'T track your progress. If you fuck up, you fuck up and if you succeed, you succeed. The story keeps on moving forward. Hell even if one of your characters DIES the story keeps on moving forward. That was the feature that drove me to complete Heavy Rain. Even though the story was a plot-hole cluster fuck, some of the characters were pretty damn likable. I didn't WANT them to die, and I made sure that they lived to see the end. The only thing I didn't like about the game play was the movement controls. Seriously why is walking in a straight line so hard? Why is walking into a pole the norm? Ugh.
All in all it's a poorly written mess that's worth playing for it's unique gameplay. Definately not worth a purchase. Even after hearing that the game has around 18 different outcomes, I have no desire to replay the game. Rent it, do not purchase it.
