Heavy Rain Review

Ethan Mars: JJJAASSSSOONNN!!!!!

Heavy Rain is an awkward attempt at interactive story that blends both choice and emotion into gameplay. It's weird, clunky and has trouble telling an interesting narrative...for about half an hour. After that, Heavy Rain proves to be an amazing experience that lies somewhere between game and movie that is throughly engrossing and engaging.

Scott Shelby: Champion among men

The presentation of Heavy Rain is everything. You play as four characters each trying to find the Oragami Killer (as the press label him) for their own personal reasons. Ethan Mars is a father who's son is kidnapped by the killer, Norman Jayden is an FBI detective with a strange pair of glasses that act a lot like Batman's Detective mode, Scott Shelby is a private investigator who has been hired to find him and Madison Page is a sexy journalist...'nuff said. The motivations for the characters are truly astounding and Heavy Rain makes you do something you hardly do in video games: care about the characters. You want them to succeed, you want them to survive and most of all, you want this murderer to be brought to justice! The graphics are excellent, with technical prowess that would make you swear you were in the moment and excellent use of split screen, colours and other aspects. In short, it's a visual delight. Not to mention the sounds and the voice acting, and atmosphere...and everything else.

Madison Page: Never actually seen
doing journalist work...

Norman Jayden:
YYYEEEEOOOOOWWW!!!

Gameplay is vastly different from most mainstream games. The whole game is literally quick time events. This sounds boring, but it isn't. The real meat of Heavy Rain is in the story and characters. Making you perform easy quicktime events to perform actions such as closing a door or opening a cupboard may not be exciting, but they do emerge you within the world. Other times, quick time events are extremely successful in wrapping you into situations. Fights become dangerous as the game makes it entirely possible for you to die. In fact, you can kill each character in the story. The game has multiple endings to make sure what you do and how you react really matter in the grand scheme of things. These types of quick time events add stress and real danger to scenarios we would find amusing if Heavy Rain was a movie. The only other gameplay devices are walking and pressing the right button to initiate a choice/action. Walking is probably the hardest part of the game. You hold down a button to walk and then use the control stick to change direction. This sounds fine, but when the camera changes, this quickly becomes disorienting and frustrating. This aside, Heavy Rain feels real, almost like you could be in these character's shoes.

Heavy Rain might be shunned by gamers because of how different it is, but they're the ones missing out. Heavy Rain is incredible, and while not all games should be like this; it's great to have a game this special and different that it takes you completely by surprise and blows you away.

4EVER's worst boss fight of all time MEGA Sandman (Spider-Man 3)

OHHHHH GGGGOOOOODDDDDDDD

Boy this game was lackluster. Poor graphics, mashy gameplay, and quicktime events everywhere you look. But, the game is forgivable until you reach the final level. After beating Venom as Spider-Man, the New Goblin comes in to his Sky Stick to beat up Sandman. First off, you've never played as the New Goblin before in the entire game. So what better place to begin than in the final level? AWESOME HUH?!?!? You have no control over the Sky Stick as it relies on the Sixaxis motion control in the playstation controller, which is clunky as sin. So, you end up circling Sandman as he occasionally hits you with his fist and you throw bombs at him for 10 minutes. You then have to endure the hardest quicktime event ever and if you fail more than five times, you die and you have to do the whole fight again. What? R-really? NNNNNOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is truly astounding how these game developers screwed up this fight. Did they even play test it? Maybe not, but when if they did they probably went: NAW GIYS IT'S FINE?PEOPLEWON't MINDE OFTHEY"RE GAME SUCKS BRB, going of to make Call of Duty Black Ops now harararararaararararararardedededhohohhohohohoho


Never again, for this game has been sealed in the Negative Zone for safeguarding by the Sentry. We are safe. For now.

RPG-itis

When you think of an RPG, you think of some sitting in a room in the middle of the night, clutching a controller to his chest, staring blankly at a screen filled with menus and statistics of weapons. He is only jarred from this state when he is prompted with some kind of food or drink. I'm not sure I like RPG's. Here's why. First off, most RPG's rely on your statistics of weapons and armour and skills as opposed to actual skill. Many would disagree, but I find that's it's more about gear than your actual ability to perform the tasks required. In other words, you can be amazing at a fighting game because you train enough, but you won't get much better at an RPG if you keep practising. Another thing that I find I don't like: you can spend a lot of time and money into working on a weapon or piece of equipment, when all of a sudden, A BETTER PIECE ARRIVES! Making you feel as though training the equipment wasn't worthwhile and you could have used up those resources on the piece of equipment you got just now. 
Most quests in an RPG revolve around collecting 3 buttscratchers and killing 7 peanuts. Sure, in most games this is the case, but RPGs do this consistently without making it interesting. In something like Arkham City, the gameplay is dynamic and exciting and the scenarios change, making the experience more interesting, while some RPG's literally say "Go to 1, collect X, return" Uncool.
However, some of the elements RPG's bring to the table make the gamer deeper and more strategic. Choosing which weapons to upgrade and how to level up make you think as opposed to forcing players to mash X all the time. For a game to be great, it should have fun combat and missions, but enough depth in some of the subjects to provoke thought as to how to play the game well.

4EVER's 2nd worst boss fight of all time: Steroid Joker (Batman: Arkham Asylum)

This Joker form was inspired by an episode of "The Batman"
where Joker steals Bane's serum and uses it to fight Batman.

Ah the Joker. Immortalised by some of the greatest actors ever like Heath Ledger and Mark Hamill. Arch nemesis of the Dark Knight Detective, this man is responsible for some of the most treacherous deeds in Batman's life. That crippling of Batgirl. The murder of Robin. All through this time, he is a master planner with a fanatical devoting to Batman. Remember what I said about Matriarch Benezia? Well, that doesn't apply to the Joker. We don't want a fight with the Joker. His strength is his intelligence, not his brawn. We want a death trap that would be impossible for Batman to outmanoeuvre without pushing himself to the limit. Throughout the entire night, Joker has trapped, tormented and tortured the Caped Crusader and put him through hell. Now, we face one last challenge. We have to foil the plan of this evil Mastermind. Batman must somehow stop the Joker's plan...
oh...his plan was steroids...oh...ah...$#!7
What the hell? Really? That's it? Joker on steroids? Arkham Asylum is an amazing game, with much love and thought put into it, except for this last moment where Joker spoils his illusion of being an evil mastermind and jacks up on drugs to make himself buff. GOOOOOOOOOODDDDDDDDD OOOOOONNNNNNEEEEEE GGGGGGUUUUUUYYYYYSSSSSSS?!?!?!?!q

4EVER's 3rd worst boss fight Galactus (Marvel Ultimate Alliance)

OMGTHISGUYEATSPLANETSHOWTHEHELLAMISUPPOSEDTOBEATHIMHESINVINCIEBBBLELELLELELELELELLE

Huuuurrrrr...

Well, it turns out, all you need is QUICK TIME EVENTS! When you fight the devourer of worlds, he simply stands around on the platform and slowly raises his fist and slams it into the ground. That's about it. All you really have to do is turn on three machines to weaken him, then perform a quick time event. Do this three times and it's over. Yeah. Epic. Galactus is one of the most powerful beings in the Marvel Universe and being able to defeat him so easily is an insult. I mean, in a previous cutscene, you see him smash a building! If he can't defeat four guys, he clearly has some issues.

4EVER's 4th worst boss fight Matriarch Benezia (Mass Effect)

There is nothing worse than having an epic character that you engage in conflict in, but not directly. Take this character from Mass Effect. sPAcE WiZarD Benezia is exactly like that. When you go up to her, ready to beat her to pulp, she sends her goons at you and just stands there. You can't hurt her, but she keeps using CRAAZZY biotic powers to hurt you, make you fall to the ground and of course...lift your cover. While this happens, the frame rate drops and you get lag beyond being able to be forgiven as well as making the game very difficult. When you do eventually waste away her goons, all it takes is a few shots and she's down. While the rest of the game is well done, this battle made my throw my controller down (on the bean bag so it wouldn't break) and change games. This boss was the worst problem I had with the first Mass Effect, but I was glad it was over and I could move on to the master piece that was Mass Effect 2! :-)

4EVER's 5th worst boss battle: Doctor Octopus (Spider-Man 2)

You'd done it. You'd swung about for hours in the wonderful open world of Manhattan and had fun beating up thugs and hoods as well as saving civilians. You'd fought some of the worst and now it was time to defeat Doctor Octopus, the most powerful threat  of the entire game. You'd fought him on the train, beaten him in the bank and at last it was time to fight him and save Mary Jane. But instead of an epic boss fight, you get a guy who simply cannot be beaten without resorting to cheap tactics. His attacks do so much damage, as well as having the ever awesome function of making them nearly impossible to dodge. So eventually, you resort to swinging back and forth on the same web line and cannonball kicking him. Fuuuuuuuuunnnnn. I hate this battle and so should you.