Heavy Rain Addendum

Maybe a half hour after posting my Heavy Rain review I realized I forgot to touch on a key point. A large part of what made the game so intense was that it could unfold in quite a few different ways and once you made a decision or a mistake there was no turning back. This meant that if during one of Ethan’s trials you failed and he died, his story was over and he was obviously no longer able to save his son. I’m not entirely sure if you can die in every dangerous situation, but I know every playable character can die and alter the story accordingly. There is no reloading, the story progresses no matter how well you do, which makes every decision and every rapid button press that much more important.

I found this quite interesting because it made death actually mean something in a video game. Joystiq interviewed the Heavy Rain writer and designer David Cage, and he touches on how killing another person is very different in this game as well. I can’t really go into any detail without spoiling anything, and definitely don’t read the interview if you are worried about that. I just found it amazing how with a few small changes killing and dying in a game becomes much more like real life than it ever will be in something like Halo.