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Heavy Rain

I know, I'm very late to the party - about 6 years, but I don't care. I just finished this masterpiece on the weekend and I'm still blown away.

Usually I don't play interactive dramas. I'm more like an FPS guy. I play games where the story mostly goes like: "You are a (space) marine, here are some aliens/other enemies, kill them all and save the universe/planet/etc. (to get the babe)." But I've played the demo of Heavy Rain when I got a PS3 back in 2013. And it got me interested. Sometime later I bought the game, but somehow never got around to play it. It was sitting on my shelf, mocking me all these years - like about 300 other games in my collection, I still want to play. (If you don't believe me, go check it out: https://vgcollect.com/drunkenm666)

About a week ago I was looking for a game to play and Heavy Rain seemed like a good choice. And man, it was a good choice.

(Don't worry, I won't post any spoilers, so if you haven't played the game yet, you can read on.)

This game is simply stunning. The graphics are very good for a PS3 game, although I sometimes wished for v-sync. The controls need some getting used to, but after the first hour they should be no problem. I even tried the Move Edition, which was very innovative, but somehow I "felt" the controller better. Still, opening the door by doing a similar motion IRL is great!

You follow the story of 4 people while trying to solve the case of a serial killer. You can get to know 2 of these characters in the free demo. The theme/setting is very dark and I even had a friend who stopped playing it, because it affected him that much. Don't play it if you get emotional or depressed easily! That's all I'm gonna say. It is a well written crime/drama story, even if it has some (small) plot holes. And this time your choices do matter, unlike those Telltale Games, where choices only minimally influence gameplay. Take note, Telltale!

The game has a ton of endings, so if you are a Trophy Hunter you'll have to play through multiple times. I'm currently doing my second playthrough, but only to get a few easily obtainable trophies I've missed the first time around. Getting platinum would simply be too time consuming for me.

But I do recommend playing through the game at least two times! By the second time you'll know the killer and based on that you'll probably make different choices and notice little things which you missed the first time. The story will have a completely different tone knowing what you know after the first playthrough. And all that makes it really worthwhile.

If you haven't got the game yet I can only recommend to buy it. The PS3 version can be picked up pretty cheap on eBay (I prefer physical releases) or buy the remastered bundle on PS4.

Lastly, I just wanted to give a shoutout to Quantic Dream for making this brilliant game. I already have "Beyond - Two Souls" planned next.

Oh, and where is "Detroid - Become Human"? Haven't heard anything about that since Gamescom 2016! (The live gameplay demo was awesome, though.)

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