Heavy Rain

or Heavy Thoughts Reign
For everybody who wants to play Heavy Rain but didn’t have the opportunity yet, and for Blu, I recommend the little ‘X’-Button on the far right top of the screen, as the ongoing review-category ‘Heavy Thoughts Rein’ may contain a serious amount of spoilers – intended or not.

There are just a few games I buy for the full price but after playing the demo with Blu at the gamescom I was dead sure about owning this game – and now I know: It was worth it.

First of all I want to start with the graphics: The setting is very dismal and gloomy, the kind of dull you never want to experience, but it is also crucial for carrying the vibe and delivering a sad tone. In every spoken or thought line wavers the oppressive feeling that you could be too late or could die at any given second. I am not quite sure whether my TV is just too bad at showing that sort of color or the little disturbance of showing colors is meant to be, but I am willing to face it as an important way of getting the player into the right mood. It is just that kind of game, which drags you emotionally all the way down and never lets you rest, until you know what’s behind the next scene.

So, that’s it for my first impression, from here on I want to begin with my ‘Heavy Thoughts Reign’.

Today I started playing seriously and encountered all four main characters, but just wait, we’ll get there soon enough. The prologue and all other chapters with Ethan are simply astonishing because you, as the player, as the one navigating Ethan, not just one bystander or a simple viewer, you really feel like you lost everything, struggling to keep the last piece of relationship you have. Knowing that there will be nothing left when losing the tiny straw as only option leading away from your miserable life, you come back to consciousness, alone in a lonely street, with an origami figure in a tight grip.

That game-movie is totally variegated, but killer-grey yet.