Innovation is fine if it is an improvement over and above an existing technology. But Heavy Rain would have benefited from some conventional game mechanics, that work. The proprietary control scheme feels wonky. Instead of button presses to make moves or a dedicated action button, you’ll have to screw around with the control sticks flipping them uselessly when you could be accomplishing what you need to do more efficiently.

Heavy Rain is a dramatic and morose ode to fatherhood. Perhaps the intent was to involve the sought after demographic with a story that relates to male experience. You’ll play schizophrenically as four different characters throughout this weird offering. You begin as a hen-pecked husband who manages only to make his woman miserable. Who is this ‘game’ meant for? Aging divorced males who want to have a good cry over their lost family life? The subject matter itself is indeed heavy. This software, that I hesitate to call a game, truly bridges the gap between an interactive visual novel and something… else. It is no fun so I can’t exactly define it as a game, maybe it’s a dramatic experience. You may in fact want to dramatically rip your hair out from playing it.

When entering the first chapter you are expected to do nothing but what is expected of you. If you don’t, a shrewish bitch will yell at you repeatedly. “I told you to get the plates!” “Screw the plates.” was my immediate reaction. Then I went about the uninteresting, non interactive environment trying to find something to smash to obtain weapons and power ups. But there weren’t any. I couldn’t leave the room either, the doors of my happy home apparently lock when the shrewish bitch wife is nagging. ‘Nag Locks.’ Great. Having no other choice I attempted to kill the wife with the plates, but that wasn’t allowed either.

In another chapter after two years have gone by, the wife is expectedly now The Ex. The scene opens and the character is saddled with a boy child to entertain for visitation rights. Since the kid was playing a video game, inside the non game, I left the room to go get something. When I returned the kid had slumped over on the couch. I figured that was fine and went on. Later when reading the walk through I discovered that I was supposed to feed him, give him some sort of medicine, and read him a story. If I had wanted to be some one’s Mom I would have had kids. Instead I want to have a good time, party and play video games. When I pay to rent, or buy a game I expect to have fun. Baby sitting, bottle feeding and changing diapers should never, ever be in a game I am playing. Especially with no other way around those tasks. How dare they sneak that mommie crap in. I can’t imagine guys playing those parts and being happy about it?

The FBI guy is a bit more fun. Although Agent Jayden is a flawed character, and might have been doomed from the start. In an otherwise mundane feeling game he suddenly has these futuristic poke’balls that create virtual reality when ‘opened’. While sitting around waiting he plays hand ball against a virtual brick wall. Then later he redecorates an office with technology similar to a holodeck. It’s amusing but doesn’t seem to fit in with the very low tech almost dowdy presentation of the rest of the game. The smooth efficiency of such high tech doesn’t seem to mesh with the easy clues that supposedly yielded no leads before Jayden gets to the police department. If the murder weapon is rain water, the biological components are unique to each region, that alone is plenty of clues in itself. Especially in a culture that has handheld virtual reality, it would seem logical that forensic biology also would have progressed. Even modern crime television shows have theoretical technology more advanced than this game. The grainy looking environments don’t match well with the virtual reality interfaces.

A series of minimal mini games and twitch commands make of the whole of the game play. That along with the cumbersome controls especially when trying to operate as Shelby, makes the game seem like an interminably long movie. And by movie standards the plot twists aren’t very exciting. What we ended up with is a way too long, very tedious mish-mash. Heavy Rain doesn’t have any strong points. It takes aim at several different aspects of gaming, and then does none of them well. It doesn’t deliver the story well, and it doesn’t play well. Heavy Rain is practically broken. When you have to approach every door and surface sideways, and there isn’t a way to really to gain proper control of the camera, or the characters for that matter, then you don’t have a top of the line game. I can’t imagine how it has gotten such high scores on the commercial game review websites, or how it has charted at number one anyplace.

The only saving grace of the game is the Payable Female Avatar Madison Paige. She does kick nine kinds of ass in spite of the terrible game engine that she is stuck in. At first she has to take on three men that sneak into her apartment. She brawls with the three of them using nothing but her wits and her elbows until she wakes up from the uncomfortable dream sequence. She gets into much more trouble along the way but her ability is still completely limited. All she can do are the disappointing twitch controls. She would have been amazing if she had some decent guns and some shooting to do. Why do all tough female avatars have a Jaime Lee Curtis dyed red hair do? The past three female avatars I’ve played were wearing camo colors. What is wrong with denim, or black leather?

The ending that I got and the ones that I saw didn’t make sense. After all that it was anti-climactic. They should have had more innovation for the identity of the killer. It ended up too much like a game of Clue where only obvious suspects were there.

Except for Madison’s brief shinning moments, and glimpses of occasional anxiety that was reminiscent of Silent Hill 2, Heavy Rain is a clunky hunk of junk. Rent it since it is short, or just watch it on YouTube because there isn’t any incentive to have to actually play it. I give Heavy Rain four empty buckets out of 10.