Stepping Into Heavy Rain Once More On PS4

At the time of release, Heavy Rain came under fierce criticism for the volume of story and cutscenes, compared to the often Quick Time Event-based gameplay. To quote our very own review from six years ago, “It’s not a game, is it?” Now, after the success of Life is Strange, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, Until Dawn and plenty of others, it’s hard not to think that Quantic Dream and David Cage may have been one step ahead of everyone else.

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In fact the story of Heavy Rain is more complex than many of the more recent interactive dramas, weaving together four separate characters into one serial killer mystery, and only Until Dawn has managed to incorporate one the game’s more impressive features. Any one of the playable characters – Ethan Mars, Scott Shelby, Norman Jayden, or Madison Page – can be killed off over the course of the game, and the story will continue, adapting and changing to fit the new timeline.

The passing of time has also allowed the games industry and players to mature, so that while Heavy Rain promised movie-like graphics but didn’t quite manage it, we’ve seen that players are able to embrace Life is Strange gripping plot, despite some dodgy facial animation.

It’s also quite amusing to step back to 2010 and see just how far technology has progressed in a few short years. FBI investigator Norman Jayden uses a pair of augmented reality glasses in the game, which felt impressively futuristic at the time, but now feels well within reach, with devices such as the Microsoft Hololens. He even swaps his ”desktop” to simulate being on the surface of Mars, which is exactly what NASA are using Hololens for.

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As with Beyond: Two Souls, Heavy Rain is almost a straight port of the PlayStation 3 game and therefore still includes the problems from the original title. I personally enjoyed the QTE gymnastics the game requires at certain points, as the actions and difficulty mimic the situation on screen, but the characters still have silly tank-like walking controls and there are a lot of incidental elements that a tiresome, such as performing acrobatics with the Dualshock just to tie a policeman’s tie.

It’s also hard not to notice the rather dated sexism in the game. Madison Page, the only playable female character, is fiesty and independent young photojournalist and is introduced in to the game in exactly the same manner as Ethan Mars – they both wake up in bed and take a shower. Whilst Ethan’s shower scene is perfunctory, the camera lingers over Madison’s breasts and ass as she rubs herself down. Ethan then gets dressed, whilst Madison plays her entire scene scampering about and fighting intruders in her panties. Other female characters are few and far between and are limited to secretarys, hookers, and distraught wives who look to the strong men for help.

Lighting has been improved – somewhat irrelevant when the entire game is gloomy shades of brown and grey- and the resolution has been upped to 1080p, along with some additional HDAO and MSAA post processing and larger shadow maps. The additional power of the PlayStation 4 means the frame rate generally stays smooth, and deals with even the most crowded scenes well. All in all, this is just a slightly more shiny version of the PS3 game.

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The port is not without it’s problems though. I found that using the PS4’s suspend and resume function on the game had the unwelcome side effect of dropping the frame rate quite drastically, forcing me to restart the console to get things back on track. I also know of another reviewer who has complained of juddering throughout the game, so it may be worth waiting for a patch to be released.

If you’ve never played Heavy Rain and like the rise of the current interactive movie genre, then I would recommend grabbing a copy of the game, which can also be bought in a collected edition alongside Quantic Dreams’ second PS3 game, Beyond: Two Souls. There are a number of stand out set pieces like the dream sequence in the train station, and the numerous red herrings will keep you guessing and searching for who the killer might be throughout. However, for those who have played through Heavy Rain before, the changes made for the PS4 version are barely noticeable and I would say to save your cash for David Cage’s next epic, Detroit.

19 Comments

  1. I’ve pre-ordered this as really liked it on Ps3. Does anyone know if this version contains the taxidermist dlc?

    • I don’t think so. It was one of the things I was going to check last night but, uhm, fell asleep. I’m pretty sure it’s not included tho.

  2. You never know what silly little things they’ll randomly change in remastered games for no obvious reason, so…

    Does pressing X do the right thing and Jason? Not been changed to “swipe left on the touchpad to Jason”? Because that’d be wrong.

  3. Stopped reading once the game was accused of sexism. I’m so sick of hearing that everything is racist, sexist, homophobic, and every other PC word of the day thrown in.

    • I wouldn’t have mentioned it if it were not so in-your-face. Its not like Quantic Dream carried on with such things in Beyond, they learned, the shower scene in that isn’t sexy at all.

      The shower scene for Madison is just pure letch. Ethan’s is perfunctory. You play both within two hours so it’s obvious one is shot so differently to the other – there are no lingering shots of Ethan’s ass or him soaping down his manbits.

      Video games have moved rapidly to try and balance things out, certainly a lot faster than movies, so when we look at something from six years ago these sort of things stand out a hell of a lot more today than they did back then.

    • There was literally no reason to include a shower scene with Madison Page apart from fanservice. Sexist? I don’t think it is but fanservice? Yes. However, Ethan’s arse was not shown to us when he had his shower thus does make it questionable.

      • Nothing wrong with fanservice. Episode 7 of Star Wars was fanservice but still a good film. I’m just fed up of political correctness lol.

  4. Uncharted remastered? Yeah I understand doing that again and actually loving it.

    But Heavy Rain again? Where the gameplay is not as important as the actual story and I KNOW who the killer is from the PS3 version…why would anyone buy this again in currentgen baffles me.

    • I don’t think this is mainly aimed at people who already played it on the ps3. But not everybody who now has a ps4 also had a 3. It may be their first console, or they may have switched from Xbox… And for them, ot would make perfect sense, especially bundled with beyond.

      • PS4 came out about the same time as Beyond, so there are people like me, who never got round to playing Beyond (or South Park Stick of Truth) because they were too busy with Black Flag, Killzone and Resogun. Having Heavy Rain included is just an added bonus for me tbh. It goes without saying that a PS4 version of Stick of Truth would be much more preferable to either of these though, especially with the next South Park game on the way.

  5. Lol sleep over powers us all now and then. It’s a shame as I never got to play the dlc but it’s not a major issue.

  6. I owned a PS3 for 6 or 7 years but never really played this one. Nor Beyond Two Souls.

    Are they both worth picking up? All the mini reviews on here seem a bit negative…

    • You either love Heavy Rain or you hate it I personally loved it at the time it was a great immersive experiment and the only game I have actually sat and finished in one sit through.

      Beyond was okay was not as good as Heavy Rain but was a decent game I just didn’t end up caring about the character as I did in Heavy Rain but for £29.99 or less if you shop around its a great deal for one awesome game and one decent game

    • They’re clunky, Beyond is def better looking, but if you don’t you like “This sort of thing” – Life is strange, Rapture etc – certainly worth £25 for both. Heavy Rain does have an excellent story if you’ve never played it.

  7. Jason!

    • I forgot you had to “Press X to Jason” TWICE, not just once!

      • Followed by the shower scenes and the prepare to cry within the first hour of the game.

        Did i say cry? I mean, punch the wall with your MANLY fists of MANLYNESS! ROAR! Wait, this ain’t the 90s? DAMNIT! MY TIME MACHINE LIED TO ME!

  8. I probably won’t pick up this and Beyond:TS remasters, really enjoyed them on PS3 but i have too many games to get through on PS4 at this stage.

  9. I liked Heavy Rain despite the sometimes awful sometimes “Oh, for fock’s sake, really? I have to do that within a second?” controls. But when i get a PS4, i don’t intend to get rid of my large collection of PS3 games so the reamsters are rather pointless for me. Hell, i probably only get UC and TLOU remasters on the PS4.

    Beyond, it is a good game but the bleeping ranch setting is boring. I mean, it just seems to be padding but they did a wonderful job of including a shower scene without it being sexist or fanservice. And before anyone goes on and on about it being “PC” or other crap like that. Ellen Page herself requested to not have it done that way. *Awaits for the upcoming arguments*

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