October 8, 2011

best game ever revisited

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i beat heavy rain over the weekend ... heavy rain is probably in my opinion the best game ever made ... the last time i beat it was like two years ago ... never played it since then .. well not really two years ago .. like a year and a half ... but that's not the point ... i don't usually write about games here but this game deserves a post ... as good as la noire was but heavy rain is better ... there is no other game like heavy rain ... basically it is like a movie ... you're just watching a movie ... but occasionally the game lets you decide what the character should do ... most of the time you're just watching a movie unfold ... but here is the thing ... the game makes you a part of the movie ... you get to control the slightest things ... like when your character is dancing you just press the button prompts that pop up on the screen ... or when you are bandaging a wound you roll the analog stick in a circle to wrap it around the person's arm ... or changing a baby's diaper ... or applying lipstick ... or shaving ... or breaking into a mansion and shooting the place up ... or hitting golf balls while a rich tycoon tries to buy your silence ... or even making out ... it's just magical ... and the graphics ... oh the graphics ... such detail ... right down to the last small thing ... what a work of art ... but it's short ... like i said i beat it over the weekend ... and i didn't get the same ending i got the first time i played ... see that's another thing ... depending on your choices the movie unfolds differently ... people can end up dead or alive at the end ... or together or broken up ... it's just the best game ... there is no other game like it ... it's in a league of it's own ...
but it's a very dark very depressing movie ... which i guess only enhances the immersional experience of the game ... the game or the movie revolves around four different characters ... they don't know each other but they come to do so ... and you get to control them in the various scenes of the game ... but the main character is ethan mars ... he once had the perfect family ... beautiful house beautiful wife two beautiful little boys ... then one day at the mall his son got hit by a car ... and he blames himself ... and now he and his wife are separated ... then one day he takes his other son to the park and loses him as well ... he is kidnapped by a serial killer ... and now it is up to ethan to save him ... so there's ethan ... the other three are an fbi detective who is also on the case ... and he has a drug addiction ... then there's the private eye investigating the case but you never really know who hired him ... which serves for a very unexpected twist at the end ... and there's madison ... the sexy journalist who is following the serial killer story and falls for ethan ...
so far i played the game twice and both times the son is rescued alive at the end ... but there are endings where he doesn't live ...
maybe i'll play it again in another two years .. until then ...

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