Unlike anything I've ever played.
Heavy Rain switches between each of the four characters throughout the game, covering their involvement in the story. For Ethan you suffer through trial after trial, only rewarding little information after each concerning the whereabouts of his son. Scott Shelby works with a family member related to the Origami Killer's past victim. You'll find clues and talk to witnesses concerning the case. As Norman Jayden you'll also search for clues, using a high tech virtual reality system to store and search through evidence. Madison Paige assists Ethan Mars, trying to figure out his true motives.
Despite the heavy and thought provoking storyline, there's still plenty of action to experience in Heavy Rain. The game takes a different approach through the control and action aspect of most games. Your decisions throughout the game are governed by quick time events(QTE). If you're unfamiliar with this think God of War type button sequences. These govern everything you do, from opening doors, sitting down, even a highly intense shootout in a millionaire's mansion. Although, the quick time events do a great job of immersing you into the game the rest of the controls can feel clunky and unresponsive. Simple actions such as walking around can be much more difficult than need be. Walking around can be a chore, but needing precision to locate things in the environment can be down right frustrating. This does slow the game a bit, but luckily it's a small problem in the grand scheme of things.
The music in Heavy Rain serves it's purpose well. It does a great job immersing you into the game and makes the overall feel into something you would expect from a movie. The voice acting is hit or miss. Sometimes the characters are spot on and you really feel the emotion from them. Other times will just make you stare awkwardly at your TV. You'll know what I'm talking about when you hear Ethan get upset and start shouting. I also blame this partly on the character animation. Sometimes the characters don't really fit what they're saying. For the most part the animations are done well. Especially with how close up you are to the characters and how much detail is put into the game.
A full play through of the game will run you at about 10 hours. Don't let that shy you away from the game, though. There is plenty of replay value to be had here. With multiple endings and many, many different choices to be made for each character, Heavy Rain has a lot to offer. The storytelling and gameplay is unlike anything I've played before, and in this case, that's a good thing. If you own a PS3 this is one crime drama you don't wanna pass up.
Storyline: 9.5
Gameplay: 8.0
Audio: 8.5
Replayability: 9.0
Overall Score: 8.8