00:01Greetings. This is AgentKyle5051. This will be the second game review presented here on the Evolution Combo's channel as a
00:20holdover in between their main content.
00:23I believe many of you have seen the first review already, that being for Elmo's Letter Adventure on the Nintendo
00:3464.
00:35Since the video footage is rolling by so quickly, you've seen the title, and so you know what I'm reviewing
00:42today.
00:43Yes, it's going to be a newer game, released just last year, Heavy Rain.
00:51I'm here to tell you why this is perhaps the worst, or to put it more lightly, the most disappointing
00:58PlayStation 3 game I've played.
01:01If you think we call it a game, that is.
01:04Has anybody heard the tagline for this game?
01:10Those who have been most invested to this game know what it is.
01:17However, it isn't printed anywhere in the box, or in the booklet that comes from the game.
01:24Wherever I read it, it's supposed to be.
01:28How far will you go to save somebody you love?
01:33Well, I don't know. Did they pick their taglines from sweetheart boxes?
01:41That's all I could think of for a tagline.
01:45It sounds like it was made up by Joey Tribbiani from Friends.
01:50You know what I mean by that?
01:52If you've seen the finale episode in the ninth season, so this game took about four years to make or
02:01complete.
02:02Yeesh.
02:04And that's not pleasant to hear, given what gameplay we are served with, which you are about to see.
02:11So, initially, I purchased this game with optimism, hoping for a Marty Mystery-style game.
02:19But beside it, like the Silent Hill games, or Clock Tower, or Hunting Ground, or something similar, like Alone in
02:29the Dark.
02:31Before I played this game, I was actually getting into murder mystery novels, as well as all their Chihala movies
02:39from the 70s, and Roman Polanski films, which have a very different vibe in comparison to this game.
02:47I didn't think the whole thing would be quick time events, which had sucked the wound of an already terrible
02:54storyline and characters.
02:56If that's the case, being quick time events, then this shouldn't have been the standard retail price of $60, but
03:08instead $40 or less.
03:11I bet this game would be enough last year, and I still paid $60 for it.
03:19As for the plot, this game is about a guy named Ethan Mars.
03:26He's an architect with a wife and two kids.
03:31He loses his son Jason in a shopping mall, and fails to save him from getting hit by a car.
03:41This causes grief amongst this married couple, with a divorce that follows.
03:47Three years afterwards, his mother's son becomes abducted when he visits a local park.
03:57The abductor is referred to as the Zodiac.
04:01Wait, no, I'm sorry, the Origami Killer.
04:04This prompts an investigation, which introduces the three other main characters, and then the plot unfolds from there.
04:16At this point, about an hour has passed, and the opportunities allotted through the quick time events present zero action
04:27elements.
04:29I'd say about 90% or 95% of the time, I'm saying that minus the one event with, uh,
04:37Salia, I'm sorry, Shelby, with his first segment, as I'm gonna call them.
04:43So yeah, very, very little action elements so far in the first hour of the game, nor any typical survival
04:51horror game elements.
04:52No puzzle solving, no item collecting, no file reading, no near-death or deadly encounters.
05:01Goddammit, not up to a good start.
05:04Now, I'm not the most avid reader or watcher of murder mysteries and thrillers and books and films,
05:15but it was so obvious right from the inception of the black line who our killer was.
05:22And the way they revealed the killer could have been done in a much more clever way.
05:28I mean, it's revealed in a flashback when, um, when one of the characters are in one of the character's
05:38segments when they're in a hospital ward,
05:40and not as you are actually moving through the game and or are in an action sequence.
05:49So that's kind of jarring coming from me, personally.
05:54If only the storyline weren't so generic, playing the sequence of quick time events wouldn't be so tedious and boring.
06:05And what's worse than a generic CW-style murder mystery storyline?
06:11I mean, are those generic, hollow, cliched characters.
06:16It's so clichƩ, there are even black extras and or background characters, for lack of a better word.
06:24Really, Sony, just look at Ethan.
06:28He's the most boring fucking protagonist ever.
06:34Ever.
06:35Ever.
06:36In Hall of Gaming, he's more boring in regard to personality than he is in appearance.
06:45No interesting quirks.
06:48No specialized desires.
06:50No intensities.
06:51No biases.
06:53No flaws.
06:55Nothing.
06:56How much more one-dimensional can you get?
07:00Because the story writers forgot to run a proper amount of dialogue in the first 90 minutes of quote-unquote
07:08gameplay.
07:09So what do we know about Ethan?
07:11Well, he draws ugly houses for a living.
07:16He can't decorate his own apartment.
07:18He can't shave when it's monsoony outside.
07:22His face looks stupid and neolithic.
07:25I think.
07:26And his greatest talent is losing his children in public places, regardless of crowd density.
07:35Now I know Ethan is supposed to be depressed because for some reason losing a child happened then.
07:43That prompted a divorce for some reason.
07:47Which doesn't make very much logical sense.
07:50Etc.
07:51That this isn't how depression works.
07:54It doesn't make a person lose their job.
07:58And leaving a shitty town home.
08:00Make them unable to decorate their dingy, grey-wild apartment.
08:05Not be able to shave their fucking face.
08:10Or accept ridiculous risks of ransom and hopes to have their missing child returned to them.
08:20And just what the fuck is he doing here?
08:23Even Mars is so mysteriously cheap, he feeds his remaining child a fucking garbage meal of a microwave oven dinner.
08:31You're not dreaming.
08:33This is actual footage from the motherfucking king.
08:38Now there's probably some of you out there who find this scene completely riveting.
08:43And totally not overdone with the unrealistic gloomy weather and homestead designs.
08:49But I on the other hand just couldn't feel sold with this arrangement.
08:54I could see right through it all.
08:57I mean, this is supposed to be innovative and shit.
09:00But this is very rudimentary script writing.
09:04This is not enough.
09:06Then there are the other characters.
09:10There's Norman Jaden, the younger of the two detectives.
09:15He's really interesting.
09:16He gets involved in a few action sequences.
09:20But otherwise, there's nothing special about his gameplay or his part in the story.
09:26Actually, here's another thing I wanted to mention about his gameplay and storyline.
09:32You do several action sequences with him.
09:35Just like with the other characters.
09:37About what and where his involvement is.
09:40It rarely has anything to do with the actual story.
09:44None of the other criminals he encounters have any connection to the origami killer.
09:49Directly, at least.
09:53Stylistically, these criminal-type characters he encounters.
09:57They create for a very unparalleled township.
10:01When compared to Ethan's part in the story.
10:04Ethan goes through some trials, for lack of a better word.
10:24For lack of a really better word.
10:28Which do have a creepy existential tone to them.
10:31Which is what they should be aiming for.
10:34Since they are presenting to us a serial killer slash child abductor.
10:38With that twist of the narrative.
10:41Totting that they believe origami art at the crime scene.
10:45.
10:54In this story!
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