I love Murder Mysteries, it's been tried before in games and has unfortunately failed, but Heavy Rain seems to have captured something excellent. The game is based on your decisions. Your choices in the game decide who, lives, who dies, how many clues you find, and decide an ending.
Every choice changes the plot in some way and can work for, or against you, it's very interactive and the plot is very original. A killer is on the loose, but this isn't your every day, kill someone, leave them on the street, all gored up. No, this killer takes childrne, right from underneath the parents noses, the children go missing for about four to five days and are found in a wasteland, with mud on their face, an origami figure in their hand, and an orchid on their chest.
The killer is called "The Origami Killer" He drowns his victims in rain water then leaves their bodies for the police to find. No clues as to who they are. The orchid he leaves resembles innocence, that of the children they murder, and the mud on the face to show there isn't anything personal, which leave the police questioning as to WHY they kill?
You play as four main characters, an FBI agent, a Private Eye, A Reporter, and a father, the father lost a child in a car accident a year before the events in the game, which you play out in the prologue, to get you used to the game, and set the backstory. He is now divorced and is spending a few days with his remaining son. One day he takes his son to the park and he has a blackout, something he has been frequently suffering from, where he wakes up in the middle of an empty street. His son has gone missing and he is left clues as to how to find his son, but to find these clues he must prove himself to be a good father.
The trials are grim in some cases, the first trial he has to drive down the highway, against oncoming traffic, risking his life. The second he is forced to crawl over broken glass, through a long dark tunnel, then work his way through electric wires, the third he is forced to cut off his finger, the fourth, he is made to kill somone, and the fifth he has the choice whether or not to drink poison and have one hour to save his son.
All these trials give you the option to turn back, but that like other choices affects the plot and makes it harder to find your son, for every trial you pass, you get a video of your son and letters of an adress, after all five trials are completed you go to that adress and try to save your son.
Meanwhile you play as the FBI agent, gathering clues, following leads and at one point trying to prove the father's innocence. The private eye, works for the families who lost their sons to the killer earlier and want to help find the killer, before another victim is lost. The reporter, you see go to a motel, to help cure her insomnia, she befriends the father, in hope to get a story but eventually it develops into love and you have a choice whether to forgive her for not telling you she was a reporter, or not.
It's quite a clever and original story, a lot of interactivity, and definately has it's twists and turns. I won't give any more away because that would be unfair, but each time you play it you can purposely try to change the story, just to see how else it could have gone. I reccommend it for the PS3 owners out there.
