We’re all about comics here at Panels on Pages, but a geek cannot live on comics alone. Outside the Longbox is our chance to spotlight something outside our typical four-color realm, be it movies, music, TV or whatever.

I’m not at all a hardcore gamer by any stretch of the imagination. I love video games, but I have enough expensive hobbies and a sparse amount of free time, so I’m not the type of person who gets every big game when it’s released. There are, of course, exceptions, and Heavy Rain is one of them. From the moment I first heard about it, Heavy Rain seemed like a new creature in the world of gaming; one of decisions and consequences and a truly cinematic experience. Some people like to criticize games like the Metal Gear Solid series for its emphasis on narrative in the form of long cut scene. Personally, I chalk those cut scenes up to a staple of the franchise and enjoy them, but I can see the argument that “I want to play my games, not watch them!”

Heavy Rain is an interactive drama, for lack of a better term. The game was filmed with real actors via motion capture so it looks and feels like a movie you get to direct with your controller. The four main characters each get plenty of play time as the story unfolds, but how it unfolds is up to you to a degree. The game is linear and there are pre-determined events, but the devil is in the details. Walk around and interact with the environment to your heart’s content before proceeding to the next objective, if you like. In the thick of things, though, what you actually choose for the character to do matters and alters the flow of the game. The story revolves around the Origami Killer and his latest victim, a young boy named Jason. Throughout the game you’ll play as Ethan Mars (the father of the missing boy), Madison Paige (a photographer… saying anything else is spoileriffic), Scott Shelby (the private investigator working the case for the families of the other victims), and FBI profiler/super agent Norman Jayden. Each character will take you places that reveal parts of the mystery and how they intersect depends largely on you.

There are multiple endings for each of the four characters. Your decisions and actions will change who lives and who dies (because dying does not equal “game over” here) and ultimately where everyone ends up. That in and of itself is interesting, but more than that, it’s the journey itself that changes all throughout the game. There’s a short scene involving PI Scott Shelby in a minimart. A kid comes in off the street and holds up the clerk while you’re inside. Depending on what you do or don’t do, I know of at least four different ways that scene plays out. They all end with Scott leaving the minimart, mind you, but the specifics are changed. The result is a game that encourages multiple playthroughs unlike any I’ve ever seen.

Where does he get those wonderful toys?

The control centers around the right analog stick. Walk up to an object or person and move the stick in the direction (or movement) indicated to trigger the event. Mess up, and you’ll drop what yu’re trying to pick up or something to that effect. Other scenes are large-scale quicktime events where the player has to hit a certain button at a certain time (or even move the entire controller) and other sequences have you pressing a releasing a series of buttons, often resulting in some serious finger knots. It’s a pretty unique control scheme, but for as strange as it sounds, it really works once you’re in the game. Graphics-wise, the game is gorgeous. The characters look the best, but even the environments are stunning. There’s an occasional prop that looks a little iffy, but make no mistake, this is a beautiful game.

But this is a game all about the experience and its characters. None of this new presentation would matter if the characters sucked. Luckily, Heavy Rain’s characters are so deep that it makes you WANT to go back and see what else could happen to them. Playing through this game is trying at times just because of the impact of what’s happening. Imagine the most gut-wrenching scene you’ve ever seen in a movie, but then having to control that action. There’s a lot in this game that will get your heart pounding. Given some of the consequences for your actions (or inaction), there are some pretty dour endings for these characters and some of them raise more questions in the epilogues. I’d love to see more of these characters, but he developers have said that a sequel isn’t really in the cards. Granted, an across the board sequel wouldn’t work, but FBI agent Jayden could easily star in another story.

Game Crush, indeed.

We may not get a sequel, but we do have the promise of Heavy Rain Chronicles, short DLC bits starring the characters from the game. Episode one feaures Madison Paige (who I will never tire of) as she finds herself in the nest of another serial killer. It takes about 15 minutes to get through and costs five bucks via the PlayStation Network. That might sound steep, but the kicker is that this little gem has seven possible endings, meaning you’ll go back into it a few times before you really get all it has to offer for you.

Heavy Rain is a new creature and one that I think will be important to the industry overall simply for being new, if nothing else. This one’s PlayStation exclusive, and should be on every PS3 owner’s must-buy list. I simply cannot recommend it highly enough.