Issue date: 3/4/10 Section: Arts & Entertainment

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In the summer of 08, a demo nudged the doors open of a developers' game convention in Leipzig, Germany. The simulation leaked onto the internet blogosphere, seeping through August like porous filter paper. Flying a folklore presentation of photorealism, creative director David Cage debuted the spiritual successor to Quantico Dream's Indigo Prophecy (2005), titled the curiously surreal "Heavy Rain".

A year and a half later, the hybrid of film and videogame had been in the pot long enough. The game was Amazon.com's number one pre-order spot, showing the marketing stunt of Sony's dangerous investment had paid off. The powerful experience entered the North American market on February 23, 2010. "Heavy Rain" immerses the player immediately out of the box, offering a hard lesson in paper craft before starting a new movie or episode.

When the vertigo subsides, the player is left to bear the weight of parenthood, assuming the role of protective father Ethan Mars. Ethan, one of the game's four protagonists, lives comfortably in the simple glow of a two-parent household, in his duty as provider and 'man of the house.' Imitating ventriloquists, players pull Ethan through the errands of a secondary life, a life given purpose by his two sons.

However, Mars's atomic life soon strikes midnight, the phenomenon of equilibrium restored by the coincidental subtraction of Jason, Ethan's unsupervised offspring. Ethan fractures the family line with his dilapidated descent into grief. Forfeiting composure and custody, the captain regains control of the prologue hardened, navigating a course for redemption after the taking of his distant heir some gloomy Sunday.

Rising tides act as accelerants and portals to Ethan's salvation, punctual rain more destructive than any earthquake. The animations of "Heavy Rain" are plausibly live-action, the rain so real it leaves a taste in the back of your mouth.

Quantico Dream asks the patient 'How far would you go for love?' A Hitchcockian final scene makes the deviant fascination from 2008 shameful and perverted. Aquamarine is no longer the ecstatic power color, fortune tellers no longer child's play. "Heavy Rain" is not the game, we are.

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