Friction Game Review - by Ericca M.

What’s up video game fans? I’m back with another rendition of the Friction Video Game Review. For this review, I decided to go back a couple of years to a game that simply fascinated me when I got my first chance to play it.

There I was, in Game Stop, wondering what kind of game I could get to entertain me for a couple of days. One of the friendly associates asked me if I needed help and what kind of games I liked. I told him that I liked games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil and he quickly suggested that I play Heavy Rain.

Heavy Rain is a psychological thriller developed by Quantic Dream. The game was released for the PlayStation 3 in February 2010. However, I didn’t purchase the game until the summer of 2014. Throughout the game, you get a chance to play multiple characters with very different backgrounds, motivations, skills, and each player’s decision affects what will follow. Heavy Rain actually inspired me to play Until Dawn, a game I reviewed in our very first issue. I feel like the whole “make decisions that effect the ending” aspect of both of these games make them all the more interactive. The more real the gameplay is, the more I enjoy it.

It started off with the introduction of the Origami Killer. The scene was one straight out of Law and Order or some shit. It was raining and detectives are talking about the killers’ latest victim. According to them, the Origami Killer liked to kidnap young boys and kill them. His method: drowning them in shallow puddles of water. Whenever there was heavy rain, another victim would be discovered. This definitely intrigued me, since it’s not the average MO of a serial killer.

You start off playing Ethan Mars, an architect and father of two sons. He ends up taking his family to the mall and eventually he loses track of one of his sons. You’re given steps to follow and helpful hints that help you control Ethan as he frantically searches the mall and ends up back outside. That’s when he spots his son across the street and calls out to him. His son starts running across the street and Ethan tries to save him from being struck by a car but unfortunately, they’re both hit, right in front of his wife and his other son. Ethan survives, but his young son ends up passing away. Pretty sad, indeed. What’s even more sad is that he ends up taking his surviving son to the park a few months later, only for him to be kidnapped from the park while his ass is laying in the grass passed out.

Throughout the rest of the game, you play some pretty interesting characters, one of whom is a detective on the case. He’s an older guy, leads a pretty lonely life and he is carrying a terrible secret.

Ethan ends up taking matters into his own hands and conducts his own investigation. Him and the aforementioned detective cross paths a few times and as the game goes on, Ethan finally discovers that the Origami killer (spoiler alert!!!!) is the detective.

Dude has some serious issues stemming from the death of his brother when he was a child. They were playing hide and seek in a construction area while it was raining. His brother runs off to hide as he counts numbers off. You control this character too as he frantically searches for his brother. After running into a few walls, getting suck behind pipes that are laying on the ground, you finally discover his brother face down in the puddle, he had drowned to death. Apparently, this traumatized him so much that instead of deciding to stay away from water and dangerous construction sites, he decided to kill other little boys the same way that his little brother met his demise; in puddles that resulted from heavy rain.

Overall, this game was dope. The controls are kind of wonky, specifically when you have to do something simple like pick up the phone, dial numbers or fry an egg for a prosititute. I definitely recommend this game for people who are interested in suspense and looking for something to keep them busy on a rainy weekend indoors.

Initial Release Date: February 18, 2010

Developer: Quantic Dream

Designer: David Cage

Genre: Action-Adventure Game

Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3