It's difficult to write a preview when there's so little to say in order to avoid spoilers. Especially when it comes to Heavy Rain, a game with as backbone its storyline. Only summing up subjective experiences like the visuals, the controls and some personal impressions on the gmae remain.

What I can say is that Heavy Rain is a psychological thriller with as tagline 'How far will you go to save someone you love". The story is about a serial killer called The Origami Killer, who abducts kids and kills them, and leaves an origami-bird as sign. Throughout the game you control four characters that are linked together in some way. Architect Ethan Mars is involved with the serial killer for personal reasons while private investigator Scott Shelby and Normal Jayden from the FBI try to solve the case. Finally journalist Linda Madison Paige gets to fulfil the cast.

The game's themes are very heavy and dark and the strong, melancholic soundtrack only amplifies this. The preview version we got started extremely slow and I still haven't seen many exciting moments. Most of the time you're just going around the house with your character and doing simple tasks like dressing up, making diner, buckle up or find medicine for your son.

What bothered me most about the game were the inaccurate and very awkward controls. You don't walk by simply moving the analog stick in a certain direction, but you need to use the right trigger to set your steps. With the left analog stick you move your head and give direction. Also looking at things in the surroundings that might be interesting can be done this way. Almost all objects ask a certain move to be made with the right analog stick in order to activate. In a car scene for instance I had to set the mirrors, buckle up, start the engine and push the throttle but making simple movements with the stick.

During the more hectic moments your reflexes get tested by Quick Time Events. The interesting thing here is that when you miss a button or push it wrongly this doesn't lead to sudden death or restarting the scene. Instead of avoiding a blow to your head, you'll just have to take it like a man.
David Cage, lead video game designer of Heavy Rain has already stated several times that dying is part of the game and that you'll just have to continue with the remaining characters. Game-over only happens when all your characters are deceased.

The choices you make will have drastic consequences for the ending of the story (according to David Cage) but up to now my choices haven't made any difference yet. Possibly the final game will have some changes in this department but the end looks to be quite fixed at the moment.

Graphically the game does NOT look as good as Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, but the facial expressions, emotions and atmosphere are really put on screen well. You'll immediately feel a connection between player and character and will feel the pain, joy and despair of your characters. Especially the soundtrack and quiet moments in the game make for this bond.

Whether a lot of people will find Heavy Rain to be a great game is something I don't know, but that it's entering yet untapped areas is clear. Action is traded in for story and emotion and we're not sure most gamers at the moment will be able to appreciate that. The game asks a lot of patience, starts extremely slow and we didn't see any exciting moments yet. I wonder whether Heavy Rain will have enough gameplay to keep the average player interested. I for one can't wait to check out the rest of the story so I guess that's a good sign.