3. The set design
Much as Heavy Rain never quite sounds like the US, it never quite looks like it, either. Everything looks either too dirty or too clean, and there seems to be a distinctly European design aesthetic at work. The most obvious example is Ethan’s Frank Lloyd Wright-esque house (which, to be fair, he probably designed himself, being an architect and all).
The interior looks like something out of Home; everything’s pristine, everything’s tasteful, everything sports super-sharp angles, and the kitchen’s cubbyholes make it look like a kindergarten classroom. But what it doesn’t look like is a place that’s home to two kids, birthday streamers and artfully arranged toys be damned. It doesn’t look lived-in; it looks like a furniture showroom. And that’s fine if you’re Stanley Kubrick, but not so much if you want to project the idea of a warm, happy family life – which incidentally is the whole point of the game’s first scene.
While we’re on the topic, take a look at this image:
Look carefully to the left and to the right. Notice the kinds of furniture in each room. Now, if you were asked to go to the "living room cupboard," would you look for it in the room with the couch and TV?
If you were the game's designers, you'd look right next to the dining-room table. That's where the living room is, right?
4. Teeth
More specifically, Scott Shelby’s teeth. Especially when he’s making this face:
He makes that face a lot, but he’s not the only one. And for whatever reason – whether it’s because they’re too perfect or there’s something unnatural about the way the mouths move around them – it’s hard not to fixate a little on the characters’ teeth in Heavy Rain, and the weird ways in which they show them off. A few other examples:
See? It’s eerie.
