With access to the Heavy Rain demo coming to us earlier than expected, this gamer took it upon himself to download it as soon as he had the chance. My personal conclusion? It works, and it works far better than many cynical gamers thus far have been willing to believe it could.

The demo gives you three different segments to play through; a tutorial to guide you through the basic controls, an action heavy scene set in an run-down apartment block, and the crime scene of a murder committed by the Origami Killer, the character at the centre of Heavy Rain’s dramatic story-line.

The first part of the demo, the tutorial, begins with retired detective Scott Shelby making his way down a rain soaked alley, on his way to question someone in regards to their sons death at the hands of the Original Killer. Why he couldn’t just park his car in front of the apartment itself is never mentioned, but that’s a question for another time. For now, lets focus on the gameplay.

You’re guided through the most basic controls to begin with – moving the right analogue stick down to pull the clutch down and park the character, and moving it right to open the car door. So far, so predictable – it’s nothing we didn’t do in Fahrenheit a hundred times already. Once you start walking, things get a little more interesting.

To walk, you hold down the R2 button. You will always walk forward when holding down R2. The left stick moves your character’s head, and your character will alter the direction he’s walking depending on where you move your head. This creates an uncannily realistic sense of movement, with your character looking around in direction relation to his physical movements, much like a real person would.

You don’t realise how impressive this looks until you realise that in practically every other video game your character’s face remains static in motion, and it makes you wonder why this has never been done in this fashion before.

I can’t emphasise this next point enough, and it’s an important one to make early; the awkward, jumpy walking animations seen in the preview videos put up on the internet by fans? Nowhere to be seen If the demo is anything to go on, it’s clear that problem only occurs if you intentionally go out of your way to move your character around in a deliberately clumsy fashion. You’re character’s movement is eerily natural at times.

You are introduced to the other button mechanics in the alley> one part requires you to hold onto two buttons for a prolonged length of time, and you are also introduced to a sequence that requires you to shake the Sixaxis controller – it appears our friend Scott is an asthmatic, and he shakes his inhaler before using it. These control schemes come across as basis here, but the next scene puts them to the test proper.

The next part of the demo, “Sleazy place” takes place, not surprisingly, in a sleazy apartment building. After coercing the desk clerk with a little loose change to tell you which room the woman you are looking for is living in, you make your way to her apartment room, and this is where the game’s interactive diversity becomes really apparent.

Although a number of the scenes in this part play out in exactly the same way regardless of what you do, significant portions of it will be altered based on the questions you ask and the actions you take – in one playthrough of the scene, it’s possibly that the woman will kick you out without telling you anything. In another playthrough, she will open up to you and tell you more about her son if you play your cards right, information would which will likely influence the game’s later story; unfortunately, this is one aspect of Heavy Rain’s gameplay that is impossible to gauge from the demo.

As you leave the apartment, another bout of asthma affects your character, conveniently coinciding with an burly looking guy entering the apartment you just left and attacking the young lady you were just conversing with.

You head straight back, and this leads to an aggressive fight between you and the man. The fight scenes are fast and visceral, and while your button presses have only a limited impact on what occurs during this scene, the choices of buttons always makes sense and the variety keeps the tension up. You can end up pretty bruised up if you don’t fight back sufficiently.

After this dramatic sequence of events, we move onto the last part of the demo, where FBI agent Norman Jayden has come in to check out a crime scene where one of the Origami Killer’s supposed victims was recent murdered. This scene is more slow paced than the previous one, but it does a perfect job of highlighting why the game isn’t the “glorified QTE-fest” that some gamers seems determined to believe it is.

Norman has in his possession a pair of UV glasses that help him to pick up on footprints and other outstanding pieces of evidence at the crime scene – think “Detective Mode” from Batman: Arkham Asylum but a little more grounded in reality.

Using the R1 button, you can scan your surroundings for numerous clues. you can search for them in any order that you want, and it appears that you can leave the crime-scene without studying every piece of evidence, including one piece which is well hidden on top of a difficult to climb outcropping and is very easy to miss.

Again, how much this will directly impact on the story is impossible to tell from a demo, but the fact that this is possible at all seems to hint at a lot of potential on the players part to influence the story both negatively and positively based on their actions… or inaction.

Heavy Rain, based on this demo, does a lot of things right. It’s tense, diverse, decently acted, and it looks absolutely astounding to boot. It’s unique control system works, and it works well, and the game itself has huge amounts of potential to teach the industry new ways to approach video game narrative.

Whether Heavy Rain will end up becoming the Citizen Kane of video games is debatable, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. Check it out. You won’t be disappointed.