First off, this is an incredible experience just because I live in Philadelphia. In the train station, you see the large statue of an angel holding a man, that's 30th Street station, and that statue is actually there, which was a big part of my life since I used to go there to go home every weekend from college. I could literally see where our apartment is on the map on Shelby's wall (it has the actual street names). The subway is also realistically depicted, except for the fact that it's nowhere as clean as they show it, the floor definitely doesn't shine, i'll tell you that. To see a game bring my city to life was pretty incredible and I won't forget it.

But the game does many things better than almost any other game before it that I know of. The choices put before you are at times real ethical dilemmas, I've never had to weigh morality like this in a game. Ever. The soundtrack and atmosphere were almost perfect, and this is one of the most graphically impressive games on the PS3. And of course, the characters, I don't think a game has ever made you really care about a cast like this, you're right there with their triumphs and failures, and it can be devastating when one of them dies.

But most surprising is that the action sequences are far more intense than in any "action" game I've ever played. There's one shootout that is far more memorable than any similar scene any FPS studio could ever hope to match. From all angles, "immersive" is really an understatement when it comes to Heavy Rain.

It isn't all without problems, though. There's a glitch that has not been addressed where your game can freeze and you will not be able to load it up afterwards. Since you can't create backup copies of your save file, this is absolutely a game breaker. We were unfortunate enough to have it happen right at the end, after keeping all characters alive. On a second playthrough which we were really just trying to get back to where we were at, we weren't able to experience it how you really are on a single playthrough and it can potentially kill the experience. It's something that should have been addressed before launch and there's really no excuse for it to still be happening.

Other than that, though, I feel like video games have finally grown up. This is a game that shows you can have a great story with solid characters, and you don't need a fantasy setting, or some kind of repetitive gameplay template to keep the player's attention. It's a pretty big turning point in the medium and I'm glad I got to experience it.