Most people will agree Heavy Rain is bad. The writing and performances are just dreadful, and the clunky interactive button-prompt cutscenes are incredibly awkward, prone to sinking any suspension of disbelief the game happens to build up on the way. Lots of people enjoy HR ironically, as a videogame equivalent to B-movies, something to be pushed to it's breaking point, and gawked at with friends. I know because that's what I did!

But, at the same time, I can't forget the experiences of my many friends who played the game on release and took it at face value, not really questioning the experience until years later when the game became a sort of meme. Were they too young to know a bad story when they saw it? Were the standards of AAA gaming so low in 2010 that a dud like Heavy Rain could be taken seriously? I mean, yes to both, but in playing it ironically I can't lie. There is value in the games pacing, its weird branching unpredictability, the finality of the choices. In 2010 it really was rare to find a tentpole game with so little padding content crunch, and such a grounded, personal story, even if the execution kind of flops.

Any playthrough of Heavy Rain will result in a LOT of laughter and confusion, but I think it deserves to be remembered as more than just a meme.