Playing the first chapters a few times did give me the opportunity to try doing things in different ways, but there are some things that you have to do to progress. That is to say, there are some parts that are fairly linear and required, such as the "tutorial" parts in the first scene that are intended to familiarize you with the control "prompts" and how to treat the different ones. For instance, one type of prompt means that you are simply supposed to press the indicated button, while another means you are supposed to press the indicated button repeatedly and still another means that you should
slowly push the button (or move the indicated analog stick) in order to perform actions that require precision. For example, one such precision action is when you are shaving. (That's right, kids... shaving!) If you move the analog stick too fast, you'll nick yourself. Mind you, if you intentionally make him nick his face repeatedly (because you can), he won't get all bloody and bleed out in his bathroom sink or anything, but you can't get past the shaving part until you master two well-controlled and precise strokes. Once you make a couple of appropriate strokes, the game takes over for a bit, until you have to shave in a different direction, then you have to do that, too. Before the game will allow you to get dressed (before it's even an option), you will have to complete such daring acts as shaving, showering (where man-butt takes center stage, but frontal nudity is avoided in a way that feels like it fell straight out of
Austin Powers. Yeah, baby!) You can even make him urinate in the toilet, something totally original and not at all done already in a
Duke Nukem game back when they actually were released. Sadly, though, if you care about hygiene, you'll want to pee
before you take your shower, because there's no option to use the sink after using the toilet. This is a symptom of one of
Heavy Rain's issues: it's somewhere between an interactive movie and a game, allowing you to do some things that are outside of the mostly linear plotline, not allowing you to stray very far or, in the case of using the toilet, not necessarily letting you take even obvious "follow-up" actions that would seem completely rational, but wouldn't advance the story. Other things, that might not be things you want to do, are required to advance the story. This can be confusing and, well, frustrating. Also, some of the things you can do advance the story and are mandatory (no matter how much time you take, you won't proceed until you do that action), while other actions are essentially timed events and even if you're trying to do them, if you take too long, the story is affected. As an example, in the first scene, when your wife asks you to fetch the dishes and says they're in the living room cupboard, I said I'd get them, then immediately went outside to play with the kids, not even noticing where she eventually fetched them from on her own. In a subsequent play-through, I told her I would fetch them and then looked for them, not able to find them for some time. She was scolding me asking if I was going to get them or not and telling me where they were as I searched for them in desperation. After some time, I found the living room cupboard (in the dining room - go figure) and retrieved the dishes and put them out on the table. Mind you, it wasn't as quick as all that; there were analog stick movements to make to open the cabinet and to precisely and carefully place the plates on the table... these things take time.
