The voice acting itself is uneven. Taken in isolation, the voice performances can sound stilted at times, perhaps because English is not the first language for some of the actors. But the motion-capture work and facial animations are expressive, detailed and impressively emotive. The music and sounds, too, are incredibly important in creating the chilling sense of dread and foreboding that is Heavy Rain’s stock in trade.

Image An F.B.I profiler, left, and Ethan Mars, a father, in Heavy Rain. Credit... Sony Computer Entertainment Sony Computer Entertainment

The overall presentation draws heavily, even reverentially, from the visual and storytelling vernacular of film. Mr. Cage has clearly gleaned from movies like “Rear Window,” “Eyes Wide Shut” and “Blue Velvet” that a major part of creating intimacy lies in cinematography. Many third-person games (where you see your character on screen rather than inhabiting it from a first-person perspective) are shot from a sort of top-down angle. That view gives the player a more tactical sense of the environment but often does not create a strong sense of immediacy.

Most of Heavy Rain, by contrast, is portrayed from virtual cameras at ground level, at the same height as the characters or even below them. As in most films, you can never quite see an entire room at once, and so you are never quite sure in what direction the action will unfold. And as in films, there are a lot of moving-camera shots from behind in which the player is never quite sure whether the camera is supposed to represent someone skulking or stalking.

There are even moments when the game just lets you rest, as when Ethan sits hunched and morose on the balcony of his seedy motel room, staring off into the rain, conflict and pain drawn all over his body.

In its exploration of the psychology of the sociopath, Heavy Rain owes more than a bit to novelists like Thomas Harris (“The Silence of the Lambs” and “Hannibal”). Perhaps the most interesting element of the story is that the emotional weight of Heavy Rain is almost entirely bound up in Ethan’s sense of responsibility for his sons. For the player, the game hangs on your concern for children. Within Heavy Rain’s considerably bleak landscape, there is even a moving scene in which all you do is change an infant’s diaper, feed her and put her to bed.