2010 is shaping up to be a potential classic year for gaming. The first three months of the year are already jammed with what look like must-have games. Mass Effect 2 I've already drooled over – and played for an hour, impressions soon - and Bioshock 2 is looking similarly enticing. But there is one other title due out in the first part of next year that looks equally tasty – Heavy Rain. The PS3 exclusive is nearing completion and judging by what I saw a few months ago and by the latest previews this is looking very impressive indeed.

Developed by French studio Quantic Dream, Heavy Rain is a heavily narrative-driven title that should appeal to gamers who want a slower paced, deeper gaming experience. That's the theory anyway. I played through Fahrenheit – the developer's previous title – and found it enthralling and exasperating in equal measures. The absorbingly atmospheric opening sequence in the diner sticks in the memory. Sadly so does the repetitive and often random deaths later in the game. Which way will Heavy Rain go? Judging by Eurogamer's preview things are looking good.

Heavy Rain isn't a mature game because it has unhappy families and moody lighting, it's a mature game because it anticipates an adult response from the player and is prepared to receive it.

But how does it actually play?

It's impossible to dismiss Heavy Rain as a sequence of "quick-time events" once you begin to play it; the extraordinary visuals, intriguing activities and mature way the game interprets and anticipates your actions transcend the traditional relationship between, say, Lara Croft and the pendulum blade the X button is designed to propel her away from during the heat of an in-engine cut-scene.

The conclusion suggests Heavy Rain is must-see at the very least.

Heavy Rain is racing through virgin territory before you have even finished learning how to steer it, and whether or not it proves to be

a great success, it already stands apart.

What do you think then? Excited by Heavy Rain? Buying a PS3 just to play it? Or are there already just too many good games being released in the early part of 2010?