Immersion within Heavy Rain

McMahon defines three conditions that are necessary for immersion to truly occur in a game: "(1) the user’s expectations of the game or environment must match the environment’s conventions fairly closely; (2) the user’s actions must have a non-trivial impact on the environment; and (3) the conventions of the world must be consistent”  (pg. 68-69) Thinking about Heavy Rain, I have to agree.

In Heavy Rain, the game is set in a modern-day city, where the weather tends to be dreary.  While the exact location is never mentioned, possibly somewhere in the East Coast  (Philadelphia?), the expectation is that it is very similar to a real-life city.  To back up that point, you see cars moving about, people dancing in nightclubs, and officers working away, all of which are common occurrences in everyday life.  So when, for example, when Ethan's son Jason disappears at the mall, Ethan freaks out, just like we would.  This meets the first point.  

For the second point, Heavy Rain is realistic in that your actions can directly affect the game environment.  The characters you play as can actually die, something that is not a common occurrence in games.  

Finally, on the third point, the conventions of the game world remain consistent throughout the entire game.  Your character doesn't suddenly gain superpowers to fight to crime, or telepathic abilities to help him find his son.  You remain just a normal human being, searching desperately for his son, trying to keep him from being killed.