Heavy Rain

[Syn13]

"How far would you go to save someone you love?"

Yup, playing through this game at the moment with my bro. About half way through and my buddy already has done things way differently than us so atleast the 22 possible endings are starting to play out now.

Oh yea, basically this game is about an serial killer that kidnaps children and on the fifth day, their bodies turn up and they all have been drown to death with a origami by the body thus the "Origami Killer" case.
This game is pretty unique considering it combines quicktime events like Shenmue and Indigo Prophecy(Fahrenheit) which choices that will decide the outcome of the game. The player takes control of 4 characters all involved in the case; Ethan, a father who has his child kidnapped needs to go through some crazy tests to save his son, Shaun. Shelby, a private eye looking into the case. Madison, who has been dragged into the events of Ethan's tests and a FBI agent, Norman Jayden.

This game is totally rated 17+ with brief nudity, swearing and some disturbing scenes much like one scene that reminded me of the SAW movies:

Spoiler: There's a scene where Ethan has to prove that he loves his son but cutting off one of his fingers infront of a camera. The scene pretty much has a whole bunch of "things" to take off your finger. I believe I picked up scissors, knife, hack saw, axe and other various "things". This scene was unbelievably creepy where you have to build the nerves to actually chop your finger off and it was a workout since there was a combination of buttons to hold then tap X rapidly to "chop". Did I mention that there's a 5 minute time limit to this? Yeah, that's another problem, instead of using the disinfectant or drink some booze, I used a metal pole that I heated up ahead of time to close up the wound...

This game is kinda slow at the beginning but it totally builds up for the characters! Recommended, they also included a piece of pre-printed paper to fold the origami figure found by the bodies~

[Slaigar]

I preordered Heavy Rain in January not knowing what it was. I only started checking stuff out for it on release day. When I picked it up and started playing, I was like "Really, I have to shower and shave him?...." haha. But that level got me used to the controls, so I guess it wasn't so bad going through all the tasks.

I'm probably half-way through the game now. Taking it chapter at time (really got to stretch it out! It has to keep me busy til FFXIII!). Really loving the pacing and development. I got my suspicion of the killer already . Hopefully I'll figure out by the end of this week!

[Syn13]

The mom! Nah I'm kidding lol!
The game is awesome and I'm trying not to spoil myself by going to gamefaqs~

Folded the origami, cool!

[Slaigar]

The mom! Nah I'm kidding lol!
The game is awesome and I'm trying not to spoil myself by going to gamefaqs~

Folded the origami, cool!

Ah god, that was my suspect. I'm farther in and I think I can cross her off my list now. I was going to go slow... but I had a good 3 hour session this morning. The story is moving on its momentum and it has me hooked. I passed the part in your spoiler! It made sqeamish. However, the one that might give me nightmares is :

Spoiler: Doctor Death. That scene was done well. It disturbed me and had me on my toes. The sound of the electric drill will echo in my mind for a while.

I'm a few chapters past that now. With how fast everything is progressing, I might be near the finale.

I'm avoiding gfaqs, too. There has already been too many game endings spoiled for me by their forums! Not going to ruin this one!

[Syn13]

Oh man, my brother and I are approaching that part now! You can read my spoiler too, I think you're a couple of chapters ahead~

What the hell?? Did you get to the part where...

Spoiler: Scott and Lauren went to his buddy's clock repair shop? If you did, read on.

Spoiler: I thought I got rid of all my finger prints!! 2 phones, all the liquor related items, the wind up thing Lauren was looking at and the magnifying glass! I dunno, I have my suspicions of Scott, maybe it was the situation of being branded a murderer but he didn't seem to want to take the names of people with the type writer for some reason...Could he be in on it?

Yes I had to play an extra scene...I got caught using Ethan and Madison trying to get to the subway platform do no Doctor scene....My friend was telling me about that scene............Excited to see how creeped out we'll be when we play it!

Can't play me own story yet since PSN is screwing with people who have the older PS3s and are getting booted out of Heavy Rain and PS3 right now....time and dates are wrong too since my PS3 thinks it's in the year, 1999...? Just waiting for my PSN being able to log on and getting a message from a user named Origami Killer lol.

[Arcturus]

Just curious, does the game require an internet connection, in order to play it or to receive emails from the killer?

From your descriptions the game sounds interesting. Probably won't get it though, since I am rarely home long enough
to play a game on our PS3. So it is just PC for me.

[Syn13]

Nah, it's just that the game connects to the internet for the trophy feature or something like that which is why people with the older PS3s(like me) are having trouble playing it at the moment. The game has no internet features except for DLC.

So it's not the games fault but Sony's because they screwed up something lol.

[Onegai]

"How far would you go to save someone you love?"

Great box art. Rare these days.

[Slaigar]

Beat the game a few days ago. It was a good ride! I thought I definitely knew who the killer was... wrong again haha. The finale had me on my toes. I felt that things closed off well and can't wait to see what they got in store for DLC (still haven't played the Taxidermist yet... better get to it). There better be some more Jayden in the future, he was my favourite character.

Syn: On the clock shop scene

Spoiler: I had to play through it several times before I finally remembered all the stuff. Should be: magnifying glass, both telephones, drinking glasses, ballet dancer thing, and the front door! The front door was the one I missed. Also, the window and bathroom if you managed to touched those.

If you get to the scene where Madison confronts the killer.

Spoiler: Apparently you can survive the explosion by hiding in the fridge. I'm gonna try that next time haha. And your suspicions are dead on. Can't believe I didn't pick up on his quirks throughout the game.

I actually got caught on the subway. I blame the clunky controls and the character not turning when there was a wide open spot! Then I just reloaded and tried again haha.

[Syn13]

Oops my bad, I think I may have mentioned the Taxidermist in this game but it's actually the DLC...ugh stupid!
It might have been the front door for the clock repair shop as well, tried to dust off everything in the office in the back(window obvious). Yeah, my brother and I have finished our game and we got the happy ending but Jayden didn't seem to get such a good one, if you played like me, then you probably got the same ending:

Spoiler: Jayden becomes the person who solves the case but he starts see Ari-like mini tanks rolling around his desk

So there was another way to get Madison out of the apartment on fire then? First thing I went straight for was the:

Spoiler: fridge with the giant "FRIDGE" logo on it lol

Atleast the quicktime scenes are very forgiving, I think the most I messed up was 3 tries and I still got to go on.

[Slaigar]

Jayden kind of got the "happy-but-not-really" ending. I didn't take tripto in any of the scenes, so I thought he would get a ending where he cleaned up. But not clean enough apparently! Poor Jayden might go crazy in the future. I liked his ending still haha.

I played whatever I thought would get me the good ending; got everyone to the finale + did all the trials (lizard trial... good god..). I'm curious about the other endings now. Took a glance at Gfaqs for the trophies and there is one interesting one I want to do later:

Spoiler: Perfect Crime (Gold) Clean Manfred's shop of evidence + Let Lauren, Hassan and Kramer die + kill Madison and Jayden + Origami Killer free

Might be a while til I get back to Heavy Rain. I'll take a break from it and go catch up on my manga pile. And FFXIII is out tomorrow (yay!)

[Syn13]

Got MAG so I'm kinda busy with that as well as Valkyria Chronicles. Good god, after VC, happy to have kept that Selvaria Bles figure pre-order now~

I want to see the bad ending involving Jayden and Blake!

lol I love the origami that came with the game, everyone notices it after seeing Heavy Rain!

[MrDisco]

i'm a little late to the party and only cracked open my copy last week. i finished it over the course of the week (albeit set on easy). I'm going to have to disagree with people here and say I was disappointed. But first the good:

- interesting story. Who dun it? are always fun to see how they unfold (no pun intended). the game held me just so I could find out who the killer was
- I like the idea of playing different characters to get different view points on the plot
- very linear and forgiving making it easy for casual gamers
- Madison has got a butt that just wont quit The hottest set of polygons I've seen in a while

What I disliked:
- I think calling this a video game is just wrong. A Choose Your Own Adventure or Interactive Movie would be a much better description.
- there is no replay value here unless you're the obsessive type who must have all the different trophies
- plot holes?

Spoiler: They never explained why Ethan blacks out and ends up on a different street with an origami figure in his hand. Also when Madison is told the name of the brother she reacts as though it was something super duper shocking. I don't think she ever knew Scott prior to the ending

- 2 of the 4 characters never really intersect.

Spoiler: i was hoping to see the 4 leads converge into an explosive ending

- the graphics were really sub-par
- solidly linear. i found it annoying that you can't go back, or if you miss an action it's gone forever
- the premise was rather stupid

Spoiler: my father was a jerk so i'm going to kidnap and kill kids until i find a better dad

-

Spoiler: Sex using QTE is a mood killer. I'm just sayin'

$50-$70 (during it's release) for a linear interactive movie is far too expensive in my opinion. I'll have to do a better job of not buying games blindly next time around.