In my last article I talked about one of my favorite games; Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. This time I want to discuss another one that is exclusive to the Playstation 3, Heavy Rain. I followed this game for a long time leading into its release. It was first shown at E3 2006 in a tech demo called The Casting. It was built on an unfinished version of the Playstation 3 development kit. Running in 720p definition, this video showed graphics, movement, and in the first real good attempt; emotion. Not some constipated facial changes like in Final Fantasy X and Metal Gear Solid 2 having vocal changes but everyone always seems to have a frustrated look on their faces. The Heavy Rain prototype- The Casting (as it's called on the Heavy Rain disc as an extra) shown facial animations using motion-capture. It shows tears running down her face. The actress cast was Aurélie Bancilhon and her likeness was used to create Mary Smith for the final game, she was recast into the character, Lauren Winters; a prostitute who's child was a victim of the Origami Killer. Okay, I think we have covered the history of Heavy Rain and its ground-breaking graphics, which are better in the final version of the game.
The prologue to Heavy Rain, starts with a tutorial to teach controls and set the scene as Ethan Mars waking up. This teaches the controls used the whole game with simple things, shower, shaving, working as an architect as he does a home drawing. Then his wife and children come home, a bit of playing and its Jason's (son A) birthday. Shaun (son B) is missing, upstairs he is crying over his dead bird. Nice foreshadowing for the next chapter when Jason runs off in the mall and gets hit by a car. Fast forward some time, to Ethan picking up Shaun from school and going home, then the park, this whole time Ethan is acting weird at any sight of anything dealing with the Origami Killer, a mysterious serial killer targeting children. Ethan blacks out and wakes up holding an origami figurine. Now, I don't want to rant on about this opening when there is so much to cover, but at the park, Ethan has a blackout and wakes up down the street with a figure, Shaun is gone. Shaun is the next child kidnapped by the origami killer. Heavy Rain is a great story driven through quick-time events and narrations from the character you are in control of at the time doing an internal monologue. Depending on your choices and actions, you may or may not rescue Shaun, the killer may get away or be killed, (don't think he can be caught) and any or all of the protagonists driving the story may be killed.
Now, what Heavy Rain does unlike any other game that may try this form of interactive story telling, like those on the DS such as Trauma Center and Ace Attorney, is if a character dies, the story just skips their sections of story and removes their future interactions. The most noticeable is Madison Paige's death as she mostly has interactions with Ethan. The only problem is that adds some replay value to the game upon completion, but not enough. The choices and consequences was a great idea on paper, but sadly did not meet even my low, but hopeful, expectations. The killer is not revealed until late in the game, (obviously) and any person in the game universe is potentially the killer. Problem is, is that it is always the same person everytime, no matter the choices or deaths in the game. This was a let down, not a game breaker, but still, a point where you can look at something and say "It could have been better". Then there are some things that was in the original product but edited. Videos of these have recently surfaced, showing a few things that would have answered questions that were left unanswered. The biggest being that Ethan was subconsciously folding the origami figures during his blackouts and seeing the drowned children. Those of you reading saw the first paragraph and thought "Oh wow, this is a crucial plot element". Yes, you are right, but sadly its an element the developers just thought, "lets not talk about that and hope they forgot it, yes?". No, don't leave a massive thing like that open to us, or why Madison suffers from insomnia putting her in the hotel when she meets Ethan. Then the nightmare before that that ends (early if you miss to many quick times) with her getting her throat slit in her bathroom. Why does she fear the night? Why do hotels make it easier to sleep? Whom is the guy she talks to on her headset in her helmet? We get a name but no story, just that he's a "contact", does that mean she's cheating on him with Ethan or are they just friends? (Not an important topic, but hey, while we're throwing a list together, just add more fodder to the fire, right?) Here is the biggest question: throughout the game, Norman, the FBI profiler, suffers from a Triptocaine habit. How did this happen? Then a lot of speculation on internet forums is that the ARI glasses is what causes the shakes and nosebleeds, the Triptocaine just puts them to rest temporarily. This theory holds water due to the fact that refusing to take it and using the ARI during the "Solving the puzzle" mission can cause Norman to flat out die right there at his desk. But! This is also false, because he can overdose in one of the endings. More unanswered questions added to an interactive drama that could otherwise be an instant hit in theaters and rumor has it that a company has picked up the rights to make a movie for it.
As always thanks for reading and I was going to do my next article on Survival Horror as a genre, but wanted to do Heavy Rain first due to a few points that will fit in greatly, but one in specific. Also, I would like to give some recognition to Wikipedia, for Mary/Lauren's actress' name and about the possible movie, also I want to thank Escapist Magazine for posting the videos of the edited out answers to the figures. Thanks everyone ^_^
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