Heavy Rain

Heavy Rain is an upcoming video game sporting a free storyline that adapts to the choices of the player. It's developed by French studio Quantic Dream for the PlayStation 3.

Overview

Heavy Rain: The Origami Killer is an upcoming video game, developed by French studio Quantic Dream for the PlayStation 3. The game is being directed by Quantic Dream's founder and CEO David Cage, who also wrote and directed the studio's two previous games, Omikron: The Nomad Soul and Fahrenheit also known as Indigo Prophecy in North America.

A demo is due to be released on Ferbruary 11th; however those who registered on the Official Heavy Rain Website had the oppurtunity to play the demo early.

Story

Norman Jayden, one of the game's main stars.

The game is said to have a very heavy focus on story and the story will be intended for mature audiences. There is a person going around killing people, seemingly at random, and whenever he does this, he leaves an origami crane in the palm of his victim's hand. The killer also covers his victim's faces in mud, and leaves orchids at the scene. The player controls one of four game's main characters to investigate and figure out, who is committing these atrocities. The first, Norman Jayden, is a profiler for the FBI. In the level we have seen, he is investigating from whom the Origami Killer bought a blue car that was used in one of his murders. In another section of the game, we see him investigate a murder scene at a railway line. His investigation leads him to believe that the culprit was the Oragami Killer. The second character, Madison Paige, is a reporter also looking for the Origami Killer. We see her in a dance club, where she believes the owner may know something that can help her with her investigation. The third character is an ex-cop in his late-50's, Scott Shelby, now working as a private detective. He has been hired by the families of the Origami killer's victims to find the killer, as the police don't seem to be making any progress. He has asthma, which does play a role in the game. At certain points the player will need to perform certain actions using the analogue sticks and buttons to reach for and use his inhaler. Scott Shelby has made an appearance in the demo, where we see him exploring an apartment block searching for the mother of Johnny, a recently murdered child. He is also the character featured in the demo's tutorial. The last character is Ethan Mars, an architect living alone with his son after his other son dies in a car accident and his wife leaves him in the beginning at the game. One of the game play elements with Ethan will be to choose whether you take care of your surviving child or not, the choice is up to the player and nothing is mandatory. A child abduction will be an important story element, and Ethan's son may be the victim of that crime. It has been revealed that Ethan will be "tested" by the origami killer throughout the game. One section sees Ethan being forced to cut off his own finger in less than five minutes, during one of these tests, as he is asked 'are you prepared to suffer to save your son?'

Gameplay

Although at first glance, it may seem like a Dragon's Lair type of game, the developers have expressly stated that at almost no point in the game is the control of the character taken away from the player. The player often has direct control of the character, and can walk around at will within a set area using the R2 Button and Left Analogue Stick. There are almost no cinemas to watch. There will be an investigation portion to the game, where the player can freely search anywhere he or she thinks they might find a hidden clue. Such a portion is playable in the demo. The player must investigate the scene of a murder as Norman Jayden. There is another portion of the game that uses QTEs, mostly during fast paced action sequences, and this is used to create immersion. The QTEs however are not static images prompting button presses, but rather, they are worked into the environment. At times multiple buttons will appear on screen which allow you to choose more than one event to occur and give you a choice that immediately affects the outcome. The quick time events will use every button on the PS3 controller as well as its Sixaxis functionality. At cetain points in the game, the player will be required to press a succession of buttons, holding down the previous button(s) as they press the next. There are many parallels that can be drawn between Heavy Rain and the Sega Dreamcast exclusive game Shenmue. Both are adventure games by nature and have long deep narratives to them. Heavy Rain shares aspects of exploration, character interaction, and Quick Time Events [QTE] that make up most of the criteria of Yu Suzuki's ambitious FREE game genre.

Dialogue trees are heavily featured within the game.

Can you stop that thing?

At any point in the game, the character you are controlling can die if you make a bad decision, however, there is no game over screen. If a character you control dies, then he or she will remain dead and the investigation will continue from another character's perspective. The game is also being praised for its high-quality graphics.

Dave Cage has gone on record saying there will be no supernatural events in Heavy Rain.

Development

Development of Heavy Rain began in February of 2006 and was announced at E3 2006, at which it was a tech demo called "The Casting". The game was originally for PC and there was planned to be two separate releases of the game for computers equipped with the appropriate physics processing unit and one without it. Some of the physics were made using PhysX, the demo

Heavy Rain Poster featured on the games Development page.

shown at E3 also showed the use of AGEIA technology.

Note worthy features of the casting are full body motion capture along with full facial motion capture, wrinkles on faces, real time tears, advanced rendering features, and advanced skin shaders. The demo showed technology enabling pupil dilation and dynamic hair with physics. The game engine supports full real time post-processing. The facial motion capture was captured using a Vicon MX40 camera with an enhanced muscle system

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Game Name	Heavy Rain
Platform(s)	PlayStation 3
Publisher(s)	Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
Developer(s)	Quantic Dream
Genres	Add a new genre Action Adventure
Themes	Add a new theme Crime
Original US Release	Feb. 23, 2010 need a fuzzy date?
Original US Release	February Q1 2010 know the real date?
Aliases	The Origami Killer
OFLC	OFLC: MA15+
BBFC	BBFC: 15
ESRB	ESRB: M
CERO	CERO: D

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