Experience a gripping psychological crime thriller filled with innumerable twists and turns, where even the smallest actions and choices can cause dramatic consequences. The hunt is on for the Origami Killer.
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Heavy Rain is the latest game from David Cage and his Quantic Dream studio. Details around the game remain shrouded in secrecy, for now, but for those in the know, Quantic Dream shouldn't be ignored. Their previous games, Omikron: The Nomad Soul (Dreamcast) and Fahrenheit (Xbox and PS2) have both been epic adventures for the game player, often getting them involved in a heavily emotional story that they won't forget in a hurry.
Little is known about the game so far, only that the game revolves around a Father and the love for his son. The game's name is subtitled "The Origami Killer" and the game's Tagline "How far would you be prepared to go to save someone you love?" suggests that one can the game is going to involve the need for players to make some heavy decisions in order to stop the killer.
From previous games we know it's likely that the story is going to unfold from various points of view, there's a poster in circulation for the game which shows four names at the top like a movie poster, likely then that these will be the main characters, Norman Jayden, Scott Shelby, Ethan Mars and Madison Page. It's been reported that when one of the characters dies in the game another character will come into play, the events of the other characters death will affect the gameplay from that point depending on how the character should die. This is similar to the way Fahrenheit operated, in that game you took control over different characters at different times, your actions as one character could and would affect the others in various ways. Indeed many of the gameplay elements from Fahrenheit seem to be evident in Heavy Rain from the brief teaser movies we've seen of the game so far; free movement in the third person for the most part and cutting to quick time events (pressing the appropriate button when prompted) for the action sequences.
Quantic Dream have been developing this game for a long time now; it was first announced at E3 in 2006 where a technical demo showing the game engine was used to show a short movie, directed by David Cage called "The Casting". The demo was shown so early that not even the final PlayStation 3 console was used to show it off and it wasn't playable, just a concept for the technology the game was going to be using. In the movie the little known actress Aurélie Bancilhon was motion captured to the point of every single facial expression, real time tears and wrinkles were rendered upon her face allowing you to even see the characters pupils dilate. The game also utilises the NVIDIA PhysX engine which controlled the hair in the showcase, impressive stuff indeed. The co-CEO of Quantic Dream, Guillaume de Fondaumière has said that the game characters will be Virtual Actors in the games arena capable of expressing a huge variety of emotions. The Casting itself did not show off any of the game at the time, just the actress sat in the room taking a casting call for the game running through a script to show off varying emotions as necessary.
The trailers that are coming out for the game now are highlighting these emotions, some showing signs of peace and tranquility and then cutting back to violent fight scenes, putting these into any kind of context at the moment is nearly impossible. The latest trailer seems to show a happy family broken apart and highlights the words; Love, Guilt & Redemption. Compelling words indeed mixed with an interesting narrative, ending with "Everything I did, I did for love." It certainly leaves you wanting more, that's for sure.
