Heavy Rain Demo

I got a chance to play the Heavy Rain demo. A new psychological thriller/mystery game, from Quantic Dream, creators of the Indigo Prophecies, Heavy Rain is an interesting game built around a serial killer known as the 'Origami Killer'. The game has you play as 4 different characters, all relating, in some way, to the killer.

On to the demo. The demo allows you to play two scenes. First scene is with a Private Detective, Shelby. It first drops you in as Detective Shelby, looking for a girl named Lauren, whose son was a victim of the Origami Killer. What first seemed like tedious events, the game uses the right-stick and face buttons to perform tasks. The very first thing you do, is tilt the stick left to open a car door. Then you move with the R2 button and tilting the left stick. It takes some getting used to, but it's not that difficult. Small tasks, like searching for an inhaler, seem like wastes of time, but it REALLY gets you immersed in the character. One such event, (after finding the girl) has you in a huge asthma attack and you're patting your coat trying to find your inhaler. Because I was so immersed, I felt tense just trying to find it.

Combat in the game is all based on QTEs (quick timing events), like "hit X now" or you have 2 seconds to hit Triangle. While this seems not-that-great, it's actually quite fun, and in these earlier stages, it wasn't much of a challenge, though I did mess up once or twice. The best part, (I believe) is that you can mess up these events without facing a "Game Over" screen. The effects of messing up do play a part on cinematic, how much story you get, etc. i.e. In a fight, I first kicked ass, but took a couple punches. The cinematic that followed shows my character with a cut on his head and a slightly bleeding nose, and my character was acting all tough like he kicked ass (because he did).  Next play-through of the demo, I wanted to see what happened if I lost. I purposely got the shit kicked out of me. Failed all the events and let some time-out. My character was battered and bruised and bleeding out both nostrils and talking like he got the shit kicked out of him. And just when I thought it couldn't get cooler, he walked with a limp for the rest of the scene. Now THAT is awesome.

The next scene is more on the investigative side, with FBI agent Jayden investigating a fresh crime scene left by the killer. He uses these glasses that can trace DNA in blood samples, collect pollen from the air, check on tire tracks for make and model of cars, etc. Upon first arriving to the scene, you again, get out of a car and check it out.Small actions like pulling out your badge, pushing down to get under police tape get you into the scene faster than anything. I ended up playing through this scene twice as well. The first time, I found a few clues with the awesome glasses, like blood splatters, pollen and various details about the victim. Talked to who I needed to talk to and I only had one option left to say and that was "I'm leaving, see you back at the office." So I figured I was done. Short scene, took about 5 minutes.

Then I played it again. I payed REALLY close attention to things, and found a new area, an area that had clues like the killers tires and where he dragged the body to and from, and his footprints, all this stuff I missed the first time. Just goes to show that this game will have replay value, and a lot of it.

Lastly, they include a trailer for the game that you can only see in the Demo release....and holy crap, it's amazing. This is going to be an intense game...Really intense.