New Heavy Rain information coming to you live from GC08

By Mike

We’re seeing a closed demo of Heavy Rain: Origami Killer at Games Convention. Quantic’s David Cage is walking us through a huge part of the game that continues on from and includes scenes from yesterday’s video demonstration.

After the drop.

By Mike Bowden

• First Cage has told us that you only control the head and shoulders on the character, you just press a button to move forwards.
• The main character is investigating a series of disappearances and is going to the house of a taxidermist – hence the birds hanging in the ceiling in the video footage.
• Everything in the game is context sensitive, we are told.

• “Everything in the interface is design for emotion, to make you feel what your character feels,” said Cage.
• Then we’re shown some plot: your character finds some burnt clothes on the fireplace, she goes upstairs; floorboards are creaking. She smells something nasty. She turns, opens a door and finds a woman’s body in a bath tub.
• We are then told that the protagonist is in fact a journalist who is on the hunt for a story and after she inspects the house some more, she finds dead women strewn about the place stuffed like animals.
• All of a sudden the killer comes back. He’s this ugly, fat guy. She can’t get out, she’s trapped in the house.
• Then the game goes into split-screen: him advancing, her creeping around the house trying not to get caught. The killer then simply sits down and watches TV. Your character manages to get outside, escaping through the garage. She gets on a motorbike, and speeds off.
• More feature description now: you can use the Sixaxis to open windows and look through keyholes. In fact, everything you see “in the set” is interactive. You can sit anywhere, turn on the TV, open all the doors in the house – which incidentally was created by an architect who is part of the development team.
• We then see that self same scenario but showed differently. Instead of creeping in order not to be heard when the killer is in the house, she runs, thus making noise. The killer hears the creaking floorboard and reaches for a knife.
• He finds her and tries to stab her on the bed. You use QTEs to avoid attacks.
• She falls down the stairs. “I’m the big bad wolf,” howls the man. She tries to open the window. He chases her round the kitchen table.
• Your character manages to get out to the garage after running through the house. You again get on your bike and drive off. The killer walk back into the house and you hear a gun shot. End of the demo. Still more to come from Cage.
• Cage tells us you can use chainsaws and screwdriver to kill him. He could get arrested etc. Loads of possibilities. There are over 60 scenes like this, he says.
• “This is not GTA,” says Cage in a short Q&A. “This is not an open world”
• That’s it. We’re exhausted. That. Was. Awesome.