Shadow and Flame with Magik

Thanks to PlayStation for hosting the trailer!

I just completed my first playthrough for Heavy Rain!  There are so many twists and turns with the game.  I did foolishly take five months off from my previous attempt at the game, which really hurt me when it came time for Ethan to explain what Shaun was wearing the day the Origami Killer took him.  Since there is a trophy for providing the right information, I clearly didn’t get it right.

I will go back and get all of the other trophies but Beyond : Two Souls is demanding that I at least get one playthrough of that game done as well.

I did start a second one and I’m at the part where Ethan is trying to give Shaun a snack.  I was able to successfully stay on his schedule so this time, I can be a little more actual about it.

Heavy Rain is very similar to Until Dawn in that the decisions you make effect the rest of the game.  Heavy Rain came first, just to be clear, as it was a PS3 game.

We play as four characters.  Ethan, the father of Shaun.  Norman Jayden, an FBI agent assigned to the case that is working with the local police.  Jayden has a fancy pair of sunglasses that helps him at crime scenes, like a very mobile CSI lab.  It is the only real story element that isn’t realistic.  There is Scott Shelby, a retired cop turned Private Investigator who is working the case.  Then there is Madison Paige, a journalist who suffers from insomnia who gets involved with the case.

I really enjoyed all of the characters except maybe Jayden.  I liked him at first and then I sort of lost interest with him and his attitude while waiting at the police station and wanting to play a ball game using ARI.  Like, he wasn’t taking the case seriously enough for my taste.  He eventually got there but I would rank him low on the character list.  He gets paired with a police detective Blake who has been on the job too long.

Shelby is super lovable guy.  There is this one sequence where he has to change a baby’s diaper that he lost some points with me.  He just left a used diaper on a side of a counter!  What a monster!  I did spend an extra minute or two trying to throw it away in a proper trash container but the game wouldn’t let me.

Shelby also gets a partner at one point, Lauren, a mother of one of the previous Origami Killer’s victims.  I liked her too.

The voice and motion capture was pretty top notch, especially knowing it was a game that originally came out in 2010.  There is a kissing scene that was very uncomfortable to watch.  Like, I wanted to ship those two but there was a quick price to pay.  I mean, I get it, sometimes when passionately making out, sometimes lips don’t connect but I don’t think that was what was happening here.

Ethan is played by Pascal Langdale. He’s been in some shows but I haven’t personally seen any of them.

Madison is portrayed by two actresses.  Judi Beecher is Madison’s voice and facial actress and Jacqui Ainsley is her body.  Which makes me feel bad for Beecher but then Ainsley’s Wikipedia page gets redirected to Guy Ritchie’s page so neither of them is the clear winner.

I wished this version of the game came with the Taxidermist DLC so that we could have gotten more time with Madison.  Also it is a shame that the other characters’ planned DLC never got developed.

Sam Douglas is Scott Shelby.  Apparently he was King Herod on The History Channel’s The Bible miniseries which I really enjoyed but don’t have an image in my mind.

Which I typed and realized I live in a time when I can just see an image whenever I want.  That’s definitely Sam Douglas dressed as King Herod but that’s all I’m getting.  Douglas has bit parts in some pretty popular movies.  He was a cab driver in Eyes Wide Shut.  He was a Chief NY Cop in The Fifth Element.  He was a Kiev Room Agent in the first Mission : Impossible film.  He was also a lawyer in the 1989 Batman, but I can’t recall when a lawyer would be needed in that film.

He’s aged so well!  I bet he’s one of the outside peeps when Harvey Dent is giving a speech or . . . oh!  I bet he’s in the scene where Joker comes out stating he’s the new boss in town and Bruce Wayne is there and Vicki Vale is taking pictures in the distance.  That scene is discussing the change in power so lawyers would be there for that.  Next time I see the film, I’ll try to pay more attention.

Leon Ockenden is Norman Jayden.  Ockenden must have been the big get as he’s been in various television series that I think I recognize their names but he’s constantly working.

. . .

Like Until Dawn, there is a load of Quick Time Events (QTE).  This game has a lot more of them.  For the most part, I did okay with them and the game is pretty generous with allowing you to miss a few of them and still get the end result you wanted.  Well, except for twice with Norman.  One, I didn’t know R1 meant he would shoot a guy and he totally did!  Another, he was fighting the Origami Killer on top of a roof and I missed a few of the QTE but I must have missed more than two of them as Norman didn’t make it to the end of the game.

I got Norman killed and I also failed to save Lauren.  Lauren died to another QTE that I didn’t realize meant saving her or kicking a door open and I kicked the door open instead.

There was also a time with Norman when I was trying to read the two options, take the drug and don’t take the drug, but I had to read the options twice as they were swirling around the screen in a fast manner.  By not clicking either option, he ended up taking the drug, which I didn’t want him to do.

I did end up saving Shaun.  Ethan and Madison got together and the three of them live in a house together.  The Origami Killer did get away and is just walking the streets.

I did not see the twist of who the Origami Killer was.  At one point, Ethan suspects he has a split personality, and I had made my peace with that as Madison seemed cool with it.

The Origami Killer has poor Ethan go through five trials, and I only succeeded in two of them!  I did so horrible in the driving against traffic trial, I didn’t know which direction was a better one.

Also, the QTE that I did the worst with were the ones where I had to tilt the controller in a certain way.  At one point, Madison had to pick a lock and it took me forever to tilt the controller in all of the right directions.  I could have used less of those.

Ethan then had to crawl over glass and through an electrical maze.  I thought I did pretty well until I had to press several buttons that didn’t make sense.  Like, I had to hold Triangle, Square, X, and R1 and L2 but not in that sequence and I couldn’t get my fingers to go to each button faster enough or hold it in place long enough.  So Ethan had to go out the Coward! door.

Next, he had to cut off his finger and I could do that one, then he had to kill a drug dealer and I knew I was going to have him do that one as well.  The final one was to drink some poison and so I did that one like a champ as well.

That poor Ethan was put through the ringer in this game.  I started the game with Walker Dennis in the room and the game opens up two years ago with Ethan and I let Walker control the game.  Everything looked so peaceful.  Ethan took a shower, he walked around, and then his family came home.  Ethan played with Shaun and Jason (Jason!) outside for a time.

Then we got to the mall and I have to be real with you.  One of my biggest fears is Walker getting hit and being killed by a car.  I’m in a constant state of yelling at him to stay to a certain side of the van or to not run directing away from the van.  He’s horrible about looking both ways and also for listening while in a parking lot.  The whole thing isn’t ideal.

So there’s this moment when Ethan loses Jason! and both he and Jason! get hit by a car.  For a little bit after that, Walker Dennis listen pretty well in parking lots but that has since gone away.

When I started my second playthrough, Walker really didn’t want me to play the mall scene again so I turned it off and had to get pass that sequence later that night.  Which didn’t make me feel any better but at least that part of the game is over.

I didn’t get Lauren to open up to Shelby about her son the first time they meet.

I didn’t play two games with Shaun in the park or buy him candy.  I think I was still catching on to the game at that point.  I did play on the see saw but then went to the merry go round and then it all went to heck.

When Blake and Norman meet up with Ethan’s therapist, Norman put a stop to the beat down.

I failed to get Madison to help Ethan escape from the police.

I knew not to let Madison take the drink but I had her not drink earlier at the club so I figured I should play along this time but of course, that was the wrong decision to make.  Poor Madison, because she’s the female character, she gets some truly horrible sequences like her opening action sequence was super intense and I was legit concern about failing it at every turn.  So when I did miss a few QTE, I was super worried about what I was about to witness.

Shelby did not make a good omelet for Lauren.  It didn’t look good but I also was being confused by the QTE, so I kept turning off the stove instead of continuing cooking the eggs.  I could have really used a Triangle leads to Cooking, R1 leads to stopping, dialogue boxes on the screen.  I wouldn’t have mind that at all.  And if those words could be static on the screen too, that would be nice.

At the beginning of each new scene, you can listen to the characters’ thoughts and I would take advantage of it every time but too keep it interesting, the words/thought options kept bouncing around the screen.  So I spent more time thinking about reading the text or processing the text and movements and I would if it was just listed on a list that I could choose from.  I get that the thoughts are supposed to be hurried or jumbled but it would have been nice to not have been so busy.

In Beyond : Two Souls, I just got done with the birthday party and David Cage and Quantic Dream really perfected the interactions, QTE, and general movements.  PS Plus gave Beyond : Two Souls for free in May 2018 and then Heavy Rain was given for free two months later in July 2018.  I hadn’t really started playing Beyond at that point but when we got Heavy Rain, I knew I wanted to go in release order.  I had a hard enough time adjusting to the first Uncharted game after playing and loving Uncharted 2 so I knew to hold off until I played Heavy Rain.  I was also looking into just buying and downloading the digital copy of Heavy Rain and I no longer needed the combo disc that had both Heavy Rain and Beyond : Two Souls on it.

I’m reminded that my friend Jay attempted Fahrenheit, the game that came out before Heavy Rain.  It looked interesting and from what I read, it definitely sounds interesting but we were pretty lost in the opening scene, just trying to get out of the room.  I never really had that problem in Heavy Rain and these things are a bit of a process to figure out what works and what needs to be improved upon.

I, of course, had Ethan forgive Madison as I really liked them together.  I can already tell that my second playthrough is going to be a completely different game.  Which was how different my second and third playthroughs were like with Until Dawn.  I had did my blind playthrough and then I was determined to see what it was like to keep everyone alive, as I had foolishly let Jessica die due to me not having Mike take shortcuts.  I knew it was going to be essentially the same game up to Chapter Ten where I made sure Josh was going to live and Sam wasn’t going to flip the switch.  So my third playthrough, They All Died, was such a different experience.  Then I’ve done some other playthroughs were I wanted to see certain people make it or just chose all of the lesser options.  That’s where the real fun of these types of interactive games comes from, making different choices and seeing how it effects the overall game.  Sure, there will be a very noticeable spine to the game but not everything can be a Choose Your Own Adventure type of book that has 15 different options and endings.

Shelby’s investigation leads him to this big wig and his son.  At one point, there is this giant shoot out and I was doing so good but did get shot like three times.  It was pretty fun.  The main problem is that I never could predict the next button prompt.  It isn’t like Square is always a left hand motion or something like that.  This sequence was mostly R1 and L1 but then I start overthinking it.  Is the game just making me think it is these two buttons and then we have to start getting complicated?  I want to say there were R2 and L2 prompts too.  I was just in a mode of seeing the prompt, repeating it in my head, pressing the button.  I tried to slow myself down to ensure no mistakes but the game doesn’t really provide all that much time to process everything.  But then it doesn’t have a uniform prompt for items either so it is random every time, or that’s how it felt for me.

Then we finally get to the big wig’s office and he has a heart attack.  I so hated that guy that I grabbed his medicine and just walked out of the room.  I wasn’t going to risk him making his way over to the desk and getting his medicine.

I’m not sure if I’m good enough at this game to successfully complete all of Ethan’s trials.  I’ll definitely try my best but maybe I can do it.

There is also a sequence where Shelby has to dust all his and Lauren’s fingerprints and I completely forgot her touching the ballerina music box.  The scene has this intense music and sense of pending doom to get out of there quickly but now I wonder if I did have time to go around and be slow and get everything.

I just remembered another sequence with Shelby in a convenience store and I was surprised by a QTE and completely missed it.  So the robber noticed Shelby as we approached him.  We were able to talk the robber out of robbing the store and the clerk gave us a box that the Origami Killer gave to the clerk when he took the clerk’s son.

I will have to pay more attention to see how many origami pieces were in the box and how many fingers the clerk had.  I suspect that all five were in the box and he still had all ten fingers.  Ethan was clearly the stand out father.  Lauren’s husband isn’t in the picture anymore but I don’t recall if he just left or disappeared during the time.  The baby’s father definitely left after the older son was killed, leaving a cell phone behind.  I forget how many sons the Origami Killer has claimed but that’s at least four that we’re aware of and meet.  Lauren was part of the game I played during July so my horrible memory has lost part of the sense memory.

Overall, I really enjoyed myself and I can’t wait to get to my second playthrough again.  I just want a brief pause from the game.  So, I guess I can wait to get to my second playthrough but I’m excited by the prospect.