I just finished the game tonight and have finally been able to peek into this thread! Ack, there is so much to discuss.

Steerpike, your first post mirrors a lot of my thoughts and complaints. The QTEs didn't turn out to be that annoying, but some of them were just hard to see. And I played the game on a 42″ television in 1080p HDMI goodness. I don't have 20/20 vision, mind you, but shit… I found myself squinting a lot.

There is so much positive and negative about this game I don't know where to begin. I think the negative is very obvious and has been touched on mostly, so I'll go with the good stuff. I liked the "mature, adult" story as it's been touted. Heavy Rain may indeed not even be a video game in the sense we're accustomed to, but it was a nice breather from other genres, and although some points in the narrative are lacking it seems evident that the people at Quantic Dream poured their hearts into this, and I applaud that. Heavy Rain is unapologetic about what it is: a story about how far you would go to save someone you love.

My take on the characters. I didn't come into the game with much knowledge about the story itself so I didn't realize there would be one main protagonist; I thought it would be a lot more even, but I understand Ethan had to be the main focus for reasons obvious. Ethan's voice acting (like a lot of the others) was often painful to listen to, but his was one where I found myself excusing this because I genuinely began to empathize with his character during the "two years later" scene where he picks up Shaun and you learn his life has obviously crumbled. So many of his scenes were just crushing, and I found him much more powerful than the other characters. Unfortunately I feel like so many loose ends were left with him, possibly because for me he died in the last scene of the game.

Norman was fine; nothing special about his character or motives, he did just seem like the token "good cop who cares" guy. That said, I found his ARI device one of the coolest parts of the game, which served to break up and slow down the story quite well in certain parts. He turned out to be the hero of my game by throwing Mr. Shelby into the industrial human grinder. Well, he didn't really throw him, actually he tried to save him and apparently failed. After seeing this end battle play out, and I pretty much aced the QTEs, I wonder how it could have played out differently without Scott dying?

Madison was okay too; I found her voice one of the few that wasn't embarrassing throughout the game, at least. Her motives were suspect at best… how she happens to stumble across Ethan in the shithole motel and then basically drop her own life for him, it seemed unrealistic. It doesn't surprise me though, as I think we're still in a time where women are mainly thrown into video games for male pleasure, which is a shame and undermines the supposed "maturing industry." I think the Madison scene that had my heart pounding the most was actually her first, the dream sequence. Not knowing at the time it was a dream I was actually in shock at how violent the fight with the two burglars was becoming; I don't know if the intention of this scene was to invoke fear, but if that was then it was done well. We're so used to seeing men killing each other in video games that this scene of a woman being beaten up and in danger for her life really had me on the edge of my seat; it was intense and frightening. She was the slowest character to form, probably due to the fact that she's hardly involved in the first half of the game, but I did start to attach to her somewhat after the extremely awkward (like Mat C said, mostly due in part to the limited animation capabilities and Ethan's gruesome wounds) love scene. At that point I basically had to accept that she cared about saving the boy, so I went along with it.

Last but not least ….. the surprise killer, Scott Shelby. I'm with you on this, Steerpike: where the fuck did that come from? I mean, you had to expect some sort of twist… what with Ethan's blackouts I was sure that we were either bound to find him finally remembering all his horrible crimes in some endgame dramatic montage scene; that or the other twist that his recollections prove his innocence, but no, neither of those: that plot line just goes unresolved (at least in my game)!  But this….. I was just in disbelief. Forget undermining the story itself, this just plain makes absolutely no sense. Why the hell did he do all that investigating and thinking to himself about catching the origami killer? Surely not to go to such lengths as providing a hooker and suicidal mom and rich party kid with some half-baked alibi about his own character?

I definitely can say I enjoyed the game, and I will go back again to see what I could have done differently, but Scott Shelby as the killer just baffles me. His motives are weak, he must have been wearing one hell of a spandex under-suit in the fight scene with Jayden, and not to mention… did I forget something about the clock shop scene? I believe I was in control of Scott the entire time, and I do not remember bludgeoning the poor shopkeep to death?

So there you have it. I even got a trophy called "So Close" and the description says it was awarded to me for getting all my characters to the final scene … and failing. Ha ha ha. Better luck next time. I don't know where I failed exactly? I suspect that Madison falling over on her bike and getting put in the back of the police cruiser had something to do with it. Norman fought Scott and won, causing Scott to tumble into the grinder of death, while Ethan saved Shaun, but then decided to walk out the front gates of the place and look suspicious by putting his hand in his pocket? Idiot.

But quite an emotional ending … another son without a father. 

I'm glad the carpet wasn't completely pulled from under me only to reveal my dead son Jason as the killer, ha ha.

I'd love to hear more thoughts on the game from anyone else who has finished it.

The exact same thing happened to me! First I undid my own seatbelt, then I saw a "shaking" control movement over Lauren, and I thought a split second about doing that, assuming it was to wake her up? Instead I started kicking open the door, only to swim past Lauren and leave her for dead?!? I was in total shock... the game really didn't do a good job there of making you realize you had to do something very specific to save her life. Not even a thought out loud like I should really wake Lauren up before I flood the car with lake water. Alas, she was no more. I'm definitely interested to see how her story would have played out had she escaped the car... would she live long enough to discover Scott as the killer? Maybe she would find herself in the same situation as Madison; or perhaps just be forgotten by Scott completely... who knows.

But agreement on the next scene, too. That was amazing. Scott's accuracy with a pistol was inhuman; if he were a random henchman in a 007 film the franchise would have ended with Bond's death long ago.

One last thing I forgot to mention: was that rich kid (I already forget his name? Gordi? Or was that his father? anyway...) not the most wretched voice acting you have ever heard? It was all over the place, up and down, creepy, then pedophilic, then angry, then creepy again. Oh, and the poor kids on the construction site, too. That was some pretty struggled Americanizing of wee French lads.

Oh excellent stuff Botch. I loved Heavy Rain, it was a defining experience for my girlfriend and I this gen. We played it in tandem separately and exchanged stories when we completed it, and with very different outcomes as well.

Jayden died in my playthrough at the hands of Mad Jack. I slipped taking his drugs and ended up in a car crusher which reminded me of the scene in Superman III where Clark gets dropped into one; it terrified me as a kid and here it was no different. The noise Jay makes as he's being minced in metal will stay with me forever. His story ended right there with Mad Jack grinning in the background. My girlfriend clearly remembers my reaction and I wouldn't tell her what had caused it because we agreed to steer clear of any spoilers till we were both finished.

When I discovered it was Shelby it made sense because in the flashback the little boy can be heard wheezing. A very nice touch.

I spent a very long time deciding whether to take the poison or not, sat in the chair in the corner of the room. In the end I walked out. I can't remember the reason why, it was something to do with Ethan going through so much only to throw it away by drinking some poison. That didn't wash with me.

That was my biggest criticism with Heavy Rain, the lack of context on certain interactions; some did totally different things to what you expected. Thankfully it didn't bother me too much but there were a couple of choices I made which weren't my intentions and that's a problem. If the UI had been clearer ('Put shoebox under bed' or 'Put shoebox on desk') those sorts of issues wouldn't exist.

The thing I loved most about it though was that it happily ditched so many game-y elements cutting straight to what the game was really about: the characters, the decisions and the consequences. It had the pace and direction of a good thriller but splintered depending on your choices, it was a cinematic and dramatic adventure book. Also, I liked that there were so many decisions that it wasn't clear which ones would come back to bite you in the ass, as such you treated every single one as if it mattered.