Heavy Rain wasn’t on the E3 show floor proper, but we did have access to the game in the closed-off “upstairs” area of the Sony booth. This area was guarded by men in sunglasses and dark suits with earpieces. No, seriously. You had to have a special pass to even access the area. And what were they hiding up there besides games? Lots of bottled water? Fruit snack bars?
Also hiding up there was Sony’s Peter Piaseckyj, who was kind enough to show us their anticipated psychological thriller, Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain. We talked to him about the game’s branching storylines and unconventional control scheme. Given how these work together, we wondered about the game’s total play length. While Piaseckyj couldn’t lock down anything solid, he did say that it would be about 8-12 hours long if you’d play it “normally.” While that may not sound long, he said that you could play the game multiple times and see different scenarios and outcomes each time.
Most interesting to me was the fact that your character could die, but the game would continue. I guess it’s just one of those things you’d have to see first-hand to understand. In the scenario we played, dying seemed easy. It’s just that we didn’t get to see past that. I can’t wait to spend more quality time with Heavy Rain.
