It actually takes me a single more short session to finish the game, but I do finish it. The end of the game is definitely better than the beginning. There are still some problems with control, and they lead me to replay a couple of scenes from sheer frustration with the controls or feedback. There are also some just disgusting scenes of pure torture porn. But there are a few more interesting scenes as the game comes to the end, and the conclusion was pretty solid. Spoilers within.
I go back to the father. I get to the house of the guy that the last origami wants me to kill. There’s a scene at the door with him to start. I guess I can pull gun here but I don’t want to. He calls me a junkie and shoves me out the door. I knock a second time, he does it again and as he closes the door, I pull out a gun CS. I really wish I could have just walked away here. When we enter the apartment, he pushes me away and pulls out a shotgun. There’s a qte chase around the house as he chases after me shooting all the way. I survive until the end when he’s out of bullets. He pleads for life and reveals he’s a father. I finally get the choice of what to do, and I choose not to kill him. Telling him I’m a father too, I leave.
We cut back to the girl on motorcycle. She’s talking to someone over the phone who got her this address. She’s visiting the house of the guy who owns the apartment where the father cut off his finger. It turns out the owner of this house i’s selling prescription drugs, and I get in the house when I tell him I want some. He offers me some wine as we talk, but that seems like a bad idea and I don’t drink it. We talk and get nowhere, and then finally he walks away to get the drugs I’m looking for. While he’s gone, I search the house. I find a card for Paco at the Blue Lagoon club. I keep looking, and then the guy knocks me out and I awaken tied to a table in the basement. I can’t do anything for a while but scream as he babbles about what he’s about to do and prepares a drill to (I’m not kidding here) drive into my vagina. Why do I want to play this torture scene? He’s called upstairs before he can start torturing me and leaves the drill. There’s a complex bit where I use the drill to cut my bonds. I free myself just as he comes back down. There’s a very long fight scene – I do well but then I seem to end up unconscious. Wtf? Oh, it was a trick. I end up killing him with drill. Wow, I don’t like this torture porn. Assailant dead, I leave.
I return to the FBI guy on Thursday at 2:18 with .2 more inches of rain. I’m getting out of car with my special sunglasses on somewhere. Oh, it’s the chopshop for that stolen car. As I walk in, I see a guy in a construction machine. I yell for him to stop and give him my FBI intro. I go inside to talk to him, but he denies everything about the stolen car and walks away. I use my cool glasses to find traces of the killer’s car and am sure the stolen car was here. With more looking, I find a skull under mat in the chopshop. The owner returns pointing a gun at me, and he tells me he killed a cop who was snooping. I trip him to start a fight, and I win. Pointing his gun at him, I get info from him, which is the same as girl got with card. But then I have a drug craving that blurs my visions — so cheap. I try to take the drug with qte but fail (I think totally unfairly) and am knocked out. I’m now in car he’s going to crush, lots of qte to get my gun and get out of the car before it’s smashed. He jumps me again as I hit the ground. It’s a long fight ripped straight from Raiders of the Lost Arc and it ends when the chopshop guy dies crushed by tractor he gets caught under. That’s the end of the scene.
Next scene is back at the detective; it’s Thursday at 4:30. I’m back at the office, talking to Lauren. She’s asking about the files and obviously wants to investigate. I make her scrambled eggs while she takes a shower. When she returns, she realizes that crosschecking the people who have had the typewriter repaired (she took a notebook from Manfeld) and people who do origami (the detective has origami magazines) could give the killer’s identity. There’s a montage of their investigation, which ends when they find something. We cut to a graveyard, where it turns out the name in common between the two sources is is a dead kid. We look around to find the kid’s grave, and it’s a LONG search. There are fresh flowers and origami figures at the grave, even though the child died in ’77. A gravedigger then tells about how the kid died.
I cut to a whole new scene, two kids getting kicked out of a trailer by drunk father. I’m one kid and have to follow the other into a building under construction. It’s a long, kind of annoying run with lots of qtes, but I get to the end successfully. The other kid wants to play hide and seek now (another indigo prophesy thing). I cover my eyes and count; he runs away, but he then falls in a hole in rushing water and has a caught foot. I try to free him but it doesn’t work. I go to get help and cut away. Back at the graveyard, the gravedigger tells me (the detective) that the kid couldn’t find help, and the surviving kid got adopted. We leave and as we do, we see Gordon’s father putting flowers on boy’s grave.
We cut back to the girl, who has gone to the Blue Lagoon club. Wow, the NPCs dancing is truly uncanny. I find a bartender, and he tells me Paco is the owner and in the VIP area. I can’t get in that area unless Paco wants me too. Paco’s a creep, and it turns out I have to be sexy. This is again a little gross; between the nursing, the torture, and the sexing up, do we do ANYTHING in this game but objectify this girl? I have to sexy up my outfit in bathroom and then dance on the platform to get Paco’s attention. This takes five times longer than it has to because they let me dance before I know I have to sexy up, AND because the right arrow qte in the bathroom is hidden by the sink and I don’t finish my outfit. Sigh. I finally get inside the VIP area, and I tell Paco CS we should go somewhere private. Man, between the bad controls and awful camera, following people in this game is the worst. I follow Paco upstairs, and in the hallway before I enter his room, I reveal a gun in my purse and explain my plan before I go inside. However, when I get inside, he takes my purse away and wants me to strip. I hit the WRONG FUCKING BUTTON in the conversation and try to leave. Paco pulls a gun and demands I strip. Are you kidding me? The shot is from Paco’s perspective — you can see his gun and a full shot of me as I’m supposed to strip. Sorry, this is just disgusting. I have to strip a little, then I hit him with lamp to knock him out. I tie Paco to a chair, I fake an orgasm sound to throw off guards outside, and then I squeeze Paco’s balls until he gives me a name (John Shepard). Once I have that info, I walk out.
I cut back the to FBI guy, and I’m back at the club. It’s later and there’s more rain. I show my badge to get to the upstairs, and as I do, in split screen I see a shadowy figure question and then shoot Paco. I get up to the room and knock. No answer, I enter and see Paco dead. I put on my glasses and get jumped from behind — it’s cheap because I knew that would happen and I couldn’t do anything else. It’s another qte fight. I think I was meant to lose this one because I miss only one button in the whole fight, but I’m still knocked down as he leaves. I question the guard outside when I get up and get the John Shepherd name. I go back in, find my sunglasses, and investigate. I find leads to Madison and the orchid stuff and that seems to be it. But I go back and check a second time anyway just to make sure. It’s a good thing I did because I find receipts to a gas station the killer dropped. I leave with that info, and I give myself the luxury of thinking I did that right.
Back to the father at the hotel, Thursday, late, 4.5 inches of rain. Madison comes in, and Ethan reveals he couldn’t kill a guy to save Shaun. I have the choice to kiss her or not but I do. I then mime actions with the controller as we make out and descend into sex. Surprisingly, this actually kind of works — the music helps a lot here. It’s implied but it gets pretty racy, and then we cut to them clothed in bed. As Ethan, I sneak out of bed and get dressed. As I’m leaving, I pick up her jacket and find her notes on my story. She wakes up and Ethan blows up at her. He accuses her of using him for information and she doesn’t respond. She admits she was following him to cover a story at first — but says she became attached and she’s not just a journalist anymore. I have the choice to forgive or reject her, and I forgive, probably because she’s healed me so many times. Still, I do not believe this love story.
She goes to get something to eat and I’m now her. I run down to get food and see the cops. It’s time sensitive, but I get to a phone and call Ethan to warn him. I’m back in control of Ethan, and I run from balcony to balcony to try to escape. I’m chased to the roof, where I’m cornered by cops. I choose to jump off of the roof, and a tarp lets me survive. I jack a cab GTA-style and get away. I do wonder what would have happened if I surrendered instead of jumping, but now I’m free.
From there, I’m with detective Shelby again. I go into my office and Lauren is there. She apologizes and the old guy is here. His goon has a gun to my head and knocks me out. I come to in a car under water with Lauren unconscious next to me. There are qte events to free myself from restraints, and then I have a choice of two controls as I look at Lauren. There’s no clear indication what either does, so I pick one at random. I swim out and don’t save her, which is NOT MY FUCKING CHOICE. I wanted to save her, but I didn’t know which choice did it. Dammit. We cut to a mansion. Shelby drives his car into the building and then there’s this weird wish-fulfillment shooting scene where I’m picking off guards like flies. Given how hard everything in this game is, it makes no sense that I’m walking through all of these guards here. I get into the old man’s office and beat the guy up. He agrees to tell me everything when I blow the qte to choke him. The son was a copycat only, not the killer — he killed one kid but it was a total accident. The old guy left flowers on the grave because he owned the construction site where the drowned boy (John Shepherd) died. I tells me the mother’s name (Anne Shepherd) but he doesn’t know what happened to the surviving brother. As I leave, the old guy starts having a heart attack. I get his heart medicine out of the desk and give it to him, and leave with the snide comment that I shouldn’t have bothered.
I cut to Madison on Friday. She’s at a hospital looking for Anne Shepherd. I get past the desk to Anne’s room. She has bad Alzheimer’s. She doesn’t remember her second living son. I have to find reminders of her past and show her the stuff to jog her memory. I do all the things in the room (origami, photo), but it’s getting me nowhere. I’m about to leave, but I find an orchid in the hallway and bring it to the room. The orchid is the last needed thing and she remembers her second son. She asks me to lean in, and then she gives Madison the name, but I (the player) don’t get to hear it. With that, Madison CS leaves. I like that I could have missed that clue.
Next scene is with the father at the final origami . I’m in a red hallway and it’s long walk down to a white room. It’s very surreal. There’s a poison that will kick in an hour to kill me, giving me just enough time to save my son and say goodbye before I die. I can drink poison or I can leave. I decide I don’t trust people who kidnap my children and torture me anymore. I choose to leave and exit. There’s a montage of me looking for address, and Ethan CS can’t find it. Again, it sucks that I don’t have control here — I had enough letters that I would have wanted to make a guess.
The next scene is the FBI guy frantically searching through his files. Blake appears in the office to gloat that they are going to arrest Ethan and that I’m out. I take some heroin or whatever to calm down and then go back to searching for clues. I have a video of the attack on me in Paco’s office, and as I watch it, I can stop it to analyze moments. Doing so, I find gold watch clue in video which tells me the killer is a retired cop. I have a chance to accuse Blake, but I pass on it. I use the geo thing to see where the ex-police are, and when I combine that with the receipts I found, it points to a warehouse. I pack up my files and go to the warehouse. Now that’s a rad scene. I only got it because I really did the investigation and didn’t miss a clue. Boy, I wish this was the whole game.
We cut back to the kid. They replay John (the other kid) drowning, and I have to run to get help. I find our dad. He’s too drunk to help, and says if John dies, it will be one less mouth to feed. I’m back with John, and I wait with him as he dies from the rising water. I don’t know — this is a bit cheesy and isn’t working for me. We zoom up and out.
We cut to the detective looking at a photo. He cries, and then I light a match and make a fire in trash can. There is a bunch of evidence on his desk, and I am forced to walk through burning it all. I burn the letter with a flashback of the prostitute. Do I have to do this? I don’t want to help the killer. I burn the box with a flashback of the store owner. I burn the phone with a flashback of the mother and baby. I burn the notes and see me shooting Paco. I burn the watch guy’s notes and see me kill him with typewriter in flashback. I burn the photo of me with brother and see my mom in the hospital. This cuts to a view of me at the desk. Sorry, I don’t buy Shelby as the killer at all given how I’ve played him. I made him do good things — helping people, taking care of babies — and I can’t make that character I played into the Origami Killer. Zoom in on the fire as we go out.
I cut to Madison; it’s Friday at 6:40. She’s going up the stairs to the detective office. I break into the apartment (why is she doing this?) and search around. I find a secret door in the closet. Inside in an orchid greenhouse and a computer. I don’t guess the correct password on the machine from my several choices, and as I’m guessing, Shelby shows up with gun saying I found the secret. He pushes me in the secret room and locks the door. I go back to the computer and find the password finally. This gives me the address of Shaun’s location. Smoke starts to pour in the room. I pick up a typewriter and start banging on the walls because that’s what the game seems to want me to do. It takes a while, but I find a wall that I can punch through and climb through the hole. I now have to walk through the fire Shelby set. I’m screwing it up — I just can’t see what I’m supposed to do because of bad camera angles and smoke. It’s not really fun. I get to window which Madison tells herself she’s going to die if she jumps, but then I get a choice to jump anyway. Huh? That makes no sense — why give me the choice?. Well, since I have the choice, I try it; I mean, I survived last time I jumped. This time, however, I die. Fuck that — I’m not dying from another bad bit of feedback in this game. Restart from fire. I move across the room, get to the kitchen, and get in the fridge because that seems like a safe place. The apartment explodes from a gas can on the desk. There’s a CS of the explosion from outside and Madison walks out. I have a choice of whether to call Ethan, the FBI guy, or nobody. I choose to tell Ethan, and they ask me to confirm for some reason. I do it, and Ethan is going to save his son. I drive off as the scene ends.
Oh are they going to make me be Shaun drowning? He’s the face on the transition. FUCK YOU GAME. The scene starts with a CS of warehouse. I’m the father. I get to the warehouse in the cab and get out. I run inside, yelling Shaun. I see the water-filled grate ahead, but as I approach, there’s a CS as the detective appears. He talks to me, telling me he remembered me from the car accident. He explains that he’s been waiting for a father that would try to save his son, and is surprised that I’ve made it.  I CS go to open the grate and he pulls a gun on me to shoot me from behind, but the FBI guy jumps out from the shadows and stops him. The detective runs away pursued by the FBI guy. I’m back as the father. I can’t get the grate open, but I find a pole to pry it open. I do so and pull Shaun out of the pit. Is he alive or dead?
We cut to the FBI guy on the roof, looking for Shelby. Shelby jumps him in CS, and we fight on a moving conveyor belt. I do pretty well here. We cut to Madison showing up and saying that Ethan’s not the killer to Blake (who’s waiting for a chance to snipe Ethan). We cut back to fight with detective quickly but I’m kicking his ass. We’re back to Ethan who is trying to use CPR on Shaun. This is very nice — the CPR feels correct to the controls, and I actually think he’s dead for a good minute there, but he comes around and tells me he knew I would save him. We cut outside to Madison who is being escorted away. She runs from the cop and gets to her bike. I fuck up the starting the bike due to a stupid dyslexia moment, but I take my gimme from the car scene earlier and redo it. I get on the motorcycle and drive into the warehouse. Blake calls off the sniper now that Madison’s inside. Madison and Ethan make up and they talk about what they are going to do. We go back to FBI fight. I knock the detective off the conveyor belt. He’s hanging above some kind of industrial grinder and asks me to help him. I chose to (I want to arrest the killer), but when I do, he kicks me and we’re back to the fight. I win and when I do, he CS goes off conveyor belt into grinder and dies. Back downstairs, the Ethan, Madison and Shaun walk out safely and the Origami Killer is no more.
The next scene is a news report, so I can tell we’re in the epilogue. The reporter says that they found Shaun alive, Ethan Marz is a hero, and Scott Shelby (the detective) was the Origami Killer. We cut to a loft with Madison, Ethan and Shaun. They are buying this apartment together, and Madison says they earned the right to be happy. The scene ends with Shaun laughing. We cut to a talk show appearance for the FBI guy CS. We then see the FBI guy in a bathroom giving up heroin, and then back at the FBI office, he’s doing the file thing, and this little digital tanks appear on table — what the hell was that? We end at the graveyard, zooming up to sky. We see Scott’s grave and that’s the end. As the credits roll, I get to see some alternate scenes that I didn’t take, and thus ends Heavy Rain.
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