Over the past year, we've had the chance to see bits and pieces of Heavy Rain a couple times, most recently back in December . Our looks at the game have been shrouded in mystery for the most part, giving us glimpses at how the game looks and how it'll work from a macro level, but details on exactly who these people are and how the characters were tied together were left in the dark.

The+fights+play+out+differently+depending+on+how+you+do.

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That all changed back in April when I had the chance to not only see an extended act from the game but also get my hands on the title for the first time. To say Heavy Rain Quantic Dream is crafting here could turn out to be nothing short of an instant classic if all the pieces come together correctly. It'll take us more than a single play-through to figure that out, however, as the game isn't designed to be a linear tale by any stretch of the means. Instead, it's something meant to be experienced in unique ways by different people each time you go through the game.The biggest example of this has to do with the four characters and their part in the game. Each of the four main characters is in some way tied to or searching for the Origami Killer, a murderer who leaves an origami bird at each crime scene. Each of these characters plays out their part in the game in unique scenes, with the title swapping between them chapter by chapter (of which there are currently 60-plus). We're told that the characters are exclusive to their individual scenes, meaning that for the bulk of the game, they won't directly interact with one another. I wouldn't be surprised if they come together at the end, but for the most part, they all make up separate parts of the story.The interesting bit here is that each character, and moreover each scene, plays out in a unique manner, and each one gives you a different perspective on the story. But as I said, the game isn't meant to be played in a linear fashion, at least in the normal sense of "linear" in terms of game design. If a character dies, they're dead, but the game doesn't end. It simply goes on with you continuing as the remaining characters; you just miss out on the dead peoples' scenes. If you want to get the full experience of the tale you'll want to do your best to keep them alive until the finale, but should death become them, it'll only work to make your story more personal.My time with the game was spent in a scene (set somewhere in the middle of the game) starring Norman Jayden, a detective on the trail of the Origami Killer. As with everything else in Heavy Rain, Jayden isn't a simple character. While he's one of the good guys and is doing everything in his power to hunt down and stop the killer, he also has a drug addiction that he's hiding from the force. His vice is called triptocaine, and as he's trying to kick his habit, he sometimes suffers from withdrawals and has to resolve to feeding the monkey to keep it together. This can directly affect his scenes in big ways, which I'll come back to in a bit.The setup for the scene is that the police have determined that the Origami Killer had driven a car at some point that came from a chop shop run by a man named Mad Jacky. His chop shop doubles as a junkyard, so Jayden heads there for some answers.