Heavy Rain Demo Rocks!

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I can vouch for all of these plot holes, though the ones about the inefficiency of the police department and FBI I didn't really notice that much.

Expansion Packs

As of writing this there has only been one expansion pack, or ‘Chronicle’ released for Heavy Rain: “The Taxidermist”. Since I preordered Heavy Rain, I received a code in my email that entitled me to download and install this downloadable content. The size of this chapter or chronicle was just shy of a gigabyte so it was safe to assume that the content was not just an unlockable feature that was already on the disk you purchased, which in essence is the same as purchasing the same content TWICE (a practice that received a lot of backlash due to Capcom’s “Resident Evil 5” and 2K Games’ “Bioshock 2”).

I don’t know when this new prequel chapter will be made available to the general public but if you pull anything from this review, I hope it's the following:

BUY THIS FUCKER IMMEDIATELY. I cannot express the words ‘buy’ and ‘immediately’ enough.

The Taxidermist Chronicle is THE most gut-wretching, survival horror, never wrecking episode of the entire Heavy Rain game. You play as Madison Paige, and you are investigating the Origami Killer, and you have a lead that you should interview a local taxidermist (exactly how the connection between the taxidermist and the Origami Killer are determined, it’s yet another fantastic PLOTHOLE used for the sake of convenience). Of course, the taxidermist isn’t home, so, naturally, Madison Paige resorts to breaking and entering, rather than just leaving a fucking sticky-note on the guy’s door with a MySpace-style bathroom photo of her own sexy ass. I'm beginning to suspect that Madison Paige would make a better cat burglar than a news journalist, but whatever.

As you progress through the taxidermists increasingly creepy house, you find traces of burned clothing, new clothing, jewelry, and other artifacts that build tension up until you finally venture upstairs where the true horror of the taxidermists' work is brought to the surface in what is easily the goriest and genuinely disturbing part of the Heavy Rain story.

I really don’t want to spoil a lot, but I will say that this chapter of Heavy Rain genuinely creeped me the hell out. Seriously, my balls were sucked up into my own asshole because I was so damned scared.



The gameplay in The Taxidermist is what I had originally expected out of Heavy Rain as a whole: Many choices, intelligent enemies, different possible outcomes, and a lot of cat-and-mouse.

It is precisely that cat-and-mouse relationship between the cat (the Norman Bates-like psycho killer with a big ass knife) and the mouse (Madison Paige (you), an unarmed and completely defenseless woman who has to hide from room to room in his house while avoiding being seen) that makes The Taxidermist a truly horrific experience.

The choices you make determine the possible outcomes. If you, say, accidentally leave a cupboard open during your snooping around the inside of his house, the Taxidermist WILL notice that someone is in his house, and it will lead into ‘hide-for-your-fucking-life’ style scenario where he stalks you through his house with a big knife, actively hunting you to protect his dirty secrets. You can run from room to room while the killer searches his house at random, making the game even more nerve-wrecking and, literally makes you so paralyzed with fear that you will be hiding under a bed, praying that he doesn’t find you. And the fact that he searches the rooms in his house at random leaves you with the following dilemma:

Is the next room he might check the one I'm in, or the one I might run to?

If he DOES find you (and, unless you are one Solid Snake sneaky motherfucker and didn’t tip him off of your presence, he WILL), you will resort to frantic button-sequence events that, if you fumble up twice, will result in a very graphic demise.

There are FIVE possible outcomes to the story, and after you beat it the first time around, you can read the titles of each of the other four possible endings, as they will provide you some clues on how to obtain the other endings.

The Taxidermist Chronicle is obviously a prequel to the main storyline of Heavy Rain, and I think that I now fully understand why Madison Paige is so damned afraid of sleeping in her own home, especially in the ‘real ending’ where the Norman Bates taxidermist psychopath’s parting words to you is his haunting intention to 'meet again'.

Heavy Rain Chronicles: Episode 1: The Taxidermist is nightmare fuel, indeed.

Heavy Rain does have me intrigued but not enough for a new game console at the moment.

I recently purchased a Playstation Slim for the Blu-ray movies but there are other great features on it and some good games. I am awaiting a Heavy Rain review from Laughing Man because I have wanted this game badly.