About

Heavy Rain is an interactive video game published by Quantic Dream about a child kidnapped by a serial killer known as "The Origami Killer." The player takes control of four different characters with a vested interest in the case: Ethan Mars, the father of the kidnapped child; Madison Paige, a journalist who gets close with Ethan; Scott Shelby, a private detective searching for the Origami Killer; and Norman Jayden, an FBI detective sent to track down the killer. The game is largely cinematic, with the player mostly controlling where their character moves, and action sequences utilizing quick-time events. The ending of the game changes depending on the player's choices and success or failure at certain challenges in the game. Though the game received favorable reviews, some technical issues led it to be parodied online.

History

Heavy Rain was first announced at E3 in 2006^[1] with a tech demo showing off the game's facial capture abilities (shown below).

The game was directed by David Cage, who had previously directed similar games Indigo Prophecy and Omikron. Cage stated he want to create a game with mature themes without supernatural elements. The city the game takes in is heavily influenced by Philadelphia. The game was released on February 23rd, 2010 for the Playstation 3, and Playstation 4 on March 1st, 2016.

Reception

The game was heavily praised upon its release in 2010, receiving an 87/100 on Metacritic.^[2] Critics at the time praised the games immersive story and success at using motion-capture technology. Most critics admitted that even though the game had some technical flaws, the unique experience provided by Heavy Rain was worth it. However, upon the Playstation 4 rerelease of the game, critics were more critical of the game's story and writing; IGN called it "B-grade schlock."^[3]

Online Presence

The Heavy Rain Facebook fan page has over 269,000 likes.^[4] The game also has a small subreddit with 179 readers.^[5] The game has been showcased by various Let's Play channels. Notably, Super Best Friends Play played the game as one of the first full LP's on their channel. Throughout the game, they grew frustrated with the game's writing and controls. The first episode of their series gained over 780,000 views (shown below, left). Pewdiepie also played it on his channel in 2012, with the first episode gaining over 5 million views (shown below, left).

Related Memes

Press X to Jason

Press X to Jason is a meme born from a prompt that appears early in the game in which you play the character Ethan Mars. Ethan loses his son Jason in a mall, and the game instructs the player that if they press X, Ethan will call for Jason. On January 29th, 2010, GameTrailers released the first preview of gameplay footage from the-then upcoming interactive drama action-adventure PS3 video game Heavy Rain. The clip begins with the opening prologue wherein the main protagonist character Ethan Mars is shown spending time with his family at a shopping mall to celebrate his elder son Jason's 10th birthday. When Jason suddenly wanders off and disappears into the crowd, Ethan frantically searches for him, and at 0:36 in the video, the player is prompted with the action command "Press X to Jason" in order to shout at Jason and draw his attention (shown below). The phrase "Press X to Jason" soon became an easy target for mockeries online.

On March 12th, 2010, Heavy.com highlighted a flash-based parody game titled Press X To Jason: The Game developed by site user K. Thor Jensen. The game is essentially an 8-bit rendition of the particular scene in the shopping mall that entails pressing the "X" key to "Jason."

On May 23rd, 2010, YouTube musician Eric Fullerton uploaded an original song titled "Press X to Jason," which details the events of the Heavy Rain scene in a musical form. Within the first three months, the video gained over 100,000 views.

Technical Glitches

Technical glitches in Heavy Rain have become popular on YouTube for the way they jar against the game's serious tone. For example, on July 27th, 2011, YouTuber ItsThaBus uploaded a video of the game's dramatic climactic sequence, only a glitch causes Ethan to scream his son's name, Shaun, throughout the entire cutscene. The video gained over 5.2 million views (shown below, left). On August 31st, 2017, YouTuber DPO23 uploaded a scene from the game in which he digitally manipulated all the characters' faces to be inhumanly expressive, gaining over 282,000 views (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References