Sony and Quantic Dream have announced the release date for the re-release of Heavy Rain, the game’s Director’s Cut edition.

The special edition will launch on November 8th, Sony has confirmed. Did no one notify the company of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3′s release date?

Heavy Rain: Director’s Cut will include:

• Complete, original game, Heavy Rain
• Heavy Rain Chronicles: Episode 1 – The Taxidermist DLC
• Heavy Rain Original Videogame Score by award-winning film and television composer, Normand Corbeil (16 tracks)
• New front-end menu and interface with built-in Move support
• A series of 8 “Making of” Bonus Videos
• Three Dynamic Themes (Heavy Rain, Heavy Rain ARI Forest, Heavy Rain ARI Mars)
• 15 additional pieces of new concept art
• 2 bonus Trailers (Thank You Trailer, Love Trailer)

Additionally, Sony has confirmed that in order to celebrate the Director’s Cut launch, on November 8th PSN users will be able to download the Heavy Rain Crime Scene Dynamic Theme for free.

A Girl Child is set to replace Madison in Quantic’s Next!

Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit devs are looking for a girl-actress to provide the voice-over and MO-CAP for their yet-to-be-announced title.

This news comes after they filed a casting offer at one of French’s leading casting websites - Etoilecasting

Here’s what their Job description reads -

Quantic Dream, a production company for video games, search for a GIRL ACTRESS performance capture (recording the play of a player in motion capture, capture facial and voice simultaneously).

For this new generation’envergure international tour in 2011 in our motion capture studio in Paris 20th, we are looking for a girl between 10 & 13 years (10 years being physically) speaking fluent English with an American accent imperative – language preference .

No special physical criterion sought. Testing will be held by the end of the year.

Compensation: Yes

Could this girl be one of the central characters in their next project? Judging by the casting-call, she very well might be. However, is this for Horizon or something which David Cage is yet to share details about?

Whatever it is, we are certain that it will also involve a lot of drama and emotions.

Ever since the monumental Dragon’s Lair, many video game developers have tried to replicate the spectacle of the silver screen in our interactive medium. Whether it’s Medal of Honor emulating the fantastic opening of Saving Private Ryan, or Max Payne paying homage to the slo-mo magic of the Matrix; movies have predominantly been a source of infinite inspiration for developers to draw from. But apart from the WOW factor that the Hollywood-esque set-pieces warrant, games have not yet been constantly successful at delivering emotionally strong experiences.

Enter – Quantic Dream. The studio made it very clear with their first game, Omikron, that they were adept at infusing a movie-like experience with an adventure game. Indigo Prophecy further cemented the fact that Adventure gaming was far from dead. With Heavy Rain, Quantic Dream promised that they would deliver a strong emotional experience with engaging gameplay. Does this interesting experiment rise above all odds or does it sink beneath its intense ambition?

The Story

Anyone even remotely interested in Heavy Rain would know that the story is the main draw here. There has been a lot of backlash against the game regarding its Quick-Time event (QTE) heavy gameplay, but Heavy Rain has almost unanimously been expected to live up to its initial promise of delivering a powerful story.

The plot follows four protagonists, each with their own set of problems, who somehow miraculously end up crossing paths. Ethan Mars is a successful architect living the American dream with his wife and two sons. However, his world soon turns upside down as one of his sons, dies in a freak car accident, which leads to Ethan’s inevitable divorce and the customary beard that comes with depression. To make matters worse, his remaining son is kidnapped by the Origami Killer (High five to bad luck), a nefarious serial killer who kidnaps children, drowns them in rain water and leaves behind an Origami…because…well…Jason’s got the hockey mask covered and Jack had the hoes in check.

Being the crux of the story, I expected the character of Ethan Mars to be far more fleshed out and captivating than it actually is. Most of the time, Ethan comes across as boring and outright uninteresting. Halfway through the game, I could not muster enough motivation to save Ethan’s son. And that’s saying a lot, considering you are constantly shown videos of the kid drowning to death. You also get to play as Madison Paige, a struggling journalist, who suffers from insomnia and sympathizes with Ethan’s cause. While this might be a plus point for some of you perverts out there, I could not stand Madison’s mysterious ability to drop her pants and flash her knockers to solve every problem. I’ve seen porn movies where the actresses had better motivations to…well…you know.

Also in the mix is Scott Shelby, an ex-cop turned private detective, who is investigating the Origami Killer case while fighting his chronic Asthma. While Shelby shows some promise in the beginning, his character does a back flip towards the end and the player is left confused, wondering if they are in control of the same character. The most interesting parts of Heavy Rain, feature FBI agent Norman Jayden. Trying to fend off his severe drug addiction, Jayden seems far more interesting, mostly because he is the only guy on the roster who is just trying to do his job. Ethan is caught up in a ‘SAW’ like situation for the most part; Shelby is battling crime lords and Madison is busy showing ample skin to extract information, while Jayden investigates crime scenes, shuffles through clues and does what you expect an FBI agent to do.

The game does hint at some interesting Butterfly Effect like situations where Ethan has blackouts and wakes up to find himself at a totally different location. However, the plot never explains what happened during these blackouts or why they happened at all. The conclusion itself reveals glaring plot-holes that even the most unobservant of gamers will notice. I couldn’t help but feel cheated at the end because for once I believed that Quantic Dream would not make the same mistake with Heavy Rain that they did with Indigo Prophecy. Both games are fast off the blocks but hardly manage to crawl past the finish line.

The developer touted Heavy Rain as a game with big choices that will affect the final outcome but this holds true only for the last 20 percent or so of the game. People looking to explore different scenarios need to not play the whole game again, as most of the endings can be easily achieved by replaying the very last chapter. For a game that boasts 22 ‘varied’ endings, it’s sad that in truth, there are just 3-4 endings rehashed over and over again with minute variations.

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