Oh Scott Shelby...

Before you continue reading on this review, I’m going to be spoiling the entire ending of the game Heavy Rain. If you have not yet played this game but intend to, don’t read if you don’t want to know what’s what and who’s who. Otherwise, enjoy the review of one of the most depressing characters I’ve played as so far.


    The story of the Origami Killer is really a tragic one. By far one of the most tragic reasons for a man to turn into a killer that I’ve ever heard. Scott Shelby, who is one of the four main characters that you get to play, and his brother John were sons of a drunken father and a mother who worked long hours. The father was drunk one day and basically yelled at the kids to “fuck off.” John and Scott begin to play in this construction area up until John gets caught in a sewer. He tells Scott to go get help. Of course his father is useless and there’s no one else around to help them out. You literally get to see John drown in the sewer. This part really almost got me to tear up, because it’s showing the death of a kid drowning... Yeah, sad.

    So this literally makes Scott into a killer. He kidnaps little boys and places them in a storm drain. Their father has to undergo a series of tests to see if they can be the ones to save their son. The trials makes the fathers go through horrible and despicable things such as crawling through a tunnel of glass, drinking poison, as well as chopping off a finger. If you succeed in completing the test, you get a text message showing where the boy is being held and a few letters to the hangman puzzle of where the address is at. If you don’t complete the tasks, you don’t get anything.

    The reason why Scott is making these men go through these tests is because he wants to see if the boy’s father is capable of saving his son, despite that his father couldn’t. The reason why he’s known as the Origami Killer is because the corpses of the boys are found with an origami figure and a flower. The families were also given a box of origami figures. Each figure had a clue revealing what they needed to do... well the father basically.

    If Ethan, another main character who’s son is the Origami Killer’s latest victim, confronts Scott, there’s a chance that he can easily kill Scott right there and then if Norman and Madison aren’t interfering during the encounter. If Madison or Norman reaches the location of the area where Shaun is at, they have the chance to have a huge fight scene against Scott. Madison has her being chased to a top of a huge crane while Norman and Scott battle it out on a conveyor belt having the trash head towards a grinder. Of course, Madison and Norman are the remaining main characters you play as. Ethan is the father of the son who’s kidnapped, Madison is a journalist, Norman is an FBI agent and Scott is supposed to be a “detective” although he really isn’t, but he was in the past.

    You can also have Madison or Norman to find Shaun without Ethan, that is if he’s either arrested or dead. Scott gets pissed off that Shaun’s father wasn’t the person who found Shaun first. He wanted Shaun’s father to come to the rescue because he wanted to find that one father that could save his son. To go through Hell just to save the kid from drowning.

    Of course, there’s more tragic details I’m missing out with the entire story of Heavy Rain. But I felt that the reason why Scott Shelby turns into who he really is in the story is more depressing than Ethan chopping his finger off, Madison suffering from insomnia or how Norman can literally kill himself using drugs. I just feel that having a story where you see the killer evolved into what he’s known as is really an interesting concept for a major plot of evolving. Really.