Are Video Games Really to Blame?

I've done countless of essays and speeches that talks about violence in video games and how it effects ourselves and I must say, those who actually believe that video games actually causes us to become violent people are out of their minds.

I've played dozens of violent video games for years and you don't see me trying to decapitate people, running down pedestrians, or trying to find a gun to shoot someone all because a video game made it look cool.  Video games are not to be blamed here, blame other sources that could cause someone to get out of line.

I'm talking about parents, salesmen, and Jack Thompson.

The reason why I'm blaming the parents is because I'm sick and tired of watching kids play nothing but video games when I'm walking around a store. I literally saw a ten year old being pushed in a stroller all because he's too damn occupied by playing his handheld console, it's really amazing how the mother isn't getting embarrassed at all. It actually seemed like she was proud that her son was just being strolled around as if he was king of the world. I cannot believe that there are parents like that.

If the kid cannot get off the game because there weren't any limits set upon him/her, who's to blame? The parents. You're in control of how many seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, etc., your children plays video games. If you set a limit of how much time they have to play this game, they'd be better kids understanding rules a heck of a lot better rather than having to pry the controller out of the kid's hand when you say "times up" and they've been playing the game for at least eight hours straight. I have witnessed parents getting injured because of their child's reckless behavior after playing long hours of video games, and it's astonishing to see how the parents just don't care that their kid isn't doing anything great for themselves other than developing eye issues.

One last thing to mention about the parents is their amazing ability to ignore the ratings. You see, every video game has to be rated by the ESRB before it gets shipped off into the world. They rate the game depending on the material that you see in the game. If a ten year old is not allowed to see a rated R movie, because the parents say so, but yet they buy the kid a video game that is rated Mature, (which is the same as a rated R movie) what are you trying to prevent to your child by doing that? Nothing, because they'll witness what they can't see in a movie, in their video game. If you want to make sure that your children are not playing video games that deems too violent or graphic for them, by all means, pay attention to the damn rating the game has on both sides of the cover box.

The salesmen are also to blame in this situation because they all have to follow a simple rule that's really easy to follow. Children are NOT allowed to buy video games that they do not meet the age requirements to unless a parent or legal guardian is present. It is against store policy to sell a game to a minor if they don't reach the required age the rating has for it. So right there, it tells you, if a salesmen decides to sell a game to a minor, well guess what, that salesperson can easily get fired by not doing their job properly.

Last but not least, we're going to talk about the video game industry's worst enemy, Jack Thompson. This sonofabitch believes that ALL video games, unless he likes them, are nothing but murder simulators that helps brainwash children's minds to become violent killers. Apparently every singly video game that deems too violent will get branded as a horrible game because Thompson here just despises anything that has to do with violence. I mean, let's take a look at Bully, a very funny and an awesome video game, that has you take role of a kid who kinda has to be a bully to get to the very top of the school. Thompson believed that the game was nothing more but a "bully simulator" that "helps teaches kids how to become a bully." Yet sadly, I've witnessed bullies BEFORE this game even came into our lives. He also thought that this Teen-rated game deserved to be rated Mature due to a hidden thing you can do with the protagonist. Throughout the game, you can make out with several of the girls that are in the game, but there's one BOY that you can manage to make out and such. Thompson wanted this game to be Mature rated because it showed graphic, homosexual material that seemed too disgusting for viewers. He even has some smartass comment to say to Rockstar: We just found gay sexual content in Bully as Jimmy Hopkins makes out with another male student. Good luck with your Teen rating now."

Yes, he said that. So, not only is he nothing more but video game industries' biggest pain in the ass, he's also a homophobe! Great!!!

He also tries to make it seem that video games were the number one cause of certain murders that happened. He tried throwing in things into cases that would automatically get declined or just ignored because he had no significant evidence to even prove that the motives behind the killer was due to excessive video game playing.

I mean, hell, people try pitting Id's Doom on the Columbine killers when Doom wasn't even responsible whatsoever with the two killers at all. Sure, they made a few references to the game every now and then during their shooting spree, and yeah, they made a few maps for Doom (although many have claimed that one of them had made an exact replica of Columbine High School,) but nothing proved that their motives had anything to do with video games. The claims that these guys made a replica of the school by making a map in Doom was proven to be false.

 Video games aren't the reason why people kill. They're just ignorant assholes who had bigger issues than some old geaser trying to say that they were provoked by a violent video game they played. Honest the truth, if you blame video games, then you have to blame the rest of the media. There's nothing that shows video games causes people to kill. Sure, you have those who do say, "This game made me do this," such as the teen couple that killed a four year old they were watching because they were trying to imitate moves they saw in Mortal Kombat... But cases like that rarely happens now and days.

Have some common fucking sense people... It's not the video games that are being caused by this... It's just people who cannot see things that are right in front of them.

>'-'<

Diablo 3 and Um... Some Issues... And a Review

Okay, so I went to the midnight release, went home and slept, woke up, ate breakfast and played the game. Played for three hours with some breaks in between...

Then... servers crashed at around 3-ish or so leaving me to do something else for the remainder of the day. Which I did and not decide to constantly check up on the game every five minutes to see if the servers were fixed.

Unfortunately, there's a bit of some issues that are still being addressed with this game. So, I guess there are some reports claiming that some of the achievements that were completed have gone missing. I will confirm that this is true because I do have missing achievements... And quests as well. Yeah, one of the two boss fights for the first act apparently went missing and I didn't like that... So I had to do that all over again, despite that it was really easy this time becuase I'm level 16 and I was much lower when I encountered that boss the first time.

And then, not too long ago, I witnessed that ANOTHER quest is missing. One that I didn't really appreciate undergoing but I had to anyways.


So, that's been my experience with this game so far. I'm not too happy that this happened and Blizzard should have been totally prepared for something like this and prevent it from happening but... I don't work at a game company yet so I have no idea what they could have done.

Anyways, that's my little rant about the game... Actually wait, let me continue it before I get to the good. I'm not liking the Demon Hunter at all... She's only level 5 and out of five classes that there are that I have past that, she's died the most times than all of my other characters at that level. I think I was level nine before my witch doctor died for the first time. I get that the Demon Hunter is supposed to be ranged, but for some reason, they don't start out with good abilities that are really helpful in crowds. Yeah, being ambushed by zombies and such with those flying electrical bats zapping you as well doesn't help me out at all as a ranged character. I guess I have to level her some more by doing something else.

And for some reason, your maps go blank every time you leave the place for a bit... I'm  not liking that I can't retrace my steps and know where I'm going if the maps just go blank.

Okay, my rant is over... Now it's time to actually review the damn game.

This game is awesome. I could end it with that, but unfortunately I'm not. This game actually made me appreciate the Barbarian class for once. I never liked it in Diablo 2, but I really liked what they did with it. I wanted to start out with the Wizard first, but I somehow didn't and ended up playing as the Witch Doctor... Which so far, I've leveled it the most. I dig this class a lot. Sure, it "replaced" my favorite class, the necromancer, from the previous game, but that doesn't really make a whole lot of difference. The Monk and the Wizard I'm still toying around with a bit, I haven't leveled them a whole lot yet, but I will some time in the future. But like I stated before, the Demon Hunter, right now, isn't really a likeable class. Although that could really change if I go back and play it some more.

The story is improved a lot since the last game. I really like how each character has a different story, even though they share the same quests together. Their purpose for this adventure is something that the other two games didn't have. It's basically having your character just be there as the hero without any kind of sole purpose unless I never really read further into the Diablo lore. But the characters never really had any kind of distinguish personalities unlike these characters, who actually talks throughout the game not just by some sort of click of the button to a NPC (non-playable character) or pressing a number in the numerical pad. (Diablo 2) Although that was specifically for the online play and has absolutely no effect on a solo player game.

You get helpers and crafters with you rather than doing everything yourself. Although it costs to make stuff and shit like that, still, it's not that hard to obtain gold in this game. I normally like to just gather everything that drops, even when it's completely useless to me, you never know how much gold it sells for to the merchant. I've gotten plenty of gold before hitting a double digit level. (And back in Diablo 2, I'd max out my gold before leaving the first act)

Don't worry, I'm not going to spoil anything in the game because I know people. I know that there are people who read my blogs, otherwise the counter wouldn't go up constantly. So the story is completely gone from this review.

Gameplay wise... it's totally like WoW, just with a Diablo touch. I mean, the menu screen couldn't look anymore like WoW and some of the ways the game plays couldn't act more like WoW as well. But, do I see a problem with this? Absolutely not. The game is more fun and enjoyable this way, rather than the previous game. I HATED the way I had to only have two spells up the entire time, and when I wanted to change it, I had to click and search for the ability I wanted. But the problem is, unless you memorize the description of what abilities were what, you'd have to scroll over your mouse onto the picture and wait for the box to pop up, giving you the description of that power. It never really told you right there and then, what power you're going to have equipped. Now, there's a picture AND a description of what the power is. Although, the clicking thing is an issue, and it's a giant menu that pops up rather than the picture boxes, still, at least I can still move around and such while I'm trying to get my powers and while I'm clicking around to avoid the monsters, the screen doesn't go away.

So, overall, I really appreciated the changes they made to this game. I've waited twelve long years to finally see a direct sequel to Diablo 2 and I cannot wait to see what awaits for me further into the game. Despite that I enjoy taking my sweet, sweet time and try to find all of the achievements to complete for act 1 right now, I don't care. It's not like I have to be the very first one to beat the game.

No, I'm not a crazed fan... I'm just a kitty.

>'-'<

Streets of Rage 64? No, no... and No

So, my boyfriend and I decided to go to Disc Replay the other day and I see this game in the N64 rack that caught my attention. An old beat-em' up game called Fighting Force 64. I personally enjoyed this game back as a kid because all you have to do is just fight your way to the end. No puzzles, no interactive cut scenes, just pure fighting. Of course, this game wasn't perfect, it has its flaws, but nonetheless, it's a nice game to just play for a few hours.

The game has you playing as one of four characters, Alana, Mace, Hawk, and Smasher. Each kind of have different abilities, but it's hardly noticeable. Like how the girls are supposed to be weak and the guys are supposed to be strong. Each also has a special to perform, but why it drains some of your health is beyond me. I HATED that. It makes no sense.

The enemies could be a bit cheap depending on if they have a weapon in their hand or not. Those that has a gun will hardly miss, really. One shot and it sends you to the ground. Man, these guys can take a bullet to the chest. Heck, even a missile. Yeah, towards the end of the game, you get to avoid missiles that randomly attacks you while on an elevator that takes you to an impossible height. The enemies also have random names like Hotdog, Agent X, Poison... Yeap.

When fighting against the bosses, there's really not a specific strategy to follow, just try to knock them down by any means necessary. One boss has you throwing things at him the entire fight, and while it's a change for once, it's not like it's completely interesting to do. The reason why I disliked this fight is because when you're playing as a character that's not as strong as Smasher, they pick up heavy items really slowly, and this basically gives the boss a perfect opportunity to knock me flat on my butt with his electrical projectile. The characters takes their sweet, sweet time to get up, and by the time I'm back at the thrown item, the guy is floating around in the air where I can't touch him.

It's frustrating that this game can be really slow at times. If you're not holding down the run button, it just seems like it's taking forever to get to the next section in the game.

Mind you the title of this blog. This game was originally supposed to be Streets of Rage, but they changed it completely. You remember that Sega game right? Especially where the third one had that Japanese-only flamboyant boss? Yeap. I don't remember the entire thing on why it was changed, I just remember a tiny bit of it.

Like I stated, this game has its frustrating moments, but if you want to kill time, I wouldn't mind recommending this game to you. It's really fun to play, but not with a partner... Because if they want to be really douchey, all they can do is just beat you down and, HEY you're dead!

Yeah, you and your partner can beat each other up and do damage, there is no friendly fire in this game.

>'-'<

IT'S FINALS WEEK

In case anyone who normally reads this are wondering why there hasn't been a new review up this week it's simply because I am in "Finals Mode." I'm not going to really be worrying a lot with this blog until next Thursday, May 3rd, when I'm completely done for the semester.

I do have a game review being worked on, it's just going to take a while before it's actually published. So don't think I just blatantly ditched this blog... School is more important folks.

>'-'<

Would you kindly read my blog?

        Would You Kindly... Read My Blog?

    Ahh, one of the most successful first-person shooters of this generation, Bioshock, makes an appearance in my video game blogs. This game is probably, in my opinion, one of those games that you can NOT grow bored with. The characters that you face are just so freaking creepy, the atmosphere is even creepier, and the story that this game has is just stunningly beautiful. I’m also glad that each game that’s been released, (or in the process of being made) you’re playing as a different character, playing differently than the other, and is in a situation much different than the previous hero/anti-hero.

    Bioshock has you in the underwater city, Rapture, surviving on your own with help from a guy named Atlas. You’re Jack, a man who is currently being a servant to the phrase “Would you kindly.” Jack must survive against the Splicers, one of a few main enemies in the game, as well as the Big Daddies, somewhat of a sub-boss of the game. These guys are freakishly tough and strong, and it requires you to have some sort of a strategy to take them down. You can’t just rush into a room that has a Big Daddy in it and just shoot the living crap out of him, because most games tend to think, “Oh, this is just some random AI that I’m pitted against, all I have to do is just shoot it to kill it.” Well, the developers of Bioshock took that one step further to where you must have at least some sort of a decent strategy to take it down. These Big Daddies are tough because they’re protecting the Little Sisters. These guys are crucial to your survival in Rapture because they’re carrying the single most important item to have to live in Rapture... ADAM.

    Let’s talk about ADAM and EVE here for a bit. Shall we...? What was harvested from a sea slug, their unstable stem cells are believed to be carrying a totipotent stem cell that can differentiate into any cell type. They can be genetically manipulated to produce cells that you wouldn’t find in any kind of human bodies. They’re like cancer, destroying cells and creating their own, unstable versions. They hold tremendous powers, although, what holds great power also holds great consequences. The cells that produces these powers also damages or disfigures the people both mentally and physically to the point they stop being human and act more like a higher ordered thinking zombie than can use weapons. You have to keep finding more and more ADAM just to remain sane and healthy. EVE, on the other hand, are modified versions of ADAM. You can collect what are called EVE Hypos to restore your EVE which used to utilize the special cells in your body for the powers. You see, your character has the ability to hold special powers such as an electrical bolt, flame, fire, and random of other goodies to throw out against your enemies. These cost EVE, and EVE Hypos restores your EVE bar. ADAM buys you more powers...

    In the end, you’re just one major bad ass that can destroy enemies within a heartbeat if this was real.

    These enemies are hunting down these Little Sisters because, as stated, are carrying ADAM. Splicers are deformed humans on Rapture who are just insane, messed up creatures who used a bit more Plasmids, which are processed ADAM... Your abilities that you gain throughout the game, as well as Rapture’s Civil War that took place. These guys murdered a LOT of the people who lived in Rapture due to their deformities because how they abused ADAM. As stated, ADAM is like a drug, and what do drugs do in the real world when they’re overused? They mess your brain up like what a frying pan does to a single egg.

    This is what you have to face in Rapture when you’re Jack. Poor mind-slave Jack. Did I tell you that you’re basically a slave in the hands of a powerful being that you wouldn’t think possible? Yeah, unfortunately, who you thought was your friend, turns out to be an impersonator. Atlas isn’t Atlas, he’s Frank Fontaine, smuggling, mobster-like s.o.b. who challenged Andrew Ryan’s claim over the city... which turned into its downfall. Atlas is really dead. Fontaine has been commanding you to do this and to do that by a simple phrase of, “Would you kindly.” And by doing so, you do it. “A man chooses, a slave obeys,” another saying in Bioshock that is really important.

    Andrew Ryan is an enemy, but he isn’t really your enemy, just Fontaine’s enemy. But you do kill him, and Fontaine.

    That’s all I really want to spoil for Bioshock if you guys haven’t gotten a chance to play Bioshock... But I thought it would be interesting to note some big twist in the game.

    The second one is even more interesting. How so? Well... Let me first begin by telling you that you get to play as a Big Daddy. Yes, you are in control of the giant s.o.b.’s that you were fighting against in the first game. You do get to destroy them again in this game, but having to be as one is just... awesome, you know?

    So, you’re a Big Daddy, anything else that’s different? Well yeah! The fact that you can actually have one of the Little Sisters helping you obtain more ADAM for yourself rather than having a decision to “Rescue” or “Harvest” them when you encounter them. You have the ability to “Adopt” if you want to be good for a bit and have them scout out corpses throughout the levels for you to get more ADAM. Of course, you still have the option to “Harvest” them whether you just defeated a Big Daddy or you’re done gathering more ADAM with her. If you’re more towards the kind-hearted side, you can always “Rescue” them.

    But, there’s a downside to when you’re freeing them... The Big Sisters. Now, for those who haven’t even touched Bioshock 2 yet but have played Bioshock 1, let me begin by telling you that the Big Sisters are worse than the Big Daddies. Yeah, they’re faster, they throw more at you, such as fire bombs, and they have this annoying scream that just pierces your ears. So guys, try not to play this game on full blast. They scream before you encounter them, letting you know that a fight is about to happen. Honestly, freezing them and shooting them works for me.

    What is the story for this game? How can a Big Daddy have a lot happen to him to where an entire game is focused on him? Well, you had a Little Sister adopted, Eleanor. She was truly your Little Sister... But a woman name Sofia Lamb was not going to stand by for this. In fact, Eleanor is her daughter. She didn’t like the fact that you adopted her daughter. So what she did to you instead? She made you shoot yourself with that mind-control like what Jack suffered in the first game.

    Your objective is to search for Eleanor... years later after this incident happened. Throughout the story, she helps you by giving you presents behind her mother’s back, mostly plasmids, and she also has a message to leave behind on why she’s doing this and hoping that you come rescue her as fast as you can. Throughout the game though, you’re going to find yourself hating Sofia Lamb more and more with what she has to say to you.

    In this game, there’s something new added to the game. There’s going to be NPC’s (non-playable characters) that you will encounter, and you have the chance to either just let them be or kill them right on the spot. Of course, whatever you decide to do either has dire consequences or could help you.

    Both of these games has endings that depends on your actions throughout the game. The kinder you are to the Little Sisters in the first game, you get the good ending, which means if you didn’t harvest any of them, you get a nice ending in the end. If you harvested the Little Sisters, however, you’re going to get a bad ending. In Bioshock 2, it’s the same thing, if you rescued more than you harvest, you get the good ending, if you harvested more than you rescued, you get the bad ending. You also have to not kill the NPCs too to have a good ending, or if you kill them, you’ll get the bad ending... Well, killing them will not definitely get you a bad ending just like that, it’ll progress your character’s ending towards the bad direction.

    Sofia’s fate in the second game depends on your actions... Let’s just say that without really spoiling anything... As well as Eleanor’s actions... The ending effects that as well.


    Last but not least, we have Bioshock Infinite that’s going to be released really, really soon. I cannot wait. This time, you’re playing as Booker DeVitt, and you have a partner name Elizabeth, who’s got incredible powers that will help you along the way. Although, keeping her around is going to leave you guys facing Songbird. You know how throughout Bioshock, you were facing a Big Daddy and in Bioshock 2, you were facing a Big Sister... both who were on ground for most of the fight? (Despite that a Big Sister can jump around like crazy) Yeah well, Songbird... flies. (It shouldn’t have been hard to notice that since “bird” is in its name) This thing is after Elizabeth. Oh, and did I forget to mention that you’re not in Rapture anymore? Instead, you’re in a sky city called Columbia. I’m not really going to spoil anything or talk more into depth about what this game is because the trailers do most of the talking for you.

    Bioshock is an awesome game literally with no flaws at all. The only minor annoying thing that this game has is when you’re play it for the very first time and it has to load... That loading time takes such a long time to load, you know... But still, this game is clearly flawless and I truly recommend to anyone who enjoys thrillers, first-person shooters, and into a very detailed story to get this game. You don’t want to miss a beat with it!

>’-’<

"My name is BERTHA. Ready to play "

    I’m a big Resident Evil fan, I enjoy the games... But... I’m kind of shocked at how the latest new game turned out to be. This game seemed really awesome, that finally, you get to play as Umbrella not as a hero... I’m a bit disappointed. I’m not going to say that this game sucks or whatever, because it doesn’t, I was just disappointed in a few aspects of the game that I really thought would have been cool.

    Let’s start out with how many players can play. Whelp, it’s a single-player game, although up to eight people can join you through the Playstation Network system. What? I was really hoping that I could spend some time wasted with my boyfriend shooting zombie heads and killing the heroes just like that! Unfortunately, this game is a single-player game, despite that you can have three computer bots joining your side... This couldn’t be two-players because...?

    The characters are interesting. I chose to play as BERTHA, the medic. Why I always pick the medic in games is beyond me. Anyways, the others are FOUR-EYES, LUPO, VECTOR, SPECTRE, and BELTWAY. They all have something unique about them. All work for Umbrella, all have cool voice effects that makes them sound like a cyborg.

    RE:ORC’s story is also a unique one. You’re Umbrella, trying to get a sample of the T-Virus, of course, you battle the classic William Birkin and his first phase form after you’ve approached him. Then you’re off fighting against Specs, the opposing side that’s trying to help the survivors. You get abandoned after a few failed attempts in eliminating survivors, you get re-attached to Umbrella and you are to finally kill Leon Kennedy and Claire, who also has Sherry by their side.

    Depending on your choice in the last mission of the game, you can either kill Leon or save Leon. Whatever your choice is, you have one partner out of the four on your side while the other two are against you. If you’re saving Leon, you have the ability to win the game very, very easily, since you have a boss on your team. All you have to do is literally wipe out the two former teammates, while avoiding zombies, and you’ve won the game with the ending showing how and why you two are surviving. It’s because Umbrella screwed you over and now you’re screwing them over.

    Although, the same can not be said if you decide to kill Leon. You see, Leon apparently is a god when you’re trying to kill him. He’s got unlimited grenades and ammo. If you try to CQC him, he’ll counter back and probably, if he’s quick enough, stab  you in the neck with his own CQC. He also apparently can take ten grenade launcher shots to the torso and still lives. This guy is nearly impossible to take down. I’m still in the process of doing so and I’m getting more frustrated as time is going by.

    When you finally defeat him, he’s dead. Claire, who I do not like in this series, also dies too. Sherry is obviously taken into Umbrella’s hands since that is your primary objective after she comes into the story. If you’re not a Resident Evil fan, research why this child is a very important character throughout this story as well as the original RE2.

    The game... it’s frustrating. For some reason Spec soldiers can take a barrage of bullets to the face and still fight back against you. That annoys me. The logic that has behind it is ridiculous because, if I was shot in the face, twenty times by an automatic, I’d probably be dead, don’t you think? The zombies aren’t that big of an issue here, the crimson heads are a little bit of an annoyance because they’re faster and they’re more likely to infect you rather than an ordinary zombie, but, they’re honestly not as annoying as Specs getting shot in the face more than I can shoot.

    Some of the bosses can be a bit frustrating too. If you get hit, you take a while to recover. Such as, if you get knocked down to the ground, your character decides that this is the perfect opportunity to take our precious time to move away. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been ambushed by a group of zombies or William Birkin slamming me with his pipe. And some of the ambush side quests are also annoying. So, we’re in a room and need to find this card to escape from the building, but apparently, we’re being ambushed by Lickers. Okay, if I just stay here with my team and we eliminate them all, we can just get the card and move on, right? NO! As soon as you get that card, the room explodes, and now you have to get out of there before the building collapses while MORE Lickers comes after you. And, if you don’t reach the checkpoint, you’re stuck battling probably an infinite amount of Lickers, who somewhat can kill off your entire team if you’re not careful where they’re at.

    Oh, and let me talk about the AI teammates in this game. They can either be extremely smart or extremely stupid and it happens at random times of the game. So, I’m BERTHA and I have LUPO, VECTOR, and SPECTRE on my side and whelp, we’re in a room with laser traps around me. I’ve been given a message that tells me to shoot where the laser is coming from to disarm the trap. Well, I guess my leader LUPO doesn’t understand that if you walk backwards without realizing what’s behind you, you’re going to get blasted by the trap. Oh, but we just came from a long gun fight battle against a horde of Specs in the previous room, and I don’t have a first aid spray to heal her. So, what happened to LUPO? Oh, she’s dead, and I don’t quite feel like resurrecting a dumb bot.

    Apparently, your teammates cannot be permanently dead if you let them be there and move on with the mission. As soon as you reach a checkpoint, your teammates will all be with you, and apparently, all will have full health again. Although, if they changed into a zombie, you cannot resurrect them...

    Overall, this game is good, but it’s completely frustrating. I wouldn’t say it’s one of the best RE games, but it’s not a huge disappointment either.

>’-’< Kitty

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.