With upcoming PS3 title Heavy Rain, the developer aims to make the video game equivalent of something like an R rated film — adult characters, adult content. As mentioned previously, some of that content is nudity. The preview build of the game played by Kotaku included a little bit of nudity - a bare male posterior, a topless woman, and cheekily blocked genitalia during some scenes of dressing and undressing — but no sex.

Footage from Polish site tvgry.pl offers a look at how the adult content in the game is being handled — looks somewhat sterile, which is refreshing for a video game.

Both types will probably find these comments of interest, then. "Heavy Rain is not a video game anymore in my mind because it breaks with most of the traditional paradigms, but it's fully interactive," he told Destructoid. "If the format becomes successful, we will probably have to find a different name for this type of experience".

And if it doesn't, we will probably have to find a different name for David Cage.

Cage: Heavy Rain 'not a videogame anymore in my mind' [Destructoid]

Yes, Sony are going all-out in the game's home market, offering the game in a "specially embossed" box (to make it look like it's been rained on) that includes episode 1 of the Heavy Rain Chronicles, the game's soundtrack and a dynamic XMB theme for your PS3.

By 2009 standards (well, 2010's), that's pretty thin for a special edition. What, no collectible vinyl of that woman sobbing in her kitchen, gun in her mouth?

While last year's spread featured naked versions of characters from games like Afro Samurai, Ride to Hell, Velvet Assassin, Saints Row 2, Damnation, and Rise of the Argonauts, this year features boobs from games venturing closer to AAA territory. That includes rendered tits and ass from God of War III, Heavy Rain, The Saboteur and Mafia II. It also means Crimecraft, but, hey, there are exceptions to this loose rule.

The veiny pinup with her yayas out up there? That's the lovely Beatrice from Visceral Games' Dante's Inferno. Below is a very naked Madison Paige from Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain, another high profile PlayStation 3 games due in early 2010.

If this is the kind of thing you enjoy—and haven't found comparable content on the internet already—the January issue of Playboy magazine has the full "Playing Hard To Get" lineup of digital nakedness, sans Kotaku Censor Fish. It's the one with Tara Reid on the cover as featured at the equally NSFW link below.

Playboy January/February 2010 Issue [Playboy.com]

The first of these episodic downloads is Heavy Rain: Chronicle One – The Taxidermist, a self-contained story featuring Heavy Rain ensemble star Madison Paige. You may have seen The Taxidermist before, as it was the subject of many Heavy Rain previews, like the one we had at the Leipzig Games Convention in 2008.

According to official word, these "unique, stand-alone, playable short stories" will "offer a unique journey and different outcomes based on the players' decisions and actions." The PlayStation.blog puts a theoretical $4.99 price tag on these things, which may or may not affect your decision to pre-order the game.

Hit up the PlayStation.blog for a list of participating retailers if you're interest is piqued.

Pre-order Heavy Rain and Get The Heavy Rain Chronicles [PlayStation.blog]

I'm beginning to piece together some of the story from Heavy Rain for myself between all of the screenshots and Totilo's recent preview, and I'm feeling a bit sad even before the game is released. Poor Ethan, conflicted by feelings for his wife, whom I am guessing something horrible happens to - you don't spend this much time showing how in love two people are in a drama without someone dying tragically - and his well cultivated grief beard. Those two words don't even sound right together. Grief...beard? It's like some strange alien language.

But the content fiascoes of that older game, called Indigo Prophecy in the U.S. and Fahrenheit in its native Europe, are a thing of the past, the co-CEO of its development studio, Quantum Dream's 's Guilaume de Fondaumiere, told Kotaku in a recent interview.

The ambitiously mature Heavy Rain won't be censored for America.

Earlier this week we ran a preview of the somber murder drama Heavy Rain and a story about its Trophies. The integrity of the content seemed like a crucial issue to address with our latest bit of coverage of the game.

Quantic Dream, which is based in France, intends to make games for adults. They did so with Fahrenheit and aim to again with heavy Rain. That doesn't mean "adult games," as in "pornography," but it does mean that the team is comfortable with including nudity and sex in its games. Fahrenheit did, more so in Europe. In the North American version of that game, sex scenes were removed or censored in order for the game to get an M rating.

Many Americans, apparently, didn't like that.

"Tens of thousands" of people wound up importing the European version of the game, de Fondaumiere told Kotaku. But they won't have to do the same for Heavy Rain, he said, because there will be no censoring, no content differentiation (other than, assumedly, language tracks) between the game as it will be released by its developers and Sony and Europe and the version released for PS3 gamers in North America.

The preview build of the game played by Kotaku included a little bit of nudity — a bare male posterior, a topless woman, and cheekily blocked genitalia during some scenes of dressing and undressing — but no sex. We know that the game will include a scene in which the player makes their female character strip, a scene that is intended to feel uncomfortable. But the extent to which there is any sex isn't known and probably isn't that important to catalog in advance, given the context of Heavy Rain's depiction of adult content.

De Fondaumiere didn't give me the impression that Quantic Dream had backed off. He said that much has changed in the four years since the release of Fahrenheit. More adult content has made it into games and more of it — not all — has been handled with class. The seriousness with which Quantic Dream wants to include the equivalent of R-rated movie material in a video game sold in America is now more permissible, the developer noted.

As a result, North American fans of the idea of playing a game the way a developer intended it to be played won't have to worry about importing in order to play the "real" Heavy Rain. It's coming to America, with no censorship attached.

Heavy Rain, an interactive drama (or think of it as an adventure game), will be out for the PlayStation 3 in early 2010.

Heavy Rain will have Trophies. But you won't be told that you earned them until the breaks between the game's chapters.

Quantic Dream co-CEO Guilaume de Fondaumiere told Kotaku in New York that the game's Trophy alerts will operate on a delay. That gets the team around the problem of having the little Trophy alert message and accompanying chime interrupt scenes of tense crime-scene investigation or a father's quiet struggle to get his son to talk to him after a bad day at school. The game will maintain its mood during the important parts by rewarding the gamer with alerts during transitional scenes.

Since their inception, Achievements on the Xbox 360 and the similar service of Trophies on the PlayStation 3 have been widely popular among gamers. But the alerts that signify the winning of an Achievement or Trophy can and do get in the way of subtitle text or otherwise distract players. And while an option to turn the alerts is one solution to this issue that some gamers use, having the Trophies rewarded after the fact is another method that permits a notice of accomplishment without killing a carefully constructed mood.

Heavy Rain ships in early 2010 on the PlayStation 3.

Over the weekend I played the first several chapters of Heavy Rain using a preview disc supplied by Sony Computer Entertainment of America. It was my first at-home trial of one of the major early 2010 games, a hands-on test of whether ambitious French game development studio Quantic Dream can meet its high goals of high-definition interactive fiction, last seen by players in the studio's 2005 PS2 game Indigo Prophecy (Farenheit in its native Europe).

Or let's call the Heavy Rain genre not interactive fiction but something else, a different name signalledby one of the early rewards unlocked for starting the game is a Trophy that states: "Thank you for supporting interactive drama."

Interactive drama. It's not quite a classic video game, at least not in what it asks the player to do, how it shows the action of its scenes and how it marks progress. Having experienced Hevy Rain's first several chapters I've not repeated many actions the way you might repeat Kratos' combat moves 25 times in the game's first 30 seconds. In those Heavy Rain chapters I seldom saw my controllable character from behind, as you would any number of heroes of Final Fantasy or Dead Rising. And I never scored points, lost lives, collected items or so many other things that we do when we play games.

I searched for clues about a serial murderer, the Origami Killer. I also washed dishes, turned on light switches, smooth-talked a convenience store stick-up man and took a shower. Concerning that last one, I took a shower both as one of the game's male characters and later as one of the game's female characters, and didn't just get to control the shower — I got to control the drying off.

Heavy Rain is bound to perplex some gamers. Its description will agitate a certain kind of macho gamer who is already angry about the alleged watering down of gaming by so-called casual and party game experiences.

But Heavy Rain may even test the tolerance of those who want to believe in development studio Quantic Dream's zeal to develop genuinely mature games. This, Heavy Rain, is a slow trickle of interactivity within a deluge of dark tones. This game is sad and slowly paced. It is melancholy and as sunless as the weather pattern from which it gets its name. Those who will enjoy it will be those who can stave off impatience.

The game begins, in an exception, in sunshine. The player controls Ethan Mars, taking the happily married father of two boys through some basic morning routines. That's the tutorial, teaching the player that a hold of a PlayStation 3 controller's shoulder button will walk Ethan forward, twists of the left control stick will turn him, but that most meaningful action will be generated by presses and pushes of the right stick and face buttons. Getting up from bed is a push of the right stick up. Opening a door might be a slide to the side. Shaving, washing your face and brushing your teeth is a combination of button taps and motion-triggered controller shakes. Any available action is signaled by the presence of a floating controller prompt, making the gameplay largely one of walking, searching for the next prompt that signals an available action. A hold of another shoulder button often generates a swirl of words around Ethan, representing his thoughts or topics of conversation, once he is around other people. This helps the player as a hint system.

This first Ethan chapter is your tutorial, the first gaming tutorial I've ever played consisting entirely of actions possible in the real world. In other words, Heavy Rain begins in an un-fantastic way, taking the aforementioned risk of lulling its players to disinterest. But the developers maintain that their quiet moments and quotidian options are character-building moments, mood-setters that make later actions more impactful. Sure enough, when one of Ethan's sons goes missing in a mall in the next chapter, it feels like it matters. And it's hard to say if it would have felt so relevant had the game not enabled the player to have Ethan horse around with his sons in the backyard one scene earlier.

About that backyard scene. There's a triumph there in the presentation of a challenging option. Once his wife and kids had returned from the store, I had made Ethan go outside to the backyard with the boys. The two sons vied for their father's attention and the game asked the player to choose: Who do you play with first? Who do you gleefully swing around like a propellor first, among these two cheerful boys jumping up and begging you to pick them? It's the simplest and seemingly least-perilous question posed in this or any other PlayStation 3 game. There's no stakes of life or death. But the feeling does seep in that something else is at stake: How the boys feel and how the one who won't be chosen first will lreact. Games seldom evoke such subtle and empathetic reactions. Heavy Rain doing it there, strikes the right note.

The game unfolds in chapters. Soon, Ethan's life is ruined, with death having struck the family and Ethan resigned to live by himself, struggling to maintain being a decent father while suffering mysterious blackouts. At this point the game's skies get dark.

Each chapter is established with some text that doesn't just name the day but notes the amount of rainfall. Sunshine is gone as the player becomes vexed with simpler things, like figuring out whether to force a child to do his homework or what to make for a dinner — and the domestic despair of not being able to find any as it gets later and later.

The player gets control of new characters in new chapters, taking command of an overweight, middle-aged private detective who visits a prostitute to speak to her about her son, a victim of the Origami Killer. The player controls Madison Page, in a nighttime scene played intermittently with Page in her underwear or, when she's showering, nude. The sequence might seem pandering and overly sexualized until those themes are twisted and made all the more disturbing when men seem to break into her apartment to attack her. She, with the player in control, can fight them off, as Heavy Rain prompts the player to input series of button presses and control stick swings to choreograph the fight (Bad timing in this game might result in a missed punch or, in a less threatening moment, a dropping of the grocery bag you were supposed to be taking from your wife).

A fourth character, Norman Jaden, is an FBI profiler who seeks clues to the identity of the Origami Killer with the help of some advanced glasses and glove that allow the player to produce a clue-highlighting circle of light. Jaden's sequences, using that clue-finding mechanic, are the most classically game-like in Heavy Rain.

Quantic Dream has promised a malleable story and one with consequences. Those claims were hard to test in the incomplete build I have of the game. I recognized options for how Ethan could interact with one of his sons, but I didn't see consequences yet about how that would affect their interactions later in the game. I had the private detective, Scott Shelby, play out the convenience store stick-up scene in two very different ways (honestly, I was trying to get him killed the second time), yet each scenario ended the chapter in the exact same way. It feels like there are choices, but it's hard to recognize if and how they matter. That they will is supposed to be one of the draws. After all, the game's executive producer, Quantic Dream CEO Guilaume de Fondaumiere told me recently in New York that any one of the four characters I played can die — and die early. The game has approximately 20 endings. So there is variation, just, for better or worse, nothing that is obvious about it in the early going.

Another more worrisome detail is the quality of the voice-acting, which sounds as if accents are being suppressed and characters are talking in isolation, conversation being stitched together rather than occurring in person. There is time for that to be improved.

It's hard to convey just how much of a sad experience Heavy Rain is without giving away some of the plot. It might suffice to say that it seems that almost every major character in this preview build has experienced a death of someone close to them. That sadness weighs on their moods, is worn on their faces and matches the relatively slow movement and quiet activities of this game — or interactive drama.

What was building by the time my preview build reached its end was a decent mystery about who this killer was but also a deeper interest, in me, as to how these four main characters would wind up. I want to know what happens next, what I can make them do and where their emotional journeys will land them. These are not the impulses I typically have about game characters. There is no ultimate weapon to seek, not level to conquer, no stat to raise. I didn't mind the quiet actions, though the brushing of teeth, washing of hands, turning on and off of light switches was a little more than I expected.

I finished the preview the least interested in playing Ethan the father, in terms of the game mechanics available to this sad and broken man. The other characters were more dynamic and physically fun to play. But I find myself drawn to the emotion of Ethan's story the most and I do desire to know what happens next. I'm interested in feelings and drama. So far, that change of pace is a welcome one.

Heavy Rain ships for the PlayStation 3 in the first quarter of 2010.

Writing for PopMatters, G. Christopher Williams picked up on an interview with Quantic Dream, the developer of Heavy Rain, in which the writer confessed he felt uncomfortable being forced to perform the striptease. "Fantastic," Quantic Dream's David Cage tells Game Informer. "You know what? That is exactly what we wanted. ... Yes, it's a strong moment for the character. But if we managed to make you feel uncomfortable it is because at some point we made you believe you were Madison."

This is a departure from other gameplay-based depictions of sex, Williams argues, where the object was either to reveal skin or engage in a mini-game that "reduces sex to the stabbing motions of button mashing." He says the breakthrough lies not necessarily in a mature depiction of sex, but in delivering a new perspective on how it is understood, even if it means forcing someone in an opposite gender role to see its more degrading side.

The Gleam of Electric Sex: What Video Games Might (or Might Not) Teach Us About Sex [PopMatters, Oct. 14.]

If I am interpreting Cage's thinking correctly, he seems to be suggesting that Heavy Rain is moving beyond the voyeuristic simulations of sexuality offered by countless other forms of more passive media and also beyond simply making a participatory simulation of sexuality into a mere simulation of the "‘ol in-out, in-out". Instead, what seems to be offered here is a potential simulation of some of the psychology of the sexual experience.

In this particular instance, the psychology is particularly fascinating as it is likely a rather novel experience for the largest demographic of video game players, males. If feminist theory concerning the tendency for women to become the object of the male gaze holds any credence, the experience of being made object to that gaze may be an entirely new experience for many players. Indeed, it may also be an uncomfortable one as traditional gender roles and perspectives may be tested and reversed as a result of being made to "believe you were Madison" because players will participate in this humiliating act rather than merely view it.

Certainly, Cage and Quantic Dream's efforts are not entirely new. Many video game players have toyed with gender bending experiments such as playing avatars that represent themselves as the opposite of their own gender. I have played female avatars in online games and have noted differences in the ways that I am treated when playing as a female character as opposed to a male character. Largely, my own experience had led me to observe that I seemed to receive a lot more gifts from other players when playing as a female (which may suggest something about cultural norms and expectations concerning male-female relationships).

However, this limited sort of experience was not placed in the context of a story or a character whose entire personality is coded as female (my avatar was always driven by my own personality as I am not one to play "in character" in games, not attempting then to specifically act like the character that I am playing in the context of the gaming world). Adding layers of storytelling and the more objective, dramatic qualities of scripted and directed behaviors into this mix may produce more focused statements on sexuality than we have seen in gaming thus far and may push this participatory art in directions that the passive arts are limited in exploring. Because we may have to reconsider who we are as we play out the experiences of someone else. Games have the potential to create empathy with characters rather than the sympathy that film or books might evoke in watching someone else suffer or experience pleasure.

- G. Christopher Williams

Weekend Reader is Kotaku's look at the critical thinking in, and of video games. It appears Saturdays at noon. Please take the time to read the full article cited before getting involved in the debate here.

Quantic Dream founder David Cage spoke to Videogamer.com at Gamescom last week about the possibility for additional, post-release downloadable content for the cinematic action adventure Heavy Rain, going out of his way to make sure players understand that the company wouldn't simply be releasing content that didn't make it into the retail release.

"It's a self-contained experience. We won't release the end of the game as DLC that you need to pay for. The game has all the scenes it's supposed to have. It's a complete story," Cage told VideoGamer.com at Gamescom last week. "But we are talking with Sony at the moment about having maybe extra downloadable content, maybe with prequels or sequels about the characters. I'm sure people will get attached to some of them and will want to know them even better."

I'd say he's right. I would have killed for downloadable content for Omikron or Indigo Prophecy, two of the studio's previous games lauded for their storytelling. More content from Quantic Dream is always welcome.

Heavy Rain sequels and prequels possible through DLC [Videogamer.com]

Since Quantic Dream had already thoroughly teased the adventures of newly revealed character Ethan Mars at Sony's Gamescom press conference, our demo focused on the fourth and final playable character, Scott Shelby. In Heavy Rain, Shelby's been hired to do a little detective work on the Origami Killer, in service to those who have long lost loved ones to the mysterious serial killer. The Shelby segment shown to us didn't reveal much of the game's story line, instead putting a heavy emphasis on its characters and the consequences of their choices.

The brief scene was set in a convenience store run by a man named Hassan, father of one of the Origami Killer's victims. Shelby's there to interview Hassan, but the private dick finds it hard to get anything out of the shop owner who is clearly still hurting from the loss of his son. Shelby's solution? Make use of his proximity to convenience and pick up some asthma inhalers.

Whilst shopping for said inhalers, Hassan's Shop is robbed by a young and jittery thief. Shelby, luckily out of sight, has a choice to make.

Fondaumièr showed us the results of one of those choices, with Shelby slowly creeping down one of the store aisles directly behind the thief. Along the way, Shelby nearly knocked over what appeared to be a box of detergent, but Fondaumièr was dexterous enough to catch it via an on-screen prompt, quietly replacing the box. He then, just as quietly, pulled a bottle of booze from the shelf to his left. Sneaking up behind the assailant, Fondaumièr swung the PS3 controller downward, knocking the thief unconscious.

Hold up averted.

Shelby's alternate attempt wasn't as cut and dry. Fondaumièr instead chose a different aisle to sneak down. Upon exiting, he found himself perpendicular to the thief who spotted Shelby in his peripheral.

At the thief's nervous request Shelby held his arms up—really, Fondaumièr held the R1 and L1 buttons on the DualShock controller—and attempted to talk the thief down. Negotiating is as technically simple as pressing one of the controller's face buttons, but you'll have to make the right decision. Fondaumièr did, choosing a series of soothing, grounding dialogue options that tied into the game's thread of love and loss.

The demo didn't show off much that we didn't already know about. We've seen Heavy Rain in action multiple times and have become familiar with its control scheme, its mechanic of letting the player hear the internal thoughts of its cast, and the complex threads that weave between each of the four characters' respective stories. Co-creator David Cage has been careful about not revealing much in the way of intertwining plot, so we'll be interested to see how scenarios and characters overlap in the final product.

What we saw at Gamescom was as consistently good as Heavy Rain has been over the past year in its public showings—it's now been a year since we first saw a playable build. It's not due to hit PlayStation 3s until sometime next year, so we're guessing there's still more yet to be revealed about the game.

We'll let you know our internal thoughts on those details when the time comes.

I got going on this idea because my first night on the job for Kotaku — covering a Godfather II event — I sliced my foot open and spent the next week limping from junket to junket. But whenever I thought I had it bad as a games journalist, I'd always remind myself that journalists in video games usually have it way worse. They wade through zombies, deal with emotionally unstable people and more often than not wind up on the front lines of wars and stuff. They're the ones that deserve a bottle of Cristal and a hug. But instead, they get this photo gallery.

Taylor — Suikoden 5
[Image Cred]

Irene Ellet — Valkyria Chronicles
[Image Cred]

Frank West — Dead Rising
[Image Cred]

Elena Fisher — Uncharted
[Image Cred]

Joseph Schreiber — Silent Hill 4

Keith Helm — Disaster Report
[Image Cred]

Ben Bertolucci — Resident Evil 2
[Image Cred]

Ulala — Space Channel 5

Everyone — Michigan: Report From Hell (never came out in North America)
[Image Cred]

Madison Paige — Heavy Rain
[Image Cred]

Laura Parton - D2

Keats — Folklore
[Image Cred]

Maya Amano - Persona 2: Eternal Punishment

Alyssa - Resident Evil: Outbreak
[Image Cred]

I give honorable mentions to the news announcers in King of Fighters 12, the sportscaster characters in any sports game ever and one to Reuben Oluwagembi in Far Cry 2 (couldn't find a good enough picture of him). Other than that, these are all I've got — hit me up in the comments if you think of more. Owen Good nominated Paperboy I assume on grounds that he would have been promoted to copyeditor by now, but I don't know...

P.S. I still have the cork from that bottle of Cristal in my purse. It reminds me of everything that's happened in the last year and how much of it I owe to Kotaku. Here's looking at another year of blogging!

In the upcoming thriller Heavy Rain, gameplay pushes the story forward.

Metal Gear Solid designer Hideo Kojima meet with David Cage of Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream. Cage calls the discussion with Kojima "very interesting".

"But yeah I believe that the only real challenge is to treat the storytelling differently, not through cut scenes but directly through gameplay," says Cage. "As you play you tell the story. And that's the most difficult thing to do, but also the most interesting thing."

Cage won't go into details about what was discussed, but was "pleased" to hear that Kojima had heard of Quantic Dream and Heavy Rain. He must be a pretty big fan of Kojima's work, no? "I certainly respect his work, definitely, although it's not the type of game I want to make myself," says Cage. "But yeah he's a huge star, I guess." Yeah, we guess!

Heavy Rain: David Cage Interview [Kikizo]

"We're still at the alpha stage and there's a whole lot of work to be done," said Quantic Dream's David Cage. "There's so much fine-tuning in the game left to do. Everything has to be perfect. If there's one thing wrong in a scene, it's the only thing you'll see. There are many things that don't work right now. We need to have everything in place, from facial animations, to score to work out the final result."

This is exactly the kind of stuff you want to be hearing from Quantum Dream. PS3 exclusive Heavy Rain: The Origami Killer has a release window of early 2010.

Quantic Dream's David Cage [NowGamer]

Day four, meanwhile, was slim pickings — although that Fat Princess trailer really had me laughing. The Super Mario Galaxy 2 trailer was my favorite from day three without a doubt, although Final Fantasy XIII was pretty cool. Give me Yoshi in space over emo any day.

Anyone want to nominate a Best of E3 clip?

Day Three
Watch The PSP Go Sliding In Action
Ratchet & Clank Future E3 Developer Trailer
Gran Turismo 5 Trailer Has, Yes, Car Damage
Super Mario Galaxy 2 Screens And Trailer
A New Final Fantasy XIII Trailer For You To Watch
Heavy Rain Trailer Falls On E3
Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles E3 Trailer
Assassin's Creed 2 Gameplay Glides In
Kratos Is In The New Soulcalibur
Whip It With This Castlevania: Lord of Shadow Trailer
Natasha Bedingfield Serenades A DSi

Day Four
You Ever Wonder What The Bottom Of An Avatar Shoe Looks Like?
Today's Most Relaxing Trailer? Echochrono
The Grinder E3 Trailer
Plus-Sized Fat Princess E3 Trailer
Taste Hot Monkey Vengeance!
This Is The Most Technically Impressive Thing I've Seen All Week

Heavy Rain will be released on the PS3 later this year.