It's been awhile since we saw or even heard anything new from Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain, but 1UP have managed to secure a hands-on with the game revealing a new scenario and new characters.

[ Discussion in the Heavy Rain Forum ]

For this demo, his focus is on Norman Jayden, a 29 year-old drug-addicted FBI agent who looks a bit like Alan Wake in an old man coat (and who, for those keeping track, fills in the lower right slot of Quantic's silhouette teaser image). Jayden is in an unnamed East Coast U.S. city searching for information on "The Origami Killer," a serial murderer who leaves origami on his victims as a calling card.

As Cage narrates, Jayden arrives at a junkyard, where of course, it's pouring rain (the title isn't just a metaphor). His car pulls to a stop, and the only piece of interface that appears on the screen is a tiny arrow hovering over the door handle. As we've written about before, players use these icons for actions throughout the game -- the arrow shows up, and they tap the right analog stick in that direction to open the car door.

Part of the button-pressing system has changed since the last time we covered the game, however. When a player holds down L2, "keywords" attributed to buttons on the controller now float around you like they're swimming in midair, and their appearance changes based on your character's mental state -- if you're under control, these will be easy to select, but if you're nervous they will become blurry and move quickly, making them difficult to choose. "This is one of the ways we make you share the pathological state of the character," says Cage.

As Jayden walks around, searching for clues, the game shows lots of context-specific animations -- he leans forward and crosses his arms in the rain, and appears much more relaxed when he makes his way inside a hangar. One inside, Jayden triggers his ARI ("Added Reality Interface") glasses, which allow him to see various clues around the environment, such as blue paint and traces of blood that lead to a dead body.

This is when Cage's narration really kicks in ("be careful!"), because as soon as Jayden finds the body, he gets a gun to the back of his head courtesy of Mad Jack -- a Ving Rhames-looking fellow who seems to lack a sensitive side -- and from that point on, the scene plays out as an extensive battle between the two.

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Cage isn't saying either way, but de Fondaumiere drops one hint along these lines at the end of our interview: "The girl from The Casting? You'll see her very soon."

Cruxis Mana via 1up.com »