I'm officially giving up on Deadly Premonition. But I'm going to play through to the end of Heavy Rain. And it's all because of FBI agent Francis Morgan York and private investigator Scott Shelby.

After the jump, a tale of two characters

Deadly Premonition is all quirk. As far as any mystery or character development or themes, it's just a big bland marshmallow. Colorful, sure, but still just a marshmallow. For instance, consider a cutscene at the end of the first episode in which Agent York and the local cops are having a late dinner at the local diner. York describes his past investigations. He tells them about a serial killer who kept the skulls of his victims. The killer drank from the skulls. He also urinated in the skulls. As the scene plays out and York prattles on, the local cops get really uncomfortable hearing this, and probably not just because they're eating. It's gruesome stuff.

It's a pretty cool scene, but Deadly Premonition decides to play it for humor. It comes down to a punchline when York admits he's disgusted by the killer solely because he drank from the same skulls he urinated in. A cute little whistled ditty plays, just so you know the game is goofing around. You'll hear that whistled ditty a lot. It's nearly as ponderous as Heavy Rain's direct rip-off of the soundtrack for Seven.

The skull scene didn't need that punchline, but that's the approach Deadly Premonition takes. It's not the least bit serious, even when it can effectively be serious. Instead, it wants to consistently remind us that York is quirky and funny. He's not a character. He's a gag. He's an inveterate sternum tapper muttering to his imaginary friend, thrusting his badge funnily into the face of everyone he meets, musing Japanesely about Americana like Jaws and Olivia Newton John. He all but asks where the sailors hang out. I get it, Deadly Premonition. Cute, and even funny, but not my bag and absolutely not enough to pull me through twenty hours of awkward gameplay.

So I'm surprised that the game I will keep playing is the one that can't even be bothered to provide gameplay, awkward or otherwise. As a game, Heavy Rain is just awful, awful, awful. And even as a story, I'm afraid it's not going to bear up. The writing is mostly terrible. But there is one thing that will keep me going until the end. Not the horribly contrived romance, not the superficial FBI agent story, not the mystery of the anguished father, and not even the identity of the origami killer. It's Scott Shelby. What on earth is Heavy Rain doing with this character? Why is he in here? What possessed the developers to come up with someone like this? What role is he going to play?

Scott Shelby is a private investigator following the case of a serial killer. He's a plot thread that exists outside the main storyline, which is about the FBI agent investigating the killer and the father of one of the killer's intended victims. The two main characters play heavily into Heavy Rain's blatant Seven-ness and Saw-ness, respectively, and neither of them is very well written or even interesting. I've written earlier that they both look like David Duchovny, but I've since refined that. Agent Nommen Jaiden is actually like the love child of David Duchovny and a lesser Baldwin brother. And Ethan Mars is a dead ringer for - get this - Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I've just told you the most interesting things about them.

But Shelby has his own distinct look. Ironically, it's because he's a bland unimposing guy with a mostly slack face and an out of shape body. He proves himself in a few punch-ups, including one particularly implausible fight scene played out in front of a cartoon. There's clearly a Philip Marlowe gone to seed aspect to him (reinforced by the car and coat), but he's patient, attentive, empathetic, and not very smooth. Actually, the guy is downright avuncular. In videogames, characters are normally quirky to get our attention. Nommen Jaiden and Francis Morgan York Zack, for instance. Rarely is someone as utterly normal as Scott Shelby.

I honestly couldn't care less about the identity of the origami killer, but I plan to finish Heavy Rain to get some insight into just what the heck the deal is with Scott Shelby.

Up next: The end of Heavy Rain
(Click here for the previous game diary entry.)