Heavy Rain

[elmuerte]

sounds like a typical David Cage game

[Thyroid]

So what ending did you get? There's 22 of them, apparently.

[Cigol]

I personally thought the game for all its flaws was fantastic from start to finish. Even if it does get a little farcical towards the end (and I found the resolution with the killer

David Cage

less than satisfying) the story is still nowhere near as bad as Fahrenheit - which shouldn't even be mentioned since it's as far removed from that as you can get in sequel terms.

I guess the first casualty of a Video game like this is always going to be its story, since it has to be manufactured in such a way to be playable - and some of the scenes with Madison were unnecessarily overtly sexual, not to mention appeared out of place (a bit like herself in the beginning actually), but it was my experience that there was always a scene to follow those missteps which brought everything back onto an even keel, so I personally found it easy to forgive and forget the games lesser moments (such as when you end up juggling a pair of chickens mid-chase), especially as they were few and far between.

However, saying that the story wasn't perfect I don't buy this argument it's awful or even bad in any way shape or form. Admittedly it's not going to win any awards but it's a Video game doing something video games rarely if ever do - and it does it extremely well. I've never played anything quite like it, and I've never been as emotionally invested in characters as much as I have in Heavy Rain. I struggled to put the controller down at times it was that engrossing, and I felt the game ran the emotional gamut like no other game before it, with everything from quiet, understated sweet and touching moments right up to the more intense moments of fear and anguish.

I was also really impressed with the majority of the voice acting. I'd say at its best it's second to none. I'm not going to spoil any of the scenes but obviously there are some really intense emotional moments that require convincing voice acting, and in many games that can either fall flat or end up as a cringe inducing wall of noise, but here they really pull it off. It seems a shame that some have focused exclusively on the occasional bad line, or foreign accent, since it's achievements here are much greater.

The same goes for the animation and modelling. I'm no expert, in fact I'm the opposite, but I have eyes and they saw some of the most convincing virtual actors in a Video game I've ever seen. Like everything in Heavy Rain it wasn't flawless, the quality wasn't consistent throughout and it was obviously self-contained in that it could get away with some stuff other games couldn't... but it doesn't change how eerily realistic and convincing it was.

I did find it interesting that none of the reviews mentioned any of the technical hitches affecting the game. I never installed the patch on recommendation and I still suffered some audio skipping (which btw you could often cure by pausing and waiting for it to finish caching), and one loading screen which seemingly ran forever. Thankfully a restart fixed that, but I've heard some real horror stories with saves being corrupted.

[brkl]

I would like to know how they get you to juggle not one chicken but a pair of chickens. How is that?

[Cigol]

Through the power of the PS3 of course.

For those hinging their decision to play the game on the number of chickens juggled, I have to point out it happened so fast (and I was so emotionally invested in the proceedings) that it could well have been a single chicken, not a pair.

[Thyroid]

I was also really impressed with the majority of the voice acting. I'd say at its best it's second to none.

Consider my mind blown. I'll just give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you played it in French or Japanese or Syracuse.

And while there are definite moments of incredible lifelike movements, there's a lot of creepy, uncanny valley staring into space that completely ruins it. The faces, especially Ethan's, hardly ever seem natural, while the rest of their bodies do.

(Played a good chunk of it on my cousin's PS3 - he bought it on impulse on release day. I still refuse to buy it.)

[Cigol]

I played it in English.

I never said the voice acting, or for that matter the animation, was perfect. It's not. I said 'at it's best' it is second to none, and it is frequently at its best when it really matters. A lot of games have a monotonously voiced script that maintains a solid consistency throughout - that might help avoid many of the pitfalls Heavy Rain succumbs to, but it also prevents them from reaching the same heights.

...but whatever, I don't have David Cage on the brain so I might be more appreciative.

[Thyroid]

...but whatever, I don't have David Cage on the brain so I might be more appreciative.

Hey now, I may dislike David Cage, but any opinion I have on his work is based on the work itself. I know I come-off as a cunt and sometimes as a quintessential fanboy, but I'm a critical, cold, objective animal in front of a piece of work. Any misgivings I have about Heavy Rain stem directly from the game itself.

[Thrik]

I've still not gotten far, but I'd agree that the voice acting is for the most part fine. There are some noticeable exceptions, for example the kids sound forced, but it's nowhere near as bad as I was expecting from some comments.

[SoulChicken]

I played it in English.

I never said the voice acting, or for that matter the animation, was perfect. It's not. I said 'at it's best' it is second to none, and it is frequently at its best when it really matters.

Hahaha what? I don't think the voice acting wasnt anywhere near as bad as others have said it was but second to none? Uncharted 2, Mass Effect 2, Batman... just off the top of my head.

My problem wasn't really with the story it was with the terrible interaction the player has with the game, from about where the lovable P.I. goes to the mansion onwards. Mash dem buttons!

This game is the worst.

[Cigol]

I fail to see what's funny. All of those games you mentioned have good to great voice acting and I wasn't holding Heavy Rain aloft declaring it the king of all games. One last time; I never said the voice acting was perfect. It's not. I said 'at it's best' it is second to none, and it is frequently at its best when it really matters. I'm talking about stuff like the time

you're instructed to cut off one of your fingers

. To me that is some of the best voice acting in a Video game.

[Erkki]

Whatever you think of David Cage, he did make Omikron (credited as Director and Cameras, lol)

Thanks RPS for reminding me.

[toblix]

I've played about an hour of this, and I'm pretty sure they've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars making places for the guy to sit and do nothing.

Also, what's with the stupid mall sequence?

The whole balloon thing, while not exactly original, felt awesome. However, I was sure the kid was going to be abducted, which I felt the movement of the red balloon was sort of illustrating. And then all the chasing and getting lost means nothing, and he gets hit by a stupid car? I mean, how can you have all that stuf happen in a mall, and not have it be a child abduction?

[syntheticgerbil]

Now whistle.

[brkl]

Sidenote: If anyone hasn't seen M, see it.

[toblix]

"Time to play the sexy girl."

Holy Maloney has this game been horrible so far. Not only are the graphics not that good (not that graphics have to be good, it's just that it's one of the main selling points), the controls are awful, everything feels really disconnected and segmented, the voices sound like French people trying to sound Americanand there's too much useless crap everywhere. Most of the stuff you do are things other video game developers found out long ago were better to abstract. It's like playing a 20 million dollar Qwop.

Also, ten bonus points for the "girl power" comment at the end of the horrible, awful

stripping-at-gunpoint

scene, no doubt tacked on as someone realized what they had just made.

[syntheticgerbil]

Also, ten bonus points for the "girl power" comment at the end of the horrible, awful

stripping-at-gunpoint

scene, no doubt tacked on as someone realized what they had just made.

So is it really possible to do the blowjob or is there always something that prevents you from getting to that point somehow?

Or did they cut that out?

[toblix]

Finished it, what a disappointment. It said John Romero was a lead tester. Anyone know if it's that John Romero?

[elmuerte]

doubt it, otherwise rome.ro would have said something about it on planetromero

[gdf]

This game was interesting, but also incredibly lame. It does an awful lot horribly wrong.

[dpp]

Well, I'm avoiding this topic like the plague... I've been playing the game for 4 hours roughly, and I feel incredibly tense. Especially knowing that people can die... and my uncanny ability to mistake squares and circles.

I also noticed why this game shouldn't be played twice... there's a lot of stuff you will know what to do during a second playthrough that doesn't really reflect what you would instinctively. Thankfully I Gameflied the game, I couldn't justify paying 60 bones for it.

[elmuerte]

□□△○x○△xx□◇

◇? wtf

[miffy495]

Turn your controller 45 degrees and hit square?

[elmuerte]

⇑⇑⇓⇓⇐⇒⇐⇒ⓑⓐ

[dpp]

Finished it, clocked about 8h of playtime... Regarding the voice acting, I played it in French, no subtitles, it sounded just fine to me. I noticed that lip syncing was done to match the English voices, which was a letdown in a way but a very minor one. Story-wise, there are big gaping holes, but it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the game. Finally, like I said in my post when I was midway through, it's certainly a rental... unless you want to show off the prowess of the PS3 to your non-gamer friends who will be more than amazed to the completely different scope of the "game" compared to everything else they expect from a conventional game.