Heavy Rain

[Seraph]

HEAVY RAIN
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_rain

-Upcoming release from the Quantic Dream Studios responsible for Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit.
-US: Feb 23, EU: Feb 24, UK: Feb 26, AUS: Feb 25

"Heavy Rain is about normal people who have landed in extraordinary situations. I wanted a much more personal story. The first thing that came to my mind, as a father of two little boys, was that the main theme should simply be a father's love for his son. This is not a game about saving the princess or the world. It's purely about a father's love. The main story will revolve around four different characters, and we're putting the spotlight on their perceptions. The question 'what is good and what is evil' is the key here, that will be just a matter of viewpoint...I believe heavily in moral choices, I'm going to use them A LOT. They're not about being good or bad, but about finding the right balance."

There are four playable characters confirmed— an FBI profiler named Norman Jayden, a retired private detective named Scott Shelby, an architect named Ethan Mars, and a photo journalist named Madison Paige. All playable characters are said to be looking for a serial killer known as "The Origami Killer".

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Opinion:

I guess this thread will be the place for discussion about said title.
The closest way I can think to describe it would be the diner segment of Indigo Prophecy but better. This game has the wonkiest control scheme I've ever used, but once you get used to it it works well. The best thing is that they have promised they will not follow the same path for the story like they did in Indigo Prophecy (if you've played it, I believe you know what I am referring to).

It releases here in a couple of weeks, and the demo for Europe went out a few days ago. If you are on the fence about the game I suggest playing through it. There's not really anything spoilery in it, and I think it gives a good look into the type of game it will be.

I've played through the demo twice now and noticed many differences between the two plays. I'm interested to see what will and won't be important later on.

More importantly, though, the demo helped me feel more confident in the game succeeding. I am rather hyped for this title, but after playing Indigo Prophecy I expected the worst. The reviews on both sides of the ocean seem to point toward a rather positive feeling, and having the writer assure us that he won't pull the same tricks like IP had is very nice.

I have to say I'm a little disappointed the US won't be getting any collector's edition, but the one preorder bonus coming is from the apparent DLC chapters that will be coming out after the game's release. Chapter 1 will be free to download for preordering and it will cover the first serial killer investigation that Madison Page looked into. It is apparently the videos shown first of the game after the tech demo.

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How to get the demo--

The demo was revealed at the end of the "Four Day Challenge" Quantic Dream recently ran. The demo is currently only available to European PSN accounts, so you must make a European profile to download it.

European Profile:
-go to https://store.playstation.com/accounts/ ... low.action
-create an account for Europe of some location (I suggest the UK)
-just use wikipedia for info, most of it probably doesn't have to be right
-use an email not currently in use for your main PSN account
-verify and then create a new login profile on your ps3 system
-sign in to the store on your new account with your email for the European profile

DEMO:
-go to http://www.precinct52.com/case1117_briefing
-register an account, then you will have to choose four items on the case to send in;
1. diner C
2. click the cigarette, choose to send the used one
3. click tire tracks, choose track H
4. origami crane
-confirm your items to send and you will be given a 12 digit code
-go to playstation store on your european account and go to the top right "redeem code"
-input code and download the demo (it's big and will take a while)

I'm not sure if the code is the same for everyone, but mine was CMGK-PNBR-AGRR if anyone wants to try that.

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Media:

Here is some media for the game if you would rather watch than read.
These trailers have moving pictures from the game in them. So yeah, spoilers are always possible.
(oldest down to newest)

-E3 2009 trailer (very, very small chance of being nsfw)
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09 ... rain/50383

-GDC 2009 "For Love"
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gc-09 ... rain/54362

-Trailer from demo (sorta nsfw):
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/to-ca ... rain/61300

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So, who else is interested/excited for this game?
What are your feelings on a title that creates more of an interactive movie rather than a typical game?

[Seraph]

And since I know all of you care, the american playstation network has the demo up for download now.
I think it is around 1.7 gigs, so yeah, it might take a while longer than you would like.

[Seraph]

Let's continue this parade of posts which none shall care for.


Well, I'm only around an hour in to this, and it is certainly the most unusual game I have ever played. Not in a bad way, though. I didn't do anything particularly spectacular, well, unless you count spending time with the "main" character's family.

Heavy Rain also officially has the greatest way to pass the time for those mandatory installs.
Rather than suffering through a ridiculously long display of a character smoking a cigarette or something, you are given your own origami to fold behind the instruction booklet. I looked for instructions, but I thought it might be used in the game at some point. Turns out the instructions are displayed while the game installs. AWESOME.
Just don't skip through them too fast because you can't go backwards, haha. : (

The controls are implemented quite nicely at this point, but I'm still not a big fan of the sixaxis stuff. Only real issue is just trying to remember not to rely so much on the control stick (especially on those camera turns in hallways).

I'm really excited to see more of this game. I'm not going to post spoilers on the off-chance someone else on these forums ever picks this up. It's kind of freaky how many choices there are and how many things you can do, not do, interact with, and such. Replay value through the roof? I hope so.

[JBB]

Rather than suffering through a ridiculously long display of a character smoking a cigarette or something...

haha...

sigh.

continue on

[Seraph]

NO SPOILERS, I PROMISE.

I have just beaten my first run of the game, and I think it would accurate to describe my impression as simply "wow."

If you have any intent to ever rent this or play it at some point in the future, please do yourself a favor and avoid information on this game like the plague. I have heard there are spoilers showing up everywhere, but you will not find any spoilers in what follows.


I'm probably going to come off as biased and riding the hype train at this moment. I'm hoping my opinion doesn't change when it's sunk in more.


Having beaten it, I'm still not entirely sure how to label this thing...
It has qualities both indicative of a movie and a game, but is never completely one or the other. Quantic Dream has described it as an "interactive drama" and I think that is probably the closest one could get to an accurate title. I will probably refer to it as a game below, though, due to the nature of me playing it on a console and it coming in a game case.

I won't go off saying that this game has "oscar worthy" writing in it because it does have a few points in it that are weak/cheesy/plothole. That being said, this is one of the best written games I've ever played (at least the first time through). A few days ago I began to fear that, despite how much I had enjoyed the game to that point, the ending would end up being extremely weak. I can't speak for the other number of endings this game has, but the ending I got was more than I could have hoped for. The game has some fantastic climactic sequences and a nice contrast of down time.

The biggest thing I can say about this game is the emotion. My lord, I've never been so utterly stressed or deeply touched by a game. Some parts of the game had me so anxious and on edge that afterward I had to take a pause to catch my breath and stop my heart from pounding so much (probably due to the characters). On the other end of the spectrum, though, are some of the most light-hearted things I've ever seen in a game. It's funny that now I have cleared myself of having to worry about spoilers and I've begun to explore forums and what-not, I've found most everyone else has stressed to the extremes as well. Those build-ups... *dies*

The characters are pretty great. Sure, they fill somewhat typical roles, but since you're not just playing as them when it's time to go in a shoot up the aliens, get a cutscene, and shoot more aliens you really get attached. I mean, you're pretty much living with these characters. It's sort of like Pulp Fiction in the sense that you don't just watch the hitmen kill the target, but you get to see their daily life. There's a fondness that you develop for the onscreen actors, and that's what really lends itself to the emotion factor. I knew that the game would continue if a character died, and I didn't want them to die. The most indescribable frustration of botching up a command when a character's "life" hangs in the balance is something I haven't truly felt before in a game. There was always that safety net of retrying.

If you've played mass effect you know how they played up the whole "your choices make a difference." Heavy Rain effectively spits on ME's cause/effect system and trumps them big time. Since the world is established in a rather believable setting (doesn't pull any indigo prophecy crap), your choices seem to have a certain kind of weight to them now. I know most people use games as a means of escaping reality, but it was really satisfying to be confronted with some very unnerving choices to make. Some of those choices had to be split-second, gut reactions which were truly terrifying.

The QTE thing is a breath of fresh air from other games. I think there are two things that really have made us hate quick time events.
1. They tend to be unnecessary/difficult
2. If you fail you have to redo it over and over until you get it right.
The means of interacting with the people and environments of the game resemble quicktime events, but they do not fulfill the aforementioned roles of quicktime events. While you will be punished for messing up on some, it makes everything much more frantic or important because you don't have the convenience of just retrying when you immediately fail. You just have to trudge onward and deal with the effects of your successes and failures. Plus, QD actually managed to make the on-screen commands match quite accurately to what your character was doing.

Probably the weakest part of the game was the voice acting, but that's not to say it was awful. There were a couple of characters that would have an odd sounding line or a cheesy bit of dialogue here and there, but as a whole it really wasn't as bad as I have seen some people make it out to be. If you played the demo and the voices didn't bother you there then the game won't get to you.

I guess I won't ramble anymore. The point I'm trying to make is that if you own a ps3 and don't at least play/beat a rental version you are doing yourself a serious disservice.


In fact, just listen to Adam Sessler: http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/70260 ... aking.html
(contains video shown from the two demo levels and a shop shown a long time ago, nothing really spoilery)

Edit: Also, the soundtrack is terrific. Too bad it's itunes only. I wanted a cd version... : (

[Para-Chan]

Hey Zero Punctuation did a review for this game D:

Liiiiinkage : ( No it is not a RickRoll geeez ) http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... Heavy-Rain