Heavy Rain (PS3 game)

Anyone else picked this up yet? I'm through the first two hours or so and the game is amazing. I heard it's incredible the first time playing through it, and then less exciting on subsequent plays.

Either way, amazing graphics, brilliant music, exciting narrative (so far), and it has relatively unique game play.

If you have a PS3 then you shouldn't miss this game.

 

Waiting for my copy to arrive, got shipped Monday so hopefully it'll be here tomorrow.

I got my brother to skim through the review in Gamestm so I wouldn't read any spoilers and that's basically what the review said, they suggest you get friends or family to have a go instead of doing a second playthrough yourself.

 

Spoiler.

You are the Origami Killer.

 

It's ok. Not totally the new experience they were hyping it up to be. First time I encountered interactive cutscenes was in Shenmue. If you ever played Shenmue then you'll be glad to know the entire game is plays the same way. I have to say I had a lot more fun playing that than Heavy Rain. It is an engaging story of course, (and I totally love that Ari system) but still it feels so long. I'm probabl 2 to 3 hours into so far, I just want to tell you to rent it before you buy. Decide for yourself if it's a must have.

 

My Copy will be here the 25th.

 

You fucking asshole, use spoiler tags and edit that shit.

 

Finished the game yesterday. Its incredible. There are minor flaws, but overall I think its a masterpiece. Some people won't like it simply because its not their type of game, which I can understand. In the case of an "interactive drama", your enjoyment of the product is more closely related to your taste in film, not games.

The story is great and has a nice flow to it. A lot of games will invent situations for characters to play through then write a story to put them in those situations. Not heavy rain. The story is what it is, and the situations are natural to it.

The gameplay is often tame (sometimes mundane), but there are certain sequences that got my heart racing. I made mistakes in the game that I genuinely regret. I'm not happy with the ending I got. But I think thats part of the appeal to me.

What are some other opinions of the game? And please, keep it spoiler free!

 

I don't know about masterpiece but it's definitely looking like a game of the year candidate and it's only two months into 2010. There are some major glaring plot holes in the story. Some of the writing is pretty terrible. Maybe enough to hold it back from being a truly great title. Here are some plot holes and bad writing instances:

I also didn't like how some situations you have to play through entirely with little choice late in the game. Many scenes you can skip, or 'give up', and leave. But one in particular forces you to 'win' every time.

That's the best part about Heavy Rain that separates it from almost every other game. When you make a decision it's permanent. Looking back at games like God of War or Metal Gear Solid, those games are really overrated to me now. If you die in MGS then you simply restart at the last check point. The story is always the same, the ending is always the same, everything is predictable no matter what you do. That's why you can just mindlessly run and gun in MGS or hack and slash in GoW. If you die or mess up there are no consequences.

Even if you do a stealth run in MGS, or a 'kill everything' run, the game plays almost entirely the same.

And for games with multiple endings, like Chrono Trigger, there is a 'true' ending. The rest of the endings are basically 'what if' endings. In Heavy Rain the ending is what you make of it. It's your ending.

In Heavy Rain you might get a split second to make a decision that dramatically changes the entire outcome of the game. There is nothing like that in video games. The only recent game I can think of with such permanence is (another PS3 exclusive) Demon's Souls. In Demon's Souls when you die, you can't restart, you must keep playing using your soul detached from your body. And Demon's Souls gets harder as you die and punishes you for losing (instead of rewarding you with saves or easy mode like other games).

Read this from GamePro to see why playing the game again immediately after beating it is a bad idea:

This is why Heavy Rain is so awesome. The first time you play through the odds are stacked that you'll get an ending that you regret. Even the most happy ending in Heavy Rain is still tragic. The first time I beat the game I got a very tragic ending and I immediately felt regret over the decisions I had made. But I had no time to think about them. Everything you do is permanent.

I hope Heavy Rain sells a lot of copies and more games get made like this. Fantastic soundtrack and the best graphics on consoles to this date hands down. Really Gran Turismo 5 and God of War III are going to have to be insanely spectacular to beat Heavy Rain for PS3 game of the year for 2010.

 

EmpNovA, as far as the plot holes go, I think its a situation where you have to suspend your disbelief. I know it sounds like a cop-out, but nearly every form of storytelling has something like that. The game could have explained everything you mentioned, but it would have added some extra time onto a game which is already really long (for this style of game). Plus, perhaps some of those things are explained in different endings.

I'm fighting the urge to play through again. Instead, my girlfriend is playing through and I'm watching her. My roommate (TXLion) is also giving it a go, and when he's done we'll all compare notes and talk about our endings to see where things went different.

 

Suspending disbelief is different from plot holes. The film 'The Thing' involves an alien crashing to earth. I can suspend disbelief for that. But aside from that aspect, the film has no plot holes, and has an incredible amount of possible endings and is completely open to interpretation for every scene. The HBO show The Wire has five seasons where EVERY character relates to each other (literally hundreds of characters) without a single plot hole or unrealistic element being present.

Heavy Rain could have used some cleaning work in the writing department.

 

Bullshit ass Game should've came out the 4 years ago it was revealed...... Whether its for PC Xbox 360 and PS3 this shit is Weak and slow as hell and OVERHYPED. Some of the situations don't make logical sense. As far as character models go facially. Its fantastic. Other than that MEHH!!!

 

If you cant shoot or beat something up every five seconds the game must be terrible. Perish the thought of forming a cohesive and gripping story that keeps you guessing till the end. Fuck off

 

Eat a dick son this shit is weak fuck outta here ugg. I'm playing this now in fact I'm going to give it back.

 

If you guys have completed the game in 1-2days after release then fuck buying this game. RPG games are not designed to be that short. Don't even bullshit to me about all the different endings you can get, endings didn't seem so important back in the 90's which also happened to be "the glory years" of gaming so fuck that argument right off.

 

Who said this was an RPG? Ever?

I don't understand why people are so passionately hateful of this game. Is there something about it that puts it on a pedestal above other games you dislike?

 

I think it's because some people are talking about it like it's the next coming of christ.

I imagine people feel the need to counter balance that.

 

Pretty sure that's some hyperbole right there, link would be nice.

This is just as weak as LOLzerfiends "weak, eat a dick" argument.

 

I can't link any citations, Feck. I'm just going by what people I know have been saying.

I'm sure there will be people on the net saying the same things.

If you can't find any reputable sources with that opinion then check out the sony defence force. I'm sure they're still cumming over it as I type this.

 

The demo was quite good; the graphics were good on the faces and indoor areas with environment mapping on the wood, etc, but it was a little less impressive on vehicles and out door areas (some lower polygon models with too much pre-calculated lightmap lighting for this gen).

The game seems to show maturity in reaching out to deliver the whole game/story experience to three different customer groups (core gamers, casual regulars and everyone else).

When I think of how few people actually finish games like Zelda Windwaker, relative to the number that start, it seems like epic gaming can't be enjoyed by groups outside core gamers.

Even a game with simple game mechanics like Super Monkey ball requires a skill level beyond many core gamers; meaning they don't get to see everything on offer.

The unique selling point of Heavy rain seems to be that all choices could be correct choices to get everyone through the game, but with the caveat that different reaction speeds and different choices will lead to different visual rewards. Like surviving the torture in Metal Gear Solid on a much grander scale; you still beat metal gear, but get a different ending.

I certainly think I want the game, but just not sure if the control method will feel like dance dance revolution after two, three hours, or if I'm interested enough in the characters to play through a game of this type.

I suspect the main reason peoples' noses are out of joint with this game are because it is a platform exclusive, at a time where some platforms are seeing less exclusives and even less exclusive titles based on brand new IP. Sony haven't held back promoting this high risk title, and are probably coming over a little too strong with some customer groups that don't own a PS3.