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| From: Sony
Category: Video Games
List Price: $59.99
Buy Used: $32.74
as of 9/7/2010 06:21 MDT details
You Save: $27.25 (45%)
New (34) Used (59) from $32.74
Seller: vinasailesh
Rating:  346 reviews
Sales Rank: 177
Language: English (Unknown)
Platform: PlayStation 3
Genre: military_and_espionage_action_games
ESRB: Mature
Media: Video Game
Edition: Standard
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries Included: No
Age: 17 - 20 years
Operating System: PlayStation 3
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 5.7 x 6.7 x 0.6
Legal Disclaimer: We do not in any way represent that any part we sell is legal to possess in your jurisdiction. Check with you local authorities to ensure it is legal for you to possess before buying!
MPN: 98164
Model: 711719816423
UPC: 711719816423
EAN: 0711719816423
ASIN: B002CZ38KA
Publication Date: January 31, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: FORMER RENTAL
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 16-20 of 346
 Excellent August 4, 2010
A. Griffiths (London)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have very high praise for this game. "Heavy Rain" totally drew me in, the level of realism was so great that I really cared what happened to the people I was watching on screen in a way that quite surprised me.
I can't say much about the plot other than the obvious (4 people become embroiled in the search for a serial killer), because everyone who plans to play this needs to know as little as possible about the plot to get the most out of it. You need to know about the style of play though. Apart from making the character move about, which is done with the directional stick, every other action on the screen is co-ordinated by following on-screen button prompts. Some of this simple, for example, if you stand facing a cupboard, you might see an arrow pointing to the left flash up - and pushing the analogue stick to the left makes the character open the cupboard and see what's inside. And some of the action is more complex. Anything like fighting, escaping or carrying out difficult tasks means that you have to watch the screen closely and press the right button quickly as it appears, or hold three down at once, or mash one as fast as you can...get the idea? Sounds like it would get boring fast but I have to say it didn't - although I got sore hands after a few of the very diffcult combinations when I ran out of fingers!
The success story of "Heavy Rain" though, is the sense of real drama. The story and the characters are fantastic. All four leads are amazingly lifelike, and they speak, move and emote with real depth, and this makes you become hugely involved with the plot...well, I certainly was, When my characters encountered hurdles or were subject to attack, I was with them all the way. Sometimes I even surprised myself by shouting at the screen when I was able to dish out much needed retribution to some of the very unsavoury characters who were after me. And unsavoury is putting it mildly. I agree with some of the other reveiwers about the classification of this game. I think an 18 certificate would have been easily justified. I knew the game was about a serial killer but I didn't expect things to be quite so violent. The killer taunts one character by forcing him to undertake sadistic "trials", and a couple of these made me flinch with genuine revulsion as I did them. This is undoubtedly due to the hyper realism of the game - you really feel like you are totally immersed in the action, and that these could be real people. And nobody has a nice time in this story: "Heavy Rain" is one very dark game.
I only have a few niggles - some events in the game are massive red herrings that are never explained. The plot is very clever (it has to work from four different perspectives), but some of the finer points passed me by and at times I got lost. The overall weakest part of the game is character movement - the swivel-and-walk-in-different-directions control scheme is hellish...sometimes I was twirling my character all over the place before getting them aligned correctly to open a door or press a switch.The flow of the game is great though, the saving is spot on - theres no easy way to backtrack if you think you've made a bad choice - unless you reboot in the middle of the action before the autosave kicks in - although I later found out you can choose a chapter and replay and save it, but I couldn't tell if this meant playing forward again from that point or simply saving that standalone chapter with a different set of actions in it (?)
In general, this game is a class production all the way, high quality and mature in all respects. The "quick-press" way of controlling the action will not be to everyone's taste - especially if you know exactly what you want to do but the button combinations are too difficult or too quick to press correctly. I think everyone should play this game, but again, be warned that it can be quite hard hitting due to the impact of some very realistic scenes of violence.
 A Contrarian's Review [NO SPOILERS] August 3, 2010
J Kosec
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
I understand that Heavy Rain is a game people find absorbing and innovative. But from my perspective it's not a generation-defining game, nor a game that should receive universal acclaim. Rather, I think it's a love-it-or-hate-it game. I respect the opinions of those who fall into the "Love It" category with this game--there are many of you indeed. But I land squarely in the "Hate It" category, and here I want to tell you why.
GRAPHICS, SOUND: 9/10
Graphics and animations are great. Rain effects (there are a lot of these) are excellent, as you'd hope. Sound design is generally excellent, adding to the overall effect. Also, voice acting is all recorded very well, fairly seamless in its adaptation to events. Music is atmospheric and the main theme touching. In all of these ways, the game is on par with the best from this generation.
CONTROLS: 5/10
Few control schemes are innovative. Most are variations on a theme. The most successful traditional control schemes rely on a combination of intelligent control mapping and reference to the muscle memory gamers have developed over years of playing similar games (Halo). The most successful innovative control schemes are ones where the control feels intuitive, somehow allowing the controller to disappear into the gameplay and giving the player a sense of unity with the onscreen action (Metroid Prime: Corruption).
I dwell on this because I think that Heavy Rain's control scheme is the worst one I've ever experienced in a successful mainstream game. Walking requires the action of the stick and a button--it's more akin to the control scheme typically used for steering a tank, where look and locomotion are separated. The controls rarely feel intuitive and comfortable, even after several levels. The cynical might say the larger portion of environmental interaction is done through quick time events, where you follow onscreen prompts (sometimes under tight time constraints). Some of the iconography used for these prompts is similar, but there are moments when the game attempts to further obfuscate the control scheme by adding camera shake, or speeding up your expected response, or requiring you to press several buttons at once (Twister-style). When it works, this is great at injecting a tension into the scene. When it doesn't, it's painful and frustrating (particularly for gamers who may expect a precise degree of control over their characters). There is one section in the mid-late game where the control scheme combines with a fussy camera to create several minutes of absolute frustration.
Try the demo out to get a sense of the control scheme. You'll know right there if it's game-breaking for you. If that were the game's only flaw, I might be able to happily proceed. But then there's the...
STORY: 4/10
I know many people believe Heavy Rain has a magnificent story, but I felt it fails on several accounts.
Valve is a game publisher that understands pacing. Even in more action-oriented titles like Left for Dead, the players experience a slowdown in the action, with some mild crescendos that lead to an epic showdown. The Half-Life games are masterful at this, with slower sections that break up the action but still move the story forward. The Uncharted series does this magnificently, as well: the story marches forward whether you're platforming, or in the middle of a shoot-out, and you never do any one thing for too long.
In Heavy Rain, there are absolutely indelible scenes that rival the best video game moments for emotional impact, intensity, and even terror. And there are memorable moments of serenity, gentle conversation, or solitary investigation.
Frequently, these excellent moments are separated by minutes upon minutes of completely mundane, rather purposeless exercises. This is especially true of the first third of the game.
The pace of the game does pick up, but by this time you might find yourself, as I did, completely ruined to the story by the voice acting. All the lines of dialogue are spoken. In some cases, this is a treat, and in others it's ridiculous, stilted, overly-affected, and completely unnatural. To my ear, this is true to the degree that it ruined whatever emotional impact the script might have had for me, particularly with two or three of the primary characters.
Heavy Rain sells itself as an interactive drama. It does the "interactive" part of it in thrilling, important ways. The branching story lines create interesting possibilities. The game's approach to death (it won't stop the story) and to failure (it affects the flow of the action, rather than disrupting it) are some of the best features of the game.
But the "drama" side of it is, I believe, pretty terrible. Heavy Rain wants to be a movie, or a TV series. (If you watch episodes of 24 alongside Heavy Rain, you'll see how the game apes that show's camera angles.) It's also the same size, in terms of content-hours, as a moderate season of a television series. Most of the time we can forgive the "gamey" parts of video games. The story and characters of Killzone 2 are pretty rubbish; but the action is some of the genre's best, so the game largely succeeds.
But Heavy Rain doesn't want to be an action game, or a stat-managing RPG; it wants to be the movie you control. When judged on the merits of that to which it aspires, it suffers in the comparison. It doesn't match up to even a workmanlike drama in the areas that matter most for dramatic impact: acting, scriptwriting, and pacing. For a video game, the voice acting isn't the worst--but it's more Resident Evil than Mass Effect. And the problem with that is that the game doesn't believe it has a Resident Evil story to tell. It's a B-movie that believes it deserves an Oscar.
CLOSING COMMENTS
Heavy Rain is a game with few technical peers in the current generation. It also aspires to blur the line between cinematic storytelling and video game storytelling. Where it succeeds, it succeeds brilliantly. But for this reviewer, the balance tips toward the other direction. It is the video-gamey-ness of the game itself--its control scheme, its stilted acting, its start-stop pacing--that stands in the way of the story it wants to tell.
SCORE: 4/10 (Not an average!)
[[A bit of my gamer biography. I've been playing video games for 25 years. I own all the current generation systems. I love all sorts of games, with a top-ten that includes action shooters, 100+ hour RPGs, driving games, sandbox games, and everything in-between.]]
TWO THUMBS AND BIG TOES UP! August 3, 2010
A. Wortham (BROKEN ARROW, OK, US)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
THIS GAME IS AMAZING ALL AROUND, GREAT GRAPHICS, DIFFERENT STORY LINES, GAMEPLAY WOOOW....DEF ONE WORTH THE PREORDER!!
Quite different but pleasant game! August 2, 2010
Khaled Altaher (Riyadh, NA Saudi Arabia)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Heavy rain is a story of a man whose son was kidnapped and kept hostage. The desperate father realized that his son was kidnapped by the Origami killer and received from him clues and missions that should lead him to his son every time he succeeds. The game is quite mysterious and dramatic. It is one of these few games that get you emotionally attached to the characters.
The game is nice, however you need to play it constantly or else you will quickly get bored of it. It will be like partially watching a long movie over a period of 2 weeks.
The gameplay is really like playing a movie. The controls are very unique but you get used to them after a while.
The graphics are wonderful.
Good job of the game developer making Heavy Rain. We want more games with the same genre.
Interactive Drama, not for all, but great for some August 2, 2010
bigbearw (central mass)
This "Game" is much more of an interative movie than a game. Which is a welcome change in the sea of FPS's we have been drowned in the last few years. It is a very unique console experience. You control your character by walking around and R control stick layouts alert you to things you can look at, touch, or investigate. Then scattered throughout the chapters there are button and sixaxxis control sequences that further the action. These provide a surprising amount of tension, and dramtic effect. So much so that after the seen is over you will often find yourself still hitting the button furiously for a second or two.......
The graphics are great, the character models as well, although they do have a funny gait to them. But in action sequences they move very fluidly while fighting, or running. There are numerous outcomes in this game directly related to choices you make as well as how good you are at completing the button sequences when they arise. Not completing them can be devastating, which adds to the suspense. I finished the game in a few multi hour segments. I would not recomend this to anyone who only enjoys the fast paced FPS style game. This was very different. There is significant replay if you want to get all of the trophies, or at least go back and see some different outcomes. It is a grown up experience though, I would say mid 20's and up. I can't imagine some of the little turds i run into playing CODMW2 enjoying this at all. So overall, if you are into a choose your own adventure style game, with some button sequencing then this will be fun for you. Also, at the begining for the difficulty level you can choose your level of familiarity with the sixaxxis controller, presumably making it easier or harder to complete these sequences. I only played on one variation so I am not sure exactly.
Showing reviews 16-20 of 346
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