Heavy Rain

[njd82]

Let me start by saying that I am STILL looking forward to seeing how this game does BUUUUUTTTTT, the demo took it from a "day one purchase" to a "wait till it comes down in price" affair for me and I want to know if this is what other people have experienced with the demo.

I have to start with the voice acting. Now, I've seen the trailers, I knew what to expect, but quite frankly with the level that this game relies on its character driven story the voice acting simply had to be better than this. I guess whilst watching the trailers you could lull yourself into thinking the game was still being made, nothing was final and it could get better. With recent examples such as Uncharted 2 and even more recently with Mass Effect 2, maybe I've just been spoilt but quite frankly Heavy Rain's voice's acting is a bit of a let down and simply isn't good enough for the type of game that it is trying to sell itself as. 

Moving on, Quantic Dream have done an amazing job with the way the game looks but I am really hoping the demo isn't representative of the final game build because the amount of screen tearing was down right distracting. There was also some cases of texture pop in and floating objects. 

Kinda like being caught in the rain, this demo left me feeling a bit cold. I still want to play through it, the story really interests me and I'm aching for something that isn't a bloody shooter.

Anyone out there feel the same?

[DrTrouserPlank]

I'm not traveling on the hype train, so here's my objective opinion. I wasn't going to get this at release anyway as there's too many other decent games out.

Voice acting was good, but not the best. As you mentioned, uncharted 2 has it beaten straight away.

Screen tearing is lazy. It just shouldn't be there. Add v-sync option. problem solved.

QTE's weren't too bad, much better then Indigo Prophecy's which were just manic.

Visuals are nice. Heavy use of bloom in some areas is a bit of a masking trick, but it's nice to look at nonetheless.

Controls are fine, serviceable.

This game has just been hyped to unrealistic levels, looking at it from a more grounded position, it's going to be pretty good.

As for the demo being representative, the game will be identical. There's no point releasing a demo that doesn't represent the final game. Everyone always says demos don't represent the final product, but I'm yet to see a demo that wasn't identical to it's full product.

[njd82]

I agree with you on the controls, they're serviceable and heavy use of QTE's was to be expected.

On the subject of demos not being representative of the final products - there are a few examples out there (not counting betas), however they do usually warn of this at the beginning of the demo. Sadly, Heavy Rain's had no such message and I'd probably agree with you in saying this is how the final build will look. Not good.

[ThaSnakeMyster]

Loved the demo.  Can't wait for the final product.  It has some screen tearing which is kind of a let down because I read that theres still screen tearing in the final game but I'm sure it wont bother me too much.  It did say though that the retail game does look better than the review codes that were sent out.

"There is a noticeable improvement in the retail version of Heavy Rain; when I received the review code I payed a lot of attention to the graphics – I was genuinely curious to see whether the graphics were as good as they were made out to be, and I must admit, I was thoroughly impressed. Unfortunately, the review code was sent out with some graphical and technical glitches: to name a couple, frame-rate drops and screen tearing. So, I picked up the retail copy today to find out whether these issues had been resolved – here´s the verdict.

After just 30 minutes of playing the retail version I had already noticed an improvement in the graphics. The frame-rate seems consistent, no more screen-tearing, and the image looks a lot crisper over-all.

This will be my third play-through (played the review code through twice) and I am really enjoying it. If I stumble across any glitches or anything I´ll make sure to keep updated. In the mean time you can head on over to our forums and discuss this topic with our lovely writing stuff.

Update:
It seems as though I may have been a little bit too excited at first. There´s still a fair bit of screen-tearing and it is quite noticeable. It still doesn´t take away from the experience but it is a bit of a shame considering just how beautiful the graphics in Heavy Rain really are. Still no notice frame-rate dips or glitches. Stay tuned and I´ll drop more info as it comes."

http://www.platformnation.com/2010/02/04/heavy-rain-retail-first-look/

[Xprt98]

The demo was bit too short. I really can't judge it before I have played the game for real. Demos usually are a kind of weak presentations of the real deal. Maybe I can say more on 24.02.

[ThaSnakeMyster]

I just think this is a tough game to have a demo for.  I'm just ready to play from beginning to end where all the parts of the story will fit together instead of playing two short random scenes.

[Father_Ted__]

I enjoyed the demo, played it through twice and was just wondering one thing. I haven't read up all that much on Heavy Rain but I know that you are able to shape your own story and there are multiple endings and so on, but I played the Scott Shelby scene through twice, deliberately doing completely different things (like losing the fight and talking differently), and really the outcome was barely any different. The first time through I got a little more information from the woman although it was not really useful. As others have said it's hard to put this in context of the full game but I was wondering if anyone had any more insight into this?

[KRadiation]

---

Father_Ted__ wrote:
I enjoyed the demo, played it through twice and was just wondering one thing. I haven't read up all that much on Heavy Rain but I know that you are able to shape your own story and there are multiple endings and so on, but I played the Scott Shelby scene through twice, deliberately doing completely different things (like losing the fight and talking differently), and really the outcome was barely any different. The first time through I got a little more information from the woman although it was not really useful. As others have said it's hard to put this in context of the full game but I was wondering if anyone had any more insight into this?

---

You're not going to feel the outcome in a demo. You need to complete a scene, save an then the game looks at what you did and shapes the rest of the game.

For example say you go back and help the woman in the demo - later in the game that knuckle head is probably going to come for revenge or the woman might help you out more because you helped her.   Now say you ignore her and just leave... then that guy has no beef with you and the woman will probably never speak to you or give a toss about you if you bump into her later.

[rudecold]

I didn't notice any screen tearing at all which is a little weird and thought the graphics were very impressive.

[ytevo79]

I'm in love! What a game this is so much needed in my games collection