Category: Archive

Last night I put the Heavy Rain Blu-ray into the PS3 and was immediately greeted with a “must install 1.01 version” message. So of course I did the needful.

When I was playing the game I noticed that the character dialog was choppy (call it audio skipping), which brings me to this article by the examiner; apparently the patch causes some gamers some serious issues.

Among the complaints, many are complaining about game crashes, audio skipping, save/loading problems, and some characters getting caught in furniture. Not all are complaining about the game, though. For many, the game is running fine after the patch and they are enjoying the experience the game offers. Whether the problems are widespread or just a minor problem for some can’t be determined, yet. Since the game isn’t an online title, you don’t need to get the patch to play the game, but you will have to deny the patch every time you play the game.

I guess we will see a 1.02 patch fairly quickly; hopefully. If the audio skipping continues tonight, I guess I can play with closed caption turned on, but I may as well wait to progress the game. For a game that is story driven, this type of glitz is a hell of note, exemplifying poor quality control.

I only played the initial opening chapters, which to be honest, were really just not my cup of tea. I understand that farting around in the house for a little while introduces you to the characters, background story, and gaming mechanics. My initial impressions were certainly not favorable; I would have rather spent my time playing something else.

To be fair, I only played an hour or so; when I progress into the meat and potatoes of the game things may be a lot more interesting. At this point I just cannot bring myself to accept that I am going to spend the next 8-12 hours with Heavy Rain holding down the R2 button to move around. To me it just breaks every aspect of being immersed into the game.

It is really difficult to post comments about Heavy Rain without talking about the story, which in effect would be to give out spoilers. As I move on with future Heavy Rain posts, I will attempt to avoid spoiling surprises for those of you that have not played the game yet, of I will make sure there are “spoiler alerts” to warn you before continuing on with the article.

It sucks being up at four o’clock in the morning, but I did get some cheerful news – Amazon has shipped Heavy Rain. It should be landing on my doorsteps later day. I hope to get a crack at it later tonight, but it will be like my WKC:I experience – gaming one hour at a time.

The Heavy Rain hype has reached a crescendo, and the reviews are plenty positive. Now it is just a matter of waiting for Tuesday, and of course waiting for the kids to go to bed. There’s no way I can play this one with the kids watching!

Heavy Rain was really an impulse purchase. While I had read the various comments about the game over the last 12-18 months, I was not really interested. The lack of interest may have been due to my gaming doldrums, but I think it was more a matter of being completely disconnected from the content of the story. It just did not look like a day one purchase.

As Heavy Rain neared (or I should say nears) release day, the articles started to sound increasing interesting. Timing could be everything; my gaming melancholy came to a close about the same time Sony lifted the review embargo. I preordered the game, and played the demo.

I am looking forward to this game just because it is so different; new experiences matter, which is very much in line with my contrarian gaming view. This article from TheSixthAxis sums up why I am interested in Heavy Rain.

Is it because it’s so different, perhaps? It’s true, there’s nothing out there like Heavy Rain and, given the development time (and presumed budged) there won’t be another for some time, but is it really as powerful an experience as the hype over the last couple of years would have you believe? Maybe, but that’s not important.

What is important is the direction David Cage attempted to take console gaming. He may have stumbled with the plot (and clearly had some issues with controls) but Heavy Rain is, for its sins, a tale worth telling. It’s sometimes smart, occasionally sophisticated and frequently adult, unlike 99% of games out there.

I should be playing Heavy Rain 40 or so hours. Needless to say, I am excited, dare I say enthusiastic. In fact I cannot remember the last time I actually counted down the time to getting a game. Hopefully Heavy Rain does not disappoint.