Tom's Games France: Heavy Rain Review

The wait is rewarded. Quantic Dream (again) serves as a lecture, taking, poignant, violent, long and beautiful.

THE +
- An immersive interactive movie filled with excitement
- Narration, brilliant characters and scenarios
- Excellent presentation
- Accurate gameplay mechanics
- Enjoyable playthrough, huge replayability
- Music is very good

The -
- Cumbersome travel
- Collisions detection
- Some stiff animations
- Gameplay that will not please everyone

[MetalGearRising]

Another good score keep it up......less of the 9's the better for everyone.

[Bungie]

i'll just watch it on youtube

save me some $$$

[LtSkittles]

"Bungie - 16 hours ago

PM
Track
Ignore
1.3 -
day 1 buy

the game looks fantastic."

http://www.n4g.com/NewsCom-...

VV
I know, just trying to piss Bungie off.

[snaz27]

i wouldnt waste your time... everyone knows what these trolls are up to, they are probably just one little kid, whos mum cant afford a ps3... i wouldnt even bother with them mate seriously.

edit: the best way to piss him off is to just ignore him completely, do you notice that he drops 1 message then never posts again, no matter what people say, its cos he just sits back and gets off on all the comments about him... it really is pretty worrying behaviour but well i guess its his life.

[W831SOLIDSNAKE]

Can't afford a PS3 huh? LOL

Dumb Bot

[FreeFalling]

That was hilarious. I want this game, but that made me laugh xD

Your trollin' never ceases to amaze/ entertain me. :] Keep it up~

[Bilbo65]

Never ceases to amaze/amuse me either, hes the 1st couple posts of 50% of the articles not to mention his multiple accounts.

Go outside Bungie your a joke.

[Alan Wake]

eheheheheheheheheheheehe AAA my Foot

hey snaz27 i have PSh1t 3 the console like ur ugly face

add me on Crap 3 my ID Moncacho

[Karooo]

d1ckhead.

[awesomeperson]

Ok dude, add me lolsuraloserwhoactuallybelieve dIwouldgivemypsnnameouttosomere tardtosseronn4g, I'ld LOVE to play some Uncharted 2 with you.

[callahan09]

Where are all these French sources coming from? Never seen any of these except like 2 of them. So many are coming out of the woodworks with Heavy Rain reviews. Weird.

[ClownBelt]

I know right? Which are the ones that will be put on Meta?

Also, why the hell do they get to release their reviews first?

[-Alpha]

So many damn French websites.

It's like they popped out of nowhere overnight.

[LordMarius]

http://www.metacritic.com/a...

this site is not part of them

[Shang-Long]

this is very true. but im not one of thos ppl :)

[Sillyace92]

Well the game is made by a french company, so I'd assume french publications would have more interest in it or something.

[Rush]

Most likely more to do with them giving French reviews a full review build of the game first. Which makes sense if they sent them out it will take a little longer for them to reach the people overseas.

@below
You can't call it not AAA just because 1 review gave it 85.... Most I have seen are 9-9.5. That's very respectable indeed although am going to wait for an English review. Since the French and the British have very different views on what's good and bad.

[commodore64]

heavy rain seems to be carrying the flag for french ps3 patriotism.
That would explain all the french reviews so far.

Anyway, 8.5/10 is a solid score.
This game seems a breath of fresh air, even if not AAA.

[Max Power]

Are you under the impression that "AAA" status is determined by scores? Because that isn't the case, it is determined by the budget, scale, and amount of freedom a dev has.

[heroprotagonist]

What, are you saying that any game with a huge budget is automatically a triple A game? Obviously not. Lair and Too Human had big budgets, but very few people would call them AAA.

Either it can be objectively quantified by reviews and sales, or it is a totally nebulous and subjective term that really means nothing. If it is just down to individual opinion we might as well not use the term, because my triple-A game might be your single-A game, or worse.

I always thought that it had to do with getting generally high review scores and generally high sales. Uncharted 2 is a AAA game. Mass Effect 2 is a AAA game. But games that don't score well or don't sell well are not considered AAA games.

To be clear, I am just discussing the term 'triple-A' and I am not drawing any conclusions about Heavy Rain. I think it will be a great game and I think we just need to wait and see how the overall critical and gamer reception turns out.

[DMason]

The reason for all the French review is because the developing team is French. It's beginning to worry me that all reviews are French, seeing as theres an embargo on reviews for this game for another week and a half. This leads me to believe that they're trying to build some hype leading up to the release.

As far as Metacritic goes, 99% of these sites wont be on there.

[we won]

LOL I was thinking that same thing from the sites I never heard of giving this game a nine and over.

[FamilyGuy]

The breakdown is believable/real.

[Killzonegamer84]

"Gameplay that will not please everyone" LOL really.. So i guess this site thinks MW2 gameplay pleases everyone?

[FreeFalling]

Heavy Rain is a game whos genre has only been scratched on the surface, it's not as open to the mainstream market, so I can see why they would say that.

and yes, many people do like the gameplay of MW2. It attracts the masses actually, that's why it sold copies and copies, becoming a chart topping hit in sales and breaking all the records before it.

[Parapraxis]

A bit odd to deduct points for that IMO.
There is not one game ever made that appeals to everybody.
Maybe "Gameplay that will appeal to a more niche audience" would have made more sense.

@FreeFalling
"-facepalm-
They're talking about the tactical aspect of MAG."

...I'm pretty sure this is a Heavy Rain review LOL! Killzonegamer84 cited MW2 to make a point...which you clearly missed.

[Madeline12]

Yes really that shows their bias for a determined style of game being the norm and pleasing everyone while others don't.
Who are they to say if a game pleases everyone or not anyway ? LOL

[FreeFalling]

Oh boy, I feel like an idiot. I'm multitasking atm [playing Guitar Hero] and clicked this in the interim could've worn thinking it was MAG, and looked at the comments really quickly, read that one, played a song online, looked back at the comment and saw the MW2 reference, so I assumed.

Minus my bubbles please. :]

[-Alpha]

Maybe he just posted it so people understood.

Reviews are meant to aid in a purchase of a game.

He must have liked the gameplay to rate the game so high.

I've seen many "10/10" reviews that had negative things to say, so I doubt he negated any points for it, considering he wasn't talking personally and just making a general claim.

[Parapraxis]

Why I'm getting disagrees is baffling, do people not realize I quoted FreeFalling's original post, which he later changed?

I mean really, it's basic language comprehension and logic people.

[AKS]

@Killzonegamer84:

There isn't a single universal style of gameplay that everyone likes, especially for a game like Heavy Rain.

If a game strays from the most common, traditional setup, some may love it whereas others may not. Try out the beginning of Indigo Prophecy. That should tell you if you like this style of gameplay.

[MajesticBeast]

- Gameplay that will not please everyone

Wow what a con that is why didnt this count with games like mw2?

[Doletskaya]

maybe its because you aren't controlling your character to pee or brush his teeth in MW2.

[SpartanZero]

Not AAA

[ryano23277]

the 360 is full of B class games, with a few A's.
No AA or AAA's that I've seen.

Oh sorry, Batman.

[Karooo]

means production values, huge budget game, its not decided by scores idiot.

You know what that means NONE of the 360 games are AAA. gears 2 was 12 million.

[Shadow Man]

with all the French reviews?

[damnightmare]

Yawn not on Metacritic =D

Still a good score though

[Karooo]

thats why french reviews. Bots are so retarded arguing about the score so 85/100 is bad? wow fking idiots.

[HINDERIZATION]

THE +

-enjoyable playthrough, huge replayability

THE -

-gameplay that will not please anyone

WTF?
if the gameplay controls are so annoying then why play it again?
im sure you get used to the controls like any other video game...
it happens all the time.
so far, this is a first day release for me.

[labwarrior]

So, a movie, for me that 85/100 is like a 15/100 now

[Danteh]

why?

you know how this game goes, it IS an interactive movie

Which is f!cking awesome

[AKS]

Depending on Metacritic to tell you whether Heavy Rain is good seems like an awful idea. I'd recommend trying Indigo Prophecy for yourself, finding a few reviewers you feel had similar feelings and thoughts about it (similar to YOURS, not each others'), and then see what those reviewers write about Heavy Rain. There are going to be many unusually high or low outlier scores with Heavy Rain because it's different in its approach than most titles.

[True_Religion]

I cant find the movie on IMDB.com

[4pocalyps3]

pulling your head outta your ass and checking a games website...? no? too hard for you to do? thought so.

[bjornbear]

"- Gameplay that will not please everyone"

i think that describes the game =P