Heavy Rain Message Board older than one year ago

No one was exactly sure if Sony's gamble with Heavy Rain would pay off. With no aliens, no stealth kills, and no epic boss battles, the game strayed so far from the mainstream norm that some wondered if it could possibly succeed. Considering the incredible technical effort Heavy Rain represented, it's clear that this was also an expensive experiment for both Sony and Quantic Dream to take on.

After seven weeks of release, Heavy Rain has managed to sell through a million units worldwide, according to an announcement on the PlayStation.Blog. No specifics are offered, but we'll deduce that Europe represents the largest piece of the sales pie; Heavy Rain was completely sold out in that part of the world.

It's unclear if a million units sold is enough for Quantic Dream and Sony to break even on Heavy Rain's lengthy development. Undoubtedly, the game will continue selling through the year, which has us hopeful that the industry will be unafraid to invest in another game like it in the future.

Hi everyone, I’m pleased to announce that since its launch in February, Heavy Rain has hit is millionth mark in sales worldwide! Congratulations Quantic Dream!

Praised by media for its gripping storyline, thought-provoking themes, innovation and engaging example of non-linear storytelling, it’s no surprise that more than a million gamers agree.

Don’t believe us? If you haven’t played Heavy Rain yet, then take a look at the following trailer highlighting the award-winning, critically-acclaimed, and one million unit-selling Heavy Rain!

In addition, the only true way to experience what makes Heavy Rain so unique is to download and play the PSN demo for Heavy Rain straight from the PlayStation Store.

We hope you’re enjoying Heavy Rain, and the newly released Taxidermist Level (available on PSN for $4.99). But, if you’re looking for more, continue to check back here on the PlayStation.Blog for the latest updates!

#republished I enjoyed Quantic Dream's "Heavy Rain," but I wanted to love it. The game's marriage of mature story with populist design and easy-to-grasp controls show what we should come to expect from single-player, interactive entertainment. It's a video game for the folks who aren't skilled enough to enjoy playing "Modern Warfare 2″ online or willing to invest the time needed to learn the intricacies of "Final Fantasy XIII's" so-called "battle system," yet want something a little more nuanced than casual titles like "Wii Sports Resort" or "Rock Band 2." More »

David Cage expects title to reach 1.5 million by the end of the year.

#ps3 Outdoing early guesstimates on its retail performance, Sony's PS3 thriller Heavy rain has managed to sell over a million copies worldwide since launching in February. More »

#review Call it a missing chapter, an added short story or simply an extra sprinkling of Heavy Rain, but you may as well call for a do-over. More »

#xbox360 PS3 exclusive Heavy Rain looks fantastic. But according to Mark Carson, head of mo-cap specialist CaptiveMotion, told website VG247 that while the psychological thriller is "beautiful", but also "visually uneven". Here's the quote: More »

#gamedesign Yesterday we considered that maybe breaking the rules is the best way to play video games. Because — or despite that — game developers have to set limits. So is this Heavy Rain clip, via reader Syptel, a tolerable limit? More »

#italy Elections are this weekend in Italy, where apparently a Greek is eligible to run for regional president. More »

#clips Prepare for an eery sense of deja vu, Heavy Rain fans, as you watch actor Sam Douglas - the face and voice of Heavy Rain's Scott Shelby - play exactly the same role in a real movie. Trenchcoat and all. More »

We have a hard time watching films where people get caught being in places they totally shouldn't be. We get no enjoyment from watching a Misery or a Rear Window, for example. That kind of scenario is the bread and butter of Heavy Rain's first downloadable chapter, "The Taxidermist," which pre-orderers of the game have already gotten their hands on. The rest of us will have our chance to grab the suspenseful scene on April 1, when it hits the PSN storefront for $4.99.

Check out the video above for a brief teaser of the chapter's events. Actually, it doesn't look that scary to us. Madison climbs in a window, walks up some stairs, and accidentally intrudes on a woman taking a bath. What's that? The woman is dead? Yes, well, that is significantly more upsetting.

Once a major release has been completed and propelled to the top of the sales charts, the critical discussion surrounding it typically evaporates just as the Next Big Thing appears on the horizon. But Heavy Rain -- whether you like it, love it or loathe it -- has been kept afloat in popular opinion, with critics still debating its controversial design and embarrassing themselves as they attempt to shoehorn water puns like "afloat" and "evaporates" into ham-fisted introductory paragraphs.

We drew Heavy Rain's director and writer, the soft-spoken, passionate and occasionally enigmatic David Cage, into the ongoing discussion and asked him to elaborate upon the game's story, its technology and its critical reception. Oh, and the nature of the Origami Killer, which means ...

SPOILER WARNING: The following interview contains massive, big-huge spoilers for Heavy Rain. If you have not completed Quantic Dream's cinematic adventure, do not proceed beyond the break -- and don't even think about reading the comments. Just turn around and slowly R2 away.

Those of you who pre-ordered the highly-acclaimed interactive psychological thriller, Heavy Rain, have already gotten a chance to play Chapter 1 of the Heavy Rain Chronicles, The Taxidermist (props to those who pre-ordered). But, for those who didn’t pre-order, we are officially announcing that The Taxidermist chapter will be available to download for $4.99 through the PlayStation Store on Thursday, April 1. Mark it down! Please note, however, you must have a copy of Heavy Rain to play the chapters of the Heavy Rain Chronicles.

Another great offering from the Quantic Dream crew, The Taxidermist chapter provides an additional backstory to Heavy Rain and features one of the main characters from Heavy Rain, journalist Madison Paige, on one of her early leads from her investigation into the Origami Killer. In a similar manner to the unique, cinematic gameplay style of Heavy Rain, you will play Madison, and be presented with a number of tense situations and decisions, as she digs further into the case, which of course, will determine one of many different outcomes.

To give you an idea of what we’re talking about, check out the trailer here:

Also, check out what IGN had to say about The Taxidermist right here.

There is definitely more to come on Heavy Rain here on the PS.Blog, so continue to check back in with us!

While the Joystiq staff hasn't experienced a game-ending Heavy Rain crash, there are a number of vocal members of the PlayStation forums that have reported some serious issues, most notably save file corruption. Quantic Dream is working on a new patch for the adventure game, one that "address a range of minor issues," but isn't "targeted purely at the issues reported." According to Sam_Protagonist, SCEE has had difficulty in reproducing the reported bugs, but hopes that the patch should fix various "contributing factors" that may be at the root of Heavy Rain's issues. "We're optimistic that this patch resolves your problems but cannot guarantee that this will be the case."

Development on the patch is now complete, and is undergoing the "final stages of testing." Let's hope the patch actually does its job -- otherwise, angry Heavy Rain owners will be left with nothing to play but Press X to Jason.

[Via VG247]

#ps3 Since the release of Sony's Heavy Rain last month, users have been complaining about a range of bugs and glitches. Well, complaining about most of them. Good news, complainers: a patch is on the way. More »

Sure, Heavy Rain was great, but what was with all the story? Don't you just wish someone would come along, strip out that cinematic nonsense and leave only the visceral thrill of repeatedly calling for your missing son while tearing through a shopping mall?

For you, there's Press X to Jason, a low-rez action/puzzle/platformer/adventure from Heavy.com that nails just one mechanic: Yelling for Jason. [Fair warning: If you don't know how this particular Heavy Rain scene plays out, like, in the real game, you may not want to play Press X to Jason just yet.]

If afterwards you still aren't sure about little Jason's fate, you'll be happy to know that we've located him, and he's on Twitter.

[Thanks, Wez]

If only Sony had waited until after the South by Southwest festival to release Heavy Rain, the publisher could have printed several glowing quotes from a known Xbox consorter on the back of the PS3-exclusive's game box. Oh, well -- there's always the "Game of the Year" edition.

During a a one-on-one conversation with writer Frank Rose at SXSW this week, Fabled designer Peter Molyneux heaped praise on Heavy Rain, calling it "absolutely brilliant."

"I recommend anyone who wants to start to see the first glimpses of the future of video games to go out and buy it," Molyneux advocated, before exposing his softer side to the audience. "But, personally, I could not bring myself to play more than 90 minutes, because the world that was there was so dark and so emotionally involving I felt emotionally beaten up." Aww, Mr. Molyneux ...

"But there's no question in my mind that games like Heavy Rain -- games that have a new fidelity in the way that they present their experiences; obviously made with cinematography and motion capture in mind -- can really show the way forward to a new form of entertainment, which is evolving the story and choices and consequences." Molyneux steadfastly declared, having apparently recovered from the painful memories of the game's early moments (perhaps cries of Jason? Jason? Jason! still faintly echoing in his head).

Molyneux also commended developer Quantic Dream's design choices, observing that the QTE interface "really meant that you had to pay attention all the time because you didn't know whether these quick-time events were going to come up"; though he noted that such gameplay mechanics "may be a little bit tired after a while." Still, he said, "I have to take my hat off to [Quantic Dream] ... There's a couple of things they do in that game which were really revolutionary, and what they do with quick-time is fantastic."

"Us designers were just laughing because we thought quick-time was dead, but that really was part of the drama of Heavy Rain."

Shortage "definitely" having an impact, says Sony.

Modern Warfare 2 keeps on rolling.

#ps3 For films like In the Company of Men (NSFW) and Your Friends and Neighbors (ditto), director Neil LaBurute has been labeled everything from a "misogynist" to a "misanthrope". Guess that makes him equal opportunity. More »

The end of winning.

#clips Heavy Rain for the PlayStation 3 is an emotionally engaging psychological thriller. Se7en, starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, is an emotionally engaging psychological thriller. What happens when you combine the two? More »

#ps3 Reader kuroner says that while playing Heavy Rain the other day, he stumbled on a little glitch. One that leaves one of the game's stars, Madison Page, completely naked. More »

#clips With the PS3 having some, ahem, problems today, you may not be able to play Heavy Rain. Ah well! You may as well kill some time by playing it on...YouTube. More »

#hollywood Heavy Rain was announced way, way back at E3 2006, which was the week of May 8. One week after the show, May 15, 2006, the U.S. Copyright Office recorded an option for the film rights to the game. More »

What if Heavy Rain, which is so often heralded by creator David Cage as "interactive fiction," was just a bit less interactive? Is the game's story and cast of vaguely-French-sounding characters strong enough to carry a feature-length film? We might just find out, some day -- internet super-sleuth superannuation recently uncovered copyright documents which reveal that New Line Productions optioned the rights to turn Heavy Rain into a movie on May 15, 2006 -- just a few days after "The Casting" trailer (NSFW) was revealed at E3.

This doesn't ensure the development of a Heavy Rain movie, of course; it only means if any film studio makes the film, it's going to be New Line Cinema. We think the rights are in good hands -- New Line did some great work on the film adaptations of those Lord of the Rings games.

Just scratched the surface in the PS3, says Tretton

#sony Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Jack Tretton seems incredibly pleased with Heavy Rain's reception with PlayStation 3 owners, saying that the newly released game's pre-sales were "off the charts," underscoring that there's no need yet for a PlayStation 4. More »

Expressing their concerns on the PlayStation forums, several owners of the Euro-exclusive Special Edition of Heavy Rain have been unable to solve one of the game's most sinister enigmas: "Where is the soundtrack that was supposed to be included with this thing?"

Heavy Rain product manager for the region Alex Pavey has provided an answer on PlayStation Blog post, saying, "I'm sorry to say that there has been a last-minute technical delay with the Official Soundtrack, meaning that if you redeem your voucher code before 4th March, you will be able to download Chronicle 1 and the Dynamic Theme, but not the Official Soundtrack." Should players redeem the voucher after March 4th, they'll gain access to all three pieces of Special Edition content: a dynamic theme; the first prequel Chronicle; and the game's orchestral soundtrack (though it's still unclear what format it will take).

If the code has already been redeemed (the theme and DLC are already available for download), Pavel asks that players contact their "local customer service teams," which should be listed on the packaging. To pick up the phone or send an email, do a semi-circle with the right analog stick, hold R1 and Triangle and tap Circle.

[Thanks, Josh]

Players across multiple regions are reporting technical issues with their copies of Heavy Rain, with word of out-of-sync audio, full-on freezes, and unloadable auto-saves filling the official forums,...