As I’m writing this I still haven’t finished Heavy Rain – why is it taking me so long? Well, my friend wants to watch me play the game but only after she’s had several games of Modern Warfare 2. So I’ve been trying to get an hour or two in a night but some nights I haven’t been able to get to it. Regardless – I think I’ve played enough to give a verdict.

We all know how I feel about Fahrenheit – it just wasn’t for me. Kudos to you if you liked it but I thought there were too many pointless things I had to do in order to progress. To some extent Heavy Rain is identical – you can skip a lot of the meaningless tasks like brushing your teeth or shaving your beard but other tasks like feeding your son does require you to do this in order to progress. From my experience with the game I would say it’s about 40% useless shit and 60% awesome stuff. Awesome stuff would refer to the “action” sequences and some of the interactions with particular objects. Some of you may not notice the annoying tasks if you didn’t play Fahrenheit or if you enjoyed it – but it did to me because of my personal experience with Quantic Dream’s previous efforts.

The story is the real reason to play Heavy Rain, not the gameplay. I don’t want to go in to depth about the story but all I’ll say is as much as what’s on the back of the box. The game is the story of the Origami Killer – a serial killer who kidnaps boys and er, kills them. You play as four separate characters who’s stories will intertwine like a Guy Ritchie or Quentin Tarantino film – just as not as well. It’s a great experience and one that you’ll probably never experience again in a video game but it’s not without its flaws – particularly the voice acting. It does sound very B Grade and some of the voices, in particular the lines involving yelling, sound off and it is almost laughable at times. Don’t believe me? Listen to the latest PlayStation Chat episode – it sums my thoughts up perfectly.

You do grow an attachment to the four characters despite their audio flaws – there is an FBI Agent who’s investigating the case that has trouble with the local fuzz, a hooker who’s son was one of the victims, a private investigator also looking into the case and the father of the latest victim who has gone missing. The characters have a lot of depth and have many layers that delve deeper with each scene. It kind of reminds me of the latest season of Dexter and how John Lithgow’s Trinity Killer character’s traits/history etc were unveiled throughout the season – it is very well done.

Despite it being a little slow to get into, average voice acting and some mediocre gameplay elements – I’d still recommend Heavy Rain as a game that everyone should play at least once. I’ve heard there are 22 different endings based on your actions so if you do enjoy your first playthrough you will get a lot of replayability out of it. Despite its flaws I had trouble putting this game down which has to count for something right? There is a demo on the PlayStation Store so if you’re still having second thoughts after reading this review then download that first and see if this game is for you.

Recommended

Customizing your character in Bethesda’s new massive open world FPS, Brink.

Brink is unleashed September 7, 2010.

This week we talk more about Heavy Rain, the God of War III demo and Just Cause II demo. We also weigh in on Activision vs Infinity Ward, the ApocolyPS3 and Michael Atkinson’s latest investment.

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This game looks better every time I see it…

This is why Kev hasn’t been on the show lately

A lot of positive reviews for this – if you like Mario Kart then this will be right up your alley.

The first multiplayer footage from Bungie’s next Halo title.

Our buddy Hedges 1001 is back with another review – if you would like to review something for the site then send it to gameonpodcastis@gmail.com and we’ll post it.

Graphics: For a 2D sprite game the graphics are beautiful with each sprite being lovingly rendered and all environments being carefully designed with both appeal and gameplay in mind. I can safely say that when it comes to graphics nothing was lost in translation from the PS2 version of the game – if anything the visuals are even better. The only gripe I have with the visuals is that unless you are using a team of entirely story based characters and nothing from the character creation system then it can be hard to tell friend from foe.

Sound: In this game the sound is king – it has a varied selection of tracks from freaky dance tracks to raging heavy metal. There is no real problem with the sound but it does tend to repeat songs after a while.

Gameplay: The meat of the game – as always Disgaea 2 has the random dungeon item world. This system allows the player to enter any item from a piece of gum to a funky helmet in order to not only level up your party but to also make the item far more effective. This game is your standard Strategy RPG fare – you move on a grid based system give your units their orders and hit execute. With this system the player can rack up massive combos ranging in damage up to the millions. As always Disgaea has a crazy level cap at 9999 this game allows the player to have at least 100 hours of entertainment if they are into grinding.

Story: As always Disgaea pulls no punches in adding comedy to a story while not the best story in the trilogy each character has a genuine air of emotion and history around them from a spoiled demonic princess who has never seen the outside world to a perverted young man who was turned into a frog by an evil overlord.

Overall verdict: Buy it you can’t go wrong if you love JRPGs and a hilarious anime based story line, and at a budget psp price there is no reason not to buy, hell its even available to PAL region PspGO owners.

The third in the line of Borderlands Downloadable Content, The Secret Armoury of General Knoxx, continues the story of your character from the first game and shows you the consequences of the actions you took in finding the vault. Atlas have tried to re-establish order through brute force – they have posted wanted posters of you and the other Vault Hunters around the towns and the Crimson Lance have sent assassin teams to hunt you down.

One upping themselves from the last few content packs, 2K and Gearbox have added few new characters like Athena the ex Crimson Lance Commander who enjoys nothing more than shouting orders at you and the idea of getting revenge on the Lance, the eponymous General Knoxx who shares a few transmissions with you and is generally pretty down on the idea of being stuck on Pandora and Mad Moxxi (the manic mistress from the previous DLC) is expanded upon and becomes a more central character. The humour is again amped up with some pretty funny transmissions and interactions with Scooter, Knoxx and Mr. Shank, a boss of one of the quests Moxxi gives you.

The new areas focus on a previously unseen part of Pandora which at one time was a great sea, and is now completely dried up, the landscape is quite meticulously designed and rendered, it has a different feel to the rest of the world the sand dunes have distinct ripples left in them from the days of being an ocean floor and the gigantic, water worn rock structures are covered with calcified husks of ancient barnacles. Among these rocky outcrops are elevated highways a lot of which are now buckled or have huge chunks missing, but those that are driveable have had road blocks and tollways set up on them and every few miles there is a Crimson Lance checkpoint, so you can get out, stretch your legs, kill some guys and then continue on your way, refreshed. The new central hub is T-Bone Junction – it feels like a cross between an oil rig, an elevated crossroads and a fishing pontoon (minus the water) and like the rest of the content it feels unique but fits perfectly with the rest of the game.

Overall, this instalment of the game will take you around ten to twelve hours to finish with more missions, higher levels to achieve (the level cap is now raised to 61), new character mods, new enemies – both human and decidedly non human – a few new types of vehicles and most importantly more weapons and a new super powerful, super rare class of weapon The Pearlescent – and I almost forgot Crawmerax the Invincible, the game’s almost unbeatable not-so-secret secret last boss (there’s a road sign just outside his lair), should prove a challenge for those brave enough to accept the task. There are a few small glitching problems – now and then you might fall through a walkway, and the fact that there’s no fast travel between the major sections of the highways means you’ll be driving back and forth a few times but there are always a few enemy patrols and drones to take down on the way so there’s nothing to stop the flow of the enjoyment.

Highly recommended for those who enjoyed Borderlands.

For those of you who haven’t switched on your PS3 – DON’T – because there is a major malfunction that is causing the PS3’s clock to revert back to 1999. Yes, it’s a Y2K bug-like error… probably led by Major Nelson…

Here is the latest update from Sony:

As you may be aware, some customers have been unable to connect to the PlayStation Network today. This problem affects the models other than the new slim PS3.

We believe we have identified that this problem is being caused by a bug in the clock functionality incorporated in the system.

Errors include:

The date of the PS3 system may be re-set to Jan 1, 2000.
When the user tries to sign in to the PlayStation Network, the following
message appears on the screen; “An error has occurred. You have been
signed out of PlayStation Network (8001050F)”.

When the user tries to launch a game, the following error message appears
on the screen and the trophy data may disappear; “Failed to install
trophies. Please exit your game.”

When the user tries to set the time and date of the system via the
Internet, the following message appears on the screen; “The current date
and time could not be obtained. (8001050F)”

Users are not able to play back certain rental video downloaded from the
PlayStation Store before the expiration date.

We hope to resolve this problem within the next 24 hours. In the meantime, if you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data.

As mentioned above, please be advised that the new slim PS3 is not affected with this error. We are doing our best to resolve the issue and do apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Game On! will keep you posted but yes – it is time to panic!