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Domicinator on 07 March 2010
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CGI-Quality said:
Domicinator said:
I think Heavy Rain is a terrific game and I'm having a lot of fun with it. The story is cool (though the voice acting could use a little work in some spots), but it's a nice break from all the shooting and blowing things up that I do in a lot of my other games.

That being said, I do feel like the graphics are hit and miss. There are some parts of this game that look insanely good, but the character models up close are not always that great. Peoples' hands look disproportionate to their bodies, and their faces look ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like they do in the load screens. I feel like the marketing of this game wanted me to believe that the graphics on the load screens are the norm for the whole game, and they are definitely not.

But graphics often don't make the game, and this game is still a blast and very engaging. AND that's not to say that the graphics aren't great--they are great. But not mind blowing. I'm still more impressed by Uncharted 2 overall in the graphics department.

The models are the same all around. No detail was raised or lowered, it's just that the loading screens are in direct lighting, but they are no different in the game. I have to find the link confirming this, and I will but some scenes up close, particularly some of the police station scenes, show the same level of detail. You can't expect the whole game to have up-close detail when the whole game isn't up-close though. Cage has also explained this. Looking closely at the load screens, you can see lower res textures, just like they look up close in the game.

The rest of your post is fair, but that needed to be addressed.

By the end of this game, I had changed my tune a little bit about the graphics.  Actually, I just finished my first playthrough this morning!!  

There are some scenes in the game that look sub par---but they are overshadowed by the parts of the game that look absolutely INCREDIBLE.  (The dance club scene sticks out in my mind as well as the graveyard scene.)  It's hard to talk about this game without giving things away, so I will stop there, but I guess having seen one complete run through of the story, in general I'm pretty impressed by the graphics.  

This was a hard game for me to play through because I also have a young son, but I had a lot of fun with it and I know that when I catch up on all the other stuff I'm playing, I'll want to play through it again two or three more times just to see some of the various endings.  This game was well worth the release day price I paid for it, and I am also glad to see that it sold better than analysts thought it would.