Heavy Rain rated 15 by the BBFC

This is slightly surprising I have to say, considering the “mature” angle ‘n all.

Quite. I was fully expecting an 18, if only for the language and nudity. Like I was saying this morning, ratings are sometimes completely bizarre.

no clunge then

Nudity is rarely a guaranteed 18.

It’s violence or actual sex scenes that usually garner something that kind of rating, and Heavy Rain doesn’t seem to be going for portraying anything aggressively violent from what I’ve seen so far.

A quick 5 second Google Image search will provide you with all your clunge needs, I’m sure mington.

I thought one of the characters has a drug addiction which required self medication… surely that would have got it an 18 rating?

I’m surprised.

Isn’t one of the outcomes of the ‘striptease’ scene that your character ends up getting killed by the guy she’s trying to get info from? Linking sex and violence in a single scene sort of suggests an 18 to me.

It’s also ridiculously potty-mouthed.

I defintely want to say that this game looks so inspiringly shit, I feel like using the toilet.

Seems to be very mild violence/nudity then. I hope it’s not intentionally toned down for kids, when this seemed to be an interesting game for a bit more mature audience.

“Isn’t one of the outcomes of the ’striptease’ scene that your character ends up getting killed by the guy she’s trying to get info from? Linking sex and violence in a single scene sort of suggests an 18 to me.”

Ratings are judged entirely by what you see and hear, and not the context. They could very easily get across that by not showing the character being killed, by say… showing a close up the face, a fade to black, then a gun-shot sound. Just as an example.

perhaps as they’ve gone with suggestive violence and sex like in the movies…

cut to a train entering a tunnel, that sort of thing

I guess my incredible wit is wasted on people, but is anyone else equally disenchanted with it?

I like it as an experimental thing, and on that level I appreciate it, but I hate context sensitive mechanics*, over a set of applicable constant mechanics.

*The exception being Chaos Theory, and it still had somewhat constant mechanics.

I like experimentation, personally.

I am interested in this game, I really liked Indigo Prophecy sure it had a lot of QTE but the story was fun and some of the breather moments were great. I think I will buy it when its cheaper though too many games this year to choose from.

I don’t see how you can be disenchanted with it without actually having played it. From the few scenes I’ve had a go at I think it’ll probably turn out to be a very interesting experiment, although whether it’ll be successful one or not I have no idea – the novelty could wear thin pretty quickly, the story could be gash (like the last third of Fahrenheit) and the controls are…. somewhat unique.

If I had a PS3 I’d almost certainly pick it up ‘just to see’ and to encourage future experimentation.

Well said Blerk, people are hating on this yet its attempting to do something new, how ironic that the same people always complain that there are no new ideas in gaming. Personally ill be picking this up as it looks intresting.

Damn, make me feel guilty. Like I said I appreciate it on an experimental level, but I just recently got Fahrenheit, and if it’s at all the same mechanically, I think that’s what I mean by disenchanted.

I love the stress/anxiety meter idea in Fahrenheit, but I haven’t seen any of that in Heavy Rain. Not in the talking anyway.

It’s really not very much like Fahrenheit gameplay-wise. It’s less ‘Guitar Hero meets QTE’ and more ‘the controls are completely different every ten seconds depending on what you’re attempting to do’.

Incidentally, I don’t think it’ll go over well with either gamers OR non-gamers purely because of this. Gamers won’t like the lack of interaction, non-gamers will be scared away by the lack of consistency in the controls. If it’s a success, it’ll be a super-niche success, I suspect.

Well, isn’t the easy mode basically just one stick does everything in the QTE sections?

As I said The Hindle, I am much more interested in playing a new concept, than a refined one.

I loved Scribblenauts, I can handle game design that goes against fun, but this game just seems so predictable.

Off topic here but how much is the total cost to import Demon Souls like its $69 so what does that come to in pounds.
Bascially if any guys from Britain have imported this from the Us id like to know how much it cost you please.

Is that USD or CAD?

ie. where are you buying it from.

Aint sure yet Hunam, i know nothing about importing never had to do it before

The BBFC is normally happy to pass violence, swearing and nudity so long as the context is truly mature in how it is handled and not simply gory or exploitative – i.e. unlike most videogames.

Sounds like Heavy Rain got the same treatment as many 15 certificate films whose visual content would seem to warrant an 18 but whose themes are deemed worthy of letting teenagers experience them.

Nicefellow has it more or less right as to why we gave it a 15. In the UK, we tend to think 15 year olds can handle mature content within a suitable context. It’d be the same for a film with similar content. Certainly daft to suggest 16-17 year olds at college shouldn’t play it.

The other rating systems are less contextual in how they work, hence they’re unable to distinguish any differences in how it’s handled. More of a case of, sex/nudity means PEGI 18, ESRB M etc.

I played this at the Eurogamer Expo and wasn’t overly struck by it but it had certainly improved in the time since then.

Pretty sure Farenheight/Indigo Prophecy was a 15 here too but that was before my time