A HEAVY Rain is Gonna Fall
Hard Heavy Rain hasn’t come out yet, I believe it’s due in late February (PS3 only), but it promises to be a violent adult kind of game. How adult? Here’s what the ESRB had to say :
The game contains sexual content and nudity. Shower cutscenes may depict a male character’s bare butt; if players control the female character, her breasts and buttocks are also briefly visible. A more prolonged instance of nudity occurs during a female character’s investigation of a seedy club owner: After getting him alone in a room, the player-character is asked to strip; at gunpoint, she dances topless in front of the man. The game also contains a prompt-based love scene (kissing and rubbing) in which players match on-screen cues to angle characters’ mouths, remove shirts and blouses, unhook bras, and lower to the floor; a woman briefly appears topless amidst the dark shadows and heavy breathing—actual sex is never depicted as the camera fades to black.
So, what do you think?
January 25th, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Allow me to preface this by saying that I’m not some idiot with no morals, but I don’t find it especially inappropriate. I’m not all that offended by nudity though. Now, I think it earns its M, but that’s and M for Mature not an M for seventeen. If a seventeen year old looks at the stripping at gunpoint scene and goes “Huh huh, boobies.” No that’s not an individual that should be playing it, but if an fourteen year old looks at the image and thinks, “Wow, this is horrible. What an awful world we live in that things like this actually happen.” that is a mature individual that can handle the game. It’s all relative. I do think that the whole interactive cutscene thing might be taking it just a little bit far however. But, hey, that’s just my two cents. I don’t have a degree in this sort of thing or anything like that.
January 25th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Actually I’m trying very hard not to read what the ESRB has to say about this game because, for one thing, at least as far as I’m concerned, it’s chock full of spoilers. As for the adult content of the game, there are a thousand arguments for and against. In any case, this is not a game for children and is certainly not being marketed that way. Quantic Dream has not tried to hide the adult aspects; even the not-so-infamous striptease scene (which is performed under coercion, at gunpoint, as cross_breed points out) has been floating around the collection of tubes for quite some time. The demo of Dante’s Inferno has more female nudity than (likely; this is an assumption on my part, but I feel a safe one) the entirety of Heavy Rain.
Regardless, I’m really, really looking forward to this game. I think it could be very useful in classroom settings (college-level, obviously) to discuss things like character, motivation, storyline development, ethics, the list goes on.
In my opinion, what it comes down to is this: the game has mature themes, it’s target audience is adults, and parents should be mindful of what their children play/watch/do anyway. Honestly, Heavy Rain raises the question of whether or not it should even be labeled “game.”
January 25th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
It’s “Heavy Rain”.
January 25th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Thanks Matt! Yikes!
January 25th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
I cannot read the title of this game without thinking “Chubby Rain”. Surely I’m not alone?
January 26th, 2010 at 1:58 pm
Uhh, i think you are alone….>.>
And this is bound to show up on Fox news sooner or later. lol
February 22nd, 2010 at 11:06 pm
Chocolate Rain….
February 25th, 2010 at 6:06 pm
cross_breed, I challenge you to find ONE 14, 15, 16, or 17 year old who, upon seeing any nude image DOESN’T go “hehe, boobies”.
Maybe not in the coercion part, but certainly in any other instance of it in the game.
May 11th, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Hello, I’m cross_breed, fifteen year old who doesn’t think naked women are funny in this context. Nice to meet you.