Coffee Talk #93: Heavy Rain's Surprising Language Problem | RPad.TV -- Raymond Padilla & friends talk games and geek culture

Coffee Talk #93: Heavy Rain’s Surprising Language Problem

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, the top 12 girls on American Idol, Bryan Danielson’s wicked suicide dive on NXT, or Bernard Hopkins vs. Roy Jones, Jr, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

Yes, that was me playing Heavy Rain until 5:00AM. It’s pretty much everything I was expecting and I’m having a wonderful time with it. There is one facet of the game that threw me for a loop: the voice acting. At times it’s so bad that it pulled me out of the experience. Let me explain as I rub the sleep out of my eyes (Monkees reference).

Some of the voice actors are good, but a lot of them are inconsistent or poor. I’m not sure what happened in the VO sessions, but it sounds like the person directing a few of the actors doesn’t use English as his/her primary language. Some of the phrasing and pronunciation is off. Strange accents pop at times. It’s…not the best and I’m thinking of playing the second time around using French audio with English subtitles.

Having said that, this is still a phenomenal game. The storytelling, graphics, music, and characterization are amazing. I’m just surprised that a game with such polish and high production values dropped the ball in the voice-acting department.

Any thoughts on Heavy Rain so far? For old times sake I will say that Brian Leahy (now with Shacknews!) is the Origami Killer!!!

Posted by raymond padilla @ 24 February 2010

23 comments

Tags : Coffee Talk , PS3 , Videogames

Coffee #166: Is PlayStation Plus a Better Value Than Xbox Live?

Coffee Talk #163: Games You Want Patched for PlayStation Move

Coffee Talk #107: Stereoscopic 3D Gaming Revisited

Coffee Talk #104: Is EyePet the Key to Sony’s Future in Motion?

Coffee Talk #94: Playing Heavy Rain “Only” Once is Stupid

Coffee Talk #69: Sony’s Sex Toy of Doom and You

Coffee Talk #60: Most Wanted Games of 2010 #2 FFXIII

Coffee Talk #50: Favorite Games of 2009 #1 Dragon Age: Origins

Coffee Talk #48: Favorite Games of 2009 #3 SmackDown vs. Raw 2010

Like this post? Share it!

23 Comments
Add Comment

Comments

Feb 24, 2010
11:21 am

#1 SlickyFats :

I got the game installed but won’t get to play until around springbreak. That is if I have enough time between the other games I have backlogged.

Feb 24, 2010
11:32 am

#2 Nightshade386 :

I thought this was pretty noticeable during the demo as well. A lot of the characters came across as wooden to me.

Feb 24, 2010
11:33 am

#3 Nightshade386 :

…because of it.

I hit enter before I finished my thought there.

Author

Feb 24, 2010
11:37 am

#4 raymond padilla :

@Nightshade386 I think Nightshade is on something today. Double posting comments? Hitting enter before he’s done with other comments? Someone go check on him! I hear you can take a rocket ship to Arizona these days.

Feb 24, 2010
11:38 am

#5 tokz_21 :

@topic
I haven’t played it yet or the demo!

@hopkins v jones jr
17 years too late. I know hopkins will beat jones jr. I can’t believe they want this on ppv too!

@rpad
ah the good ol days of Leahy bashing.

Feb 24, 2010
11:39 am

#6 N8R :

Leahy isn’t with theFeed anymore???

Good for him. Those guys are turning into a bunch of noobs.

Any chance of an interview with Brian Leahy?

Author

Feb 24, 2010
11:41 am

#7 raymond padilla :

@tokz_21 Yeah, it’s pretty gross that it’s on PPV. Watching Jones for the last four years has made me sad.

@N8R Leahy started with Shack this week. I’m not sure his boss would let me interview him or if he’d even want to do it. I can ask him though.

Feb 24, 2010
11:43 am

#8 Nightshade386 :

@Ray: I just switched over from my crappy laptop with a spotty wireless to my crappy PC, but at least that should cut down on the errors.

Feb 24, 2010
11:44 am

#9 Nightshade386 :

@Ray: Good for Leahy. See if he can put in a good word for ya!

Feb 24, 2010
11:47 am

#10 tokz_21 :

@rpad
yes, I was a big Jones fan until he decided he can actually box at Heavyweight. his declined started from there.

Feb 24, 2010
12:05 pm

#11 N8R :

@ Tokz

By “declined health” I assume you mean “getting knocked the f#%k out”.

I remember his move vividly and wished he would have stayed around to fight B-Hop then. Those psych moves just don’t work in heavyweight.

However, Jones getting KO’ed were some of the funnier knockouts I ever witnessed.

Feb 24, 2010
12:08 pm

#12 tokz_21 :

@n8r
I notice the error of my post, his decline from boxing superstar started from that point, is what i meant but getting your lights turned off doesn’t help either.

Feb 24, 2010
1:33 pm

#13 RRODisHere :

Norman Jayden is the only bad voice over in my opinion. English is clearly not the actors first language. Everything else is outstanding though.

Feb 24, 2010
5:31 pm

#14 Redd75 :

RPad- Bleahy is on my PSN friends list, but you’re not. Any chance we can rectify that? (I understand if you can’t or don’t want to right now)
I’m the same name on PSN, by the way. This goes for anybody else on here!

Author

Feb 24, 2010
5:53 pm

#15 raymond padilla :

@Redd75 Sure thing. Use my second account. I believe it’s just “rpad”.

Author

Feb 24, 2010
6:28 pm

#16 raymond padilla :

Beat Heavy Rain about 30 minutes ago. I have an editorial and a (not a) review swimming in my head.

Feb 24, 2010
7:24 pm

#17 Smartguy :

@Ray
Satisfied with the story?

Feb 24, 2010
10:24 pm

#18 RRODisHere :

I just beat Heavy Rain myself and I say bravo.

Author

Feb 24, 2010
11:42 pm

#19 raymond padilla :

@Smartguy Extremely satisfied. It would have been better with consistent voice acting, but the game is still superior experience.

That said, there’s a lot to debate on whether it’s a must-have purchase.

Feb 25, 2010
5:56 am

#20 Smartguy :

@Ray
This might border on piracy, but I plan on just reading the synopsis on Wiki.

Feb 25, 2010
9:14 am

#21 RRODisHere :

I think that everyone should experience it. It’s a must have in my book. My best friend ended it and we started comparing our stories and realized that we had two totally different stories. Huge replay value right there.

Author

Feb 25, 2010
9:16 am

#22 raymond padilla :

@RRODisHere Speaking of replay value, check out the latest Coffee Talk on why playing Heavy Rain just once is stupid.

Trackbacks to this post.

The Perfect Rental: A Review of Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain | RPad.TV -- Raymond Padilla & friends talk games and geek culture

Comments

N8R on What Are You Playing This Weekend? :
I'm the best... Around. Nothin's ever gonna keep me down. ...
smartguy on What Are You Playing This Weekend? :
I will have to hope my team produces like the greatest show ...
Iceman on Coffee Talk #207: While You Were Out :
Side note: Everybody needs to see Machete. Like right no...
Iceman on What Are You Playing This Weekend? :
I agree, N8, Shake Weights will be in our fantasy league’s S...
N8R on What Are You Playing This Weekend? :
Whatever... Shake Weights are a Super Bowl team....
thundercracker on What Are You Playing This Weekend? :
its really hard to propose a trade in espn, simply because t...
Arguello on What Are You Playing This Weekend? :
I thought my auto draft wasn't to shabby....
bsukenyan on What Are You Playing This Weekend? :
I actually get them sent to my phone right now since I don't...
tokz_21 on What Are You Playing This Weekend? :
@bsu I was going to tweet you but idk how often you check i...
bsukenyan on What Are You Playing This Weekend? :
@Thunder I got John Carlson and Jermaine Gresham in my be...

Recent Posts

Subscribe to updates

Follow Me on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS Feed

Amazon.com Videogame Deals