The game isn't perfect in terms of visuals, but it is one of the best looking games of this gen. Its got some of the best lighting I've ever seen. Character models and animations are great. My only complaint (in terms of visuals) is that the cut scenes could look better, lip syncing is bad too. Also there are afew low res textures, but Killzone 2, God of War 3, Resistance 2, Battlefield BC 2, and MGS4 all have those same low res textures. So I'm not going to spend too much time complaining about that.

I'm planning on picking up some of the Borderlands DLC. However, I have a friend who will not have any of it. Will we still be able to play together if we're doing things other than the DLC that he doesn't have, or will he have to host? I ask because I've come across a few games that didn't allow someone to jump into your game unless you had all of the same content.

These are the predictions I've made so far this year

Mass Effect 2- 9.0

Heavy Rain- 8.5

White Knight- 8.0

MAG- 7.0

God of War 3- 9.0

Final Fantasy 13- 9.0

Splinter Cell- 8.0

No More Heroes 2- 8.5

Predictions for Upcome Games

Xbox 360

Halo Reach- 9.5

Alan Wake- 8.5

Fable 3- 8.5

Crackdown 2- 8.5

PS3

The Last Guardian- 9.0

Gran Turismo 5- 9.0

Modnation Racers- 8.5

Wii

Metroid Other M- 8.0

Mario Galaxy 2- 9.0

MULTI

Dead Rising 2- 8.5

Lost Planet 2- 8.0

Call of Duty- 8.5

Red Dead Redemption- 9.0

Perfect Dark Zero- Pretty good launch title, but not AAA worthy

Resistance 2- Very please by how many people mentioned this game! Definitely doesn't deserve AAA.

GTA IV- IMO the most overrated game of all time.

Heavy Rain was a terrific game. It had a lot of great ideas, and even implemented them pretty well. It had ambition, interesting characters, and an interesting story to go along with that. That being said, both the graphics and sound in this game were horribly inconsistent. There were times in the game where the voicework was actually pretty painful to listen to. The visuals, at their best, we great. However, there were times where they were average at best. These issues certainly don't ruin the game, but for the cinematic vibe this game was attempting to achieve...it's worth noting that these things could have been much better.

I think gamespot got the review just right. Great game, but imo NOT AAA.

E3 is still a few months off right now, but I think it's close enough that we can start getting our hopes up for the "Next Big Thing" tobe excited about.

Here's what I'm hopingfor, in some cases maybe I'm just dreaming...

Nintendo: They'll have pretty much put out Mario and Metroid, so Zelda is obviously going to be their biggest gun going into E3. Pikmin3 could be great if they'd announce that. I'm really hoping for an Eternal Darkness sequel. I'd also like to see a Star Fox game.

Sony: Sony is great at coming up with new IPs, so I'm sure we'll see something in the way of that. I think we'll see Resistance 3 and/or Killzone 3. We might see Infamous 2, Gran Turismo 5, Modnation Racers. I'm hoping for a new Dark Cloud myself. I'd also really like to see Kingdom Hearts 3 announced! Also I'm sure we'll see their "Move" thing in action.

Microsoft: Microsoft is going to be the interesting one to watch if you ask me. Project Natal has me intrigued, even though in reality I think a lot of what comes out for it probably won't be any good. Having Halo Reach, Gears of War 3, and Fable 3 shown off could be absolutely HUGE! I think too thatRare will probably show us something there...even if it is something for Natal. I love Rare games, and I hope they have something good. Also, M$ hasa few studios that haven't really put anything much out yet. Also, there's always the possibity that maybe there could be a 3rd party exclusive in developement.

What do you guys want to see?

First off, let me just say that I really enjoyed Heavy Rain, and this is not a thread I'm creating to bash the game. However, I've seen some threads talking about how amazing the presentation is. I was just wondering if I was the only one that felt that things like graphics and sound fell short some of the time. I'll give you a few examples.

The voicework. Scott's voicework was great. However, Lauren, the fbi agent, and any of the kids (particularly them) had voicework that was often inconsistent, sometimes even poor. Ethan's (spelling?) voicework was generally good but had a few moments where I was just in pain. Such as this..."JASON!....JASON!....JASON!" There were other parts of the game where I just felt like he was trying to have some kind of accent. I've heard that they got people from all over the place to do the voicework, and that's why they sounded that way.

Graphics: I think that the graphics at their best are great, at times even amazing. However, there are other points in the game where I felt that they were just average. I think that the fbi agent's character model was unimpressive for instance. I also felt that some of the environments were lacking too from a visual standpoint.

These things are minor in the end, it didn't ruin the game for me by any means. However, with this game going for this totally cinematic vibe, I feel that it's production vaues could have been a lot better. The problems at times were enough to hurt my immersion in the experience a little bit. I see people talking about this as being a graphics king, I just don't see how someone could play this and say that with games like Gears of War, Banjo, Mass Effect 2, Killzone 2, MGS 4, and the Uncharted games out there.

I do want it to be known that the game does a lot of fairly ambitious things, and I absolutely recommend it to anyone interested.

Just curious to know what you guys think?

It's definitely the weakest of the Bungie Halos. TC says because of this review we can't take GC seriously. I think that MGS4 and GTA 4 getting 10s is much more offensive than this getting 9.

I've been trying to make a blessed knight sword. I read that the way to do so was upgrade my knight sword to +6. After that, I can make it a blessed weapon. I've done this, and I don't have the ability to do anything more with it (I'm going to blacksmith boldwin). Who should I go to to upgrade it blessed status, and do I need faintstones to have the option appear? If someone can help me out, I'd appreciate it!

I've been playing Demon's Souls, I'm a pretty good ways into the game and am enjoying it for the most part. I've gone online and watched some videos. I'm constantly seeing people with crazy weapons and armor, I'm working on trying to find some of that stuff. However, one thing I came across was a guy who had it so that his health restored extremely quickly, even while he was in combat. I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to do that? I know there's a ring you can get (I know where to go to getit). Is there something else I can do to improve/acquire health restoration other than that ring?