Living in France I bought the domestic version of Heavy Rain, but in a strange twist, it would seem the mainland European version is the definitive one. Whereas the UK version contains only English, the European version contains English and all the other languages of Europe. The Japanese version meanwhile is censored, or so I hear, and the US boxart is so hideous that if I lived in the states I would import it anyway (I’m lying, I’d actually just download the European boxart and print it off). I don’t know what languages the US version has, perhaps a reader could post stating so?
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I phoned Quantic Dream in Paris and the woman on the phone explained this was done because the UK version sells for £40 and the European for 70 Euro. Due to the collapse of the British pound, the difference is almost 1 for 1 – meaning to save money, Europeans have been importing multi-language games from the UK. SO to stop this from happening, Quantic Dream removed the option to select other audio languages. I find this particularly annoyingly for my UK counterparts, since myself and others have stated we intend to play through it in a language other than English, but with English subtitles, since the voice acting sucks (and, the personalities of characters is reportedly different). I haven’t installed the game, but intend to do so shortly. I bought the special edition, which comes with a PSN code to download extra content. Whether this will work on my UK PSN account I don’t know, I may have to open a French one. Furthermore, I don’t know if future chapters will be in English or not when using this code – rest assured, if they’re only in French, I’ll be on here ranting about the injustices of the world.
The above photo was taken from a poster on NTSC-uk forum, and to me, he's made it look as if the two figures are mating...
I have the American version (finished it last night, only 21 additional endings to go!). In addition to English, this version also includes French, Portuguese, and Spanish voice-acting (and subtitles). It's very strange that the British version does not include any foreign languages.
ReplyDeleteOne word of warning though: I tried the Spanish voice-acting just out of curiosity (my native language is Spanish) and to be quite honest, I thought it was horrible. The actors I saw give very bland performances in incredibly thick European-Spaniard accents (which doesn't make much sense given that the characters are American--i.e., part of the the "New World"). I left it on for about 10 minutes then switched back to English.
To be sure, the English voice acting isn't that great either! Have you tried the French and Portuguese versions? Are they any better?
I personally like the Polish version the best - it reminds me of my childhood watching Polish films.
ReplyDeleteI've read on other forums that the French performances drastically change the tone of a lot of characters. For example the prostitute in French is portrayed as being fragile, whereas in English she's a bit of a ballbuster.
That's strange! It's not that much harder to import from the US than the UK right? It looks to be about 45 euros for the American version. Maybe it was a Sony Europe decision that didn't carry over to the American side?
ReplyDeleteToo late for me... I'm fucked with this crappy UK version my ass
ReplyDeleteEven worse ; I just tried to order it from amazon.fr to get the proper european version... doesn't work!
ReplyDeleteThis particular product connot be sent in the uk!!!
It feels good to see that other people than myself are getting frustrated with these kinds of things. As a French man living in the UK, my consumer pleasure and my beliefs in a unified Europe were, once again, deeply affected by the fucking laws of zoning and marketing. These regions and accounts problems are not compatible with globalisation, and, very often, they make piracy generates better products than the official ones.
ReplyDeleteThe big question isn't why things are cut from the language options in the UK, but why companies think it is okay to charge what is basically £70.00 in France and Germany for something that is only £40 in a smaller, island territory that will doubtless have extra transport costs... They are basically charging an extra £30 (or 30 Euros) when they have LESS transport costs...
ReplyDeleteJammill