28 Misunderstandings Heavy Rain Has About Americans
By:
Schuyler Lystad
|
May 14, 2010, 8:35 pm
Dear Sony Europe,

My name is Schuyler and I live in California. I bought and played your new game Heavy Rain and thought I could help you understand some nuances of American culture that seem to be getting in the way of this game's unfolding movements and processes. I have composed a list for your reference.

  • We work for a living. Participating in the arts, like photography or journalism, is not an occupation that will enable you to afford a loft the size of a floor of an office building in a busy city.
  • We don't slip in and out of European accents occasionally.
  • We do not take showers every twenty to forty five minutes.
  • We don't enter our houses by kicking in the doors.
  • Police here are subject to the law (maybe not in L.A.). If they're going to break the rules to pursue a case, they have to be able to cover themselves, rather than just doing it wantonly. We also have this neat thing called “Due Process” which would take me a while to explain.
  • If you kill someone, generally the police tend to investigate the matter.
  • The FBI does not have to answer to local police. So, if a local cop breaks the law or pulls a gun on a federal agent, the federal agent will not go pout in his office.
  • If you drive backwards on the freeway for three minutes and run two cop cars off the road, the cops will not have a roadblock two miles later. If they do, and you break through it, the police department will likely pursue the matter. 
  • It is also usually pursued if an officer is killed. This means stumbling upon such evidence is extremely unlikely.
  • It is extremely uncommon to keep drinking glasses or any other dishware at knee level.
  • When our women are creeped out, they don't swing their hips and stick out their chest as far as they can, even if all I did was ask when she was leaving the bar.
  • We have a fantastic working relationship with Japan, and know how to correctly say key words loosely related to their culture, like Origami.
  • We cannot reprogram our GPS devices.
  • While we have a welfare system, it is not like yours. Thus, while unemployed, we cannot afford motel rooms while paying for two houses.
  • I realize a lot of us have guns, but we don't just pull them out when someone disagrees with us.
  • When we watch TV, we tend to have video coming out of it.
  • Not every FBI agent looks like David Duchovny (but thanks for watching).
  • We don't all have unique sink faucets.
  • We can see through our tap water.
  • We have this type of car called a stick-shift. It's quite common in older cars, like one of the ones you used in the game.
  • When we think things to ourselves, we're rarely trying to trick people that may be listening in on our thoughts.
  • Many of our men have beards even when we're not depressed.
  • Most American men do not wear skin tight underwear, and like to, as we call it, "Freeball."
  • American women wear things that aren't tank or tube tops when it's nice out.
  • Most of us rarely fail to sit in a chair.
  • No old man is named Scott. We kill them all before they reach thirty five.
  • The ground floor is also known as the first floor.
  • Our train stations are not more popular than Cirque Du Soleil.
I hope this helps you to more accurately gauge your American audience the next time you decide to base a game within our borders. Also, if you're based in France, I would be more than willing to visit you to help with these strange-appearing but nonetheless very accurate Americanisms of our way of life and culture, and am prepared to accept wine as compensation. 

Yours truly,
Schuyler Lystad
GameXplain.com
 
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