This appeared to me to be such a dark sort of game when I first got I uninstalled it and put it away. Now I've decided to try it again because of it's high ratings. However I can't get through the tutorial. It's fine until I get to the section where i'm supposed to dodge the police car. The controls appear to be inefective and I am stuck in a "failed again" "try it again" loop, the only way out is control alt delete and sometimes that doesn't work. I have Windows XP, ATI Radeon 200 series graphics card and all my processor and memory require ments seem to be met. Is there a known problem or patch available?

This site has a patch.

http://www.gamershell.com/download_11796.shtml

It is not a question of a patch. Your reflexes are not quick enough. This will happen many times during the game. You have less than one second to identify and press two keys. If you can't do it in the tutorial, you won't be able to do it in the game. That is the good news. The bad news is that saves are automatic at the end of the day. At the end of day 2 there will be a similar challenge. If you botch it, you must start the day over. This is really not a keyboard game.

It took me awhile to get the hang of this-- But- if you have a game pad I would use it for this game. I will make it a lot easier to play I don't think I could have done it with just the key board. it has some sequences that fast!!! and timing are important. That said I really really liked this game.

This game takes practice, practice, practice with the controls to master them. You will be proficient with them by the end of the game. When I finished the game I played it a second time and the controls were so much easier to use! Good Luck and be patient!

Oh wow. I guess I'm with you, Ron Fay. I put this one on he shelf and never retried it because of the police car incident. Maybe I'll try out a game pad, too. Thanks everyone for this subject!

It helps to change the key assignments. The one I used that was recommended worked a lot better. I believe it was WASD (or arrow keys) plus numpad 8456. Lowering the game resolution was supposed to help.

The controls in that game drove me crazy , it was a challenge to finish it but I regretted the time spent on it, I never understood why a game otherwise very good would be done, as I thought, with the intention of frustrating the players.
The same kind of situation is repeated in Heavy Rain that I got without realizing it was from the same people. IMO the controls are not as bad but still it is a frustrating game to play, I got one of the 27 endings (not a bad one) and immediately trade it in without looking for any other ending.

In short: it's a PC port of a console game. As other have said, it's much, much easier (not to mention far more intuitive) to flick two analog sticks in a given direction than fumble around with a whole collection of keys. I salute anyone even attempting it with a keyboard!

Heavy Rain just demands familiarity with the PS3 controller, IMO. When I can bring myself to stop playing it, I'll let you know.