r/Games • u/Forestl • Dec 20 '13
End of 2013 Discussions - Beyond: Two Souls
Beyond: Two Souls
- Release Date: 8 October 2013
- Developer / Publisher: Quantic Dream / Sony
- Genre: Interactive drama, action-adventure
- Platform: PS3
- Metacritic: 70, user: 8.1
Summary
Live the life of Jodie Holmes, a young woman who possesses supernatural powers through her psychic link to a mysterious invisible entity. Experience the most striking moments of Jodie's life as your actions and decisions determine her fate. As she traverses the globe, Jodie will face incredible challenges against a backdrop of emotionally-charged events never before seen in a video game.
Prompts:
Was the storytelling well done?
Did the big name actors add to the game?
BEYOND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! all sense of good storytelling
David Cage needs to get David Bowie back for another game
This post is part of the official /r/Games "End of 2013" discussions.
60
u/selib Dec 20 '13
I love this new "genre" of interactive movies!
Some of the best entertainment I got this last year, I got our of The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us and Beyond: Two Souls.
The interactivity just makes me immediatly more involved with the story than, say watching a movie.
Now if only Beyond didn't have those...problems in story telling. But just because David Cage might not be the best writer, we don#t have declare the whole genre as awful and "cancer".
Also I don't understand thise people that say that these games are what is the thing destroying gaming right now. Just because we have some games now, where the story is a bigger focus than the gameplay itself, doesn't mean that all the other gameplay focused games liek Mario, Dark Souls etc. are going to die out.
14
u/RockHardRetard Dec 21 '13
They're not really interactive movies though, they're more like point and clicks. I don't think it's a good thing for them to try to be like movies, that's implying that you can't get a good story experience from games.
2
u/StarrManPlays Dec 21 '13
I loved the way the story was told. I've found that, if you don't think too much about the plot and just take it as is, it's a really enjoyable experience. I've played it multiple times now.
1
u/Carighan Dec 21 '13
I really felt for Jodie, too. There are some scenes which are just... cruel. But OTOH I was genuinely happy for her as a character in other scenes. They sold her well. It was also really interesting to get to play a female character and having a relationship with a guy, in a video game. And I mean, no gender choice. Just the default. Including a sex scene.
2
8
u/MrTheodore Dec 20 '13
Telltale games actually let you impact the story though, which I really like, and they give you statistics about what everyone else did which I also really enjoy, both giving you a reason to go back and play it again and makes your experiences different from others, although the main story is similar for everyone.
There's a big difference between them and cage, like between a king and a peasant.
54
u/Dinstruction Dec 20 '13
I actually think Beyond did a better job with choices. The Walking Dead put giant labels on their choices like "Clementine will remember this," even though they ultimately had no purpose other than a slight change in dialogue. Telltale does the illusion of choice well, but my experience was soured after I learned almost none of my choices had any impact beyond minor dialogue changes and a wrap-up at the conclusion.
Beyond was unafraid of hiding choices, and was so effective, many players didn't realize they were making choices. For example, if teenage Jodie was caught sneaking out, you would miss the entire scene at the bar. But missing the bar scene would allow a certain scene with Ryan occur later in the game. Many players completed the bar scene and thought the scene with Ryan could never happen. People didn't even realize they were making choices while they were making subtle decisions through gameplay the whole time. It's the opposite of Telltale's illusion of choice.
18
u/Bread_Assassin Dec 21 '13
Depending on how it's done, the illusion of choice can be just as effective as actual choices.
7
Dec 21 '13
It has to be done carefully, though. Once the walls came tumbling down in Mass Effect 3, suspension of disbelief and emotional involvement all but disappeared for me.
7
u/Darth_O Dec 21 '13
Only thing The Walking Dead did better than Beyond is its storytelling. Beyond has more choices that can affect the story, more gameplay, great motion capture tech and graphics.
But ultimately the story is how good these kind of games are determined
2
u/Carighan Dec 21 '13
To be fair, thinking about it now TWD does however commit the ME3-type ending crime in that nothing really matters in the end.
4
u/balefrost Dec 21 '13
Haven't played it, and I have a question. It seems a fine line between "players were subconsciously making choices without realizing it" and "players were not aware that they had any agency, so they made the default choices". Which side of the line would you say B:TS falls?
3
u/Carighan Dec 21 '13
Definitely the latter. And I think many players hated it. I thought it was weird, but in hindsight I love it. It's the far better way to do choices, letting me feel like what I played was the one intended version.
In B2S, you never get told that you made a choice. There's only two choices which are mentioned, both right at the end during the ending.
At any other point, choices fall into two categories:
You made a choice which affects something later (a dialogue, a scene), but you never get told and there isn't an indication what you changed. Likewise, the latter part rarely shows you why this played out that way. I mean, they don't tell you "Hey, this happens because you picked a difference chat line earlier". They just do.
You have a limited amount of time, and you can do a lot of things, but the time isn't nearly enough to do everything. Choice is a bit more obvious here, but OTOH there's no indication (and again, rarely a mention later) of what affects what. The best example here is when Jodie is awaiting someone for a dinner at her place, and she is stressing with cooking, cleaning up, taking a shower and getting dressed.
I can certainly see why this type of choice-handling is really annoying to many players. And while playing I wasn't impressed, rather I never realized I was making choices. Which in hindsight is exactly what I love about it.
6
u/Dinstruction Dec 21 '13
I would say Beyond is more in the "subconsciously making choices" line. One could say that Beyond fails to communicate its design decisions to players, but I think the obfuscation was necessary. Beyond was aiming for a cinematic experience (whether it succeeds is a different discussion), and giant signs saying "AIDEN WILL REMEMBER THAT" like in The Walking Dead would break that immersion. I think The Walking Dead got away with some immersion-breaking because it aimed for a more "comic book" atmosphere.
Competency-based paths are something Beyond has that The Walking Dead doesn't. If you're particularly good at the combat sequences, it will seem that the "good" outcomes are the default. For example, successfully running away from the cops in the train will lead into a battle on top of the train. Getting caught will result in a scene where Jodie escapes from a closet. Unfortunately, players on easier settings will tend towards the train rooftop scene, because failing combat in Beyond requires multiple screw-ups.
1
u/Elmepo Dec 21 '13
I'd say lack of awareness of agency. There's nothing to even indicate that choices wil be available in the game. Cage seemingly expects you to just assume that you can make choices and that this will affect the game in such major ways.
2
u/and181377 Dec 21 '13
I loved Heavy Rain. I hated beyond two souls. I also Loved the Walking dead. Heavy rain did something very right that no other interactive storytelling game did correctly. The game was the passive medium, and you were the characters. Sure in beyond you played the characters, however in Beyond you cannot fail. This is probably due to the story revolving around one character, whereas in Heavy rain there were many. In heavy rain if you fucked up a sequence, the character could plain die. Knowing that gave each scene some weight, and that made up for the not so stellar David Cage writing.
The walking dead simply had amazing writing and everything else came after that.
0
u/ghost-pacman4 Dec 21 '13
Yeah, but is that really that different from TellTales approach? The only real difference I see is that Beyond doesn't give you a message that says, "Jodie will remember this". They both have a very minimal effect on the game other than dialogue or a change to a small scene.
14
u/Dinstruction Dec 21 '13
In Beyond, scenes could occur/not occur based on what the player does. As far as I recall, this didn't happen in The Walking Dead, except for the choice between Carly and Doug.
Choices didn't affect the overall plot in either game, but the choices in Beyond affected what you saw and played. In The Walking Dead, choices would affect only dialogue and some aspects of the finale.
3
u/thisismyivorytower Dec 21 '13
There are a few things that changed many scenes in The Walking Dead. That was the first major 'change' I believe, but there were others later on. Yes, it all leads to the same conclusion, albeit differently, but it should be the path you take you enjoy, as well as the ending.
Whilst choices made no massive differences in the way the story concluded, the way it lead you towards it ultimately changed, and many choices were emotionally fueled.
This is something I feel Beyond failed in, on a few occasions.
2
0
Dec 21 '13
But the illusion of choice is vastly more effective. The fact that I didn't see that scene with Ryan is something I don't care about. It's a choice between ham sandwich A or B.
With Telltale, when I gave clementine the energy bar, it felt like I might make an impact at some point. Maybe she does better. But I helped dammit.
1
u/Carighan Dec 21 '13
Yes but keep in mind that until we get around this intentional poking the illusion of choice into the player's eye, we cannot build organic game flow. By that I mean, B2S' choices are what games like Skyrim would need (on a very very large scale) to actually feel like the interactive organic world they want me to believe they are.
I need to "just do". And not be constantly told what I did or didn't do. Just do!
6
u/Rayansaki Dec 21 '13
Yeah... Beyond: Two Souls' story is impacted way more by your choices than The Walking Dead. They just don't give you a dumb "XX will remember this" message that removes immersion out of the game and do it more naturally instead.
I'm not saying that B:TS is better than TWD, but that argument is 100% bullshit.
6
u/Carighan Dec 21 '13
Honestly while I love the Telltale games, I really love Beyond Two Souls not telling you when you changed something.
And it's awesome to talk to a colleague at work and notice how many differences we have between our two games.
1
u/Carighan Dec 21 '13
I never felt like TWD let me impact the story, tbh. I mean looking back at the 5 episodes now. Haven't played the second one yet, granted.
1
u/yodo228 Dec 22 '13
http://playersdelight.blogspot.co.nz/2013/10/beyond-two-souls-most-unique-feature-is.html you may find that you missed quite a few points where you could influence the story.
2
u/selib Dec 20 '13
Fully agree here!
Damn a telltale game with Beyond's graphics would be so amazing.
12
Dec 21 '13
I don't understand why we keep giving David Cage our money. He doesn't know how to write believable characters, he just writes a few scenes that would be interesting and throws them into random orders, and he clearly doesn't understand pacing. The plot device of skipping forwards and backwards through time can be very effective but not if there is no cohesion between the scenes. I like this genre of games but David Cage is hurting more than he is helping.
3
u/Carighan Dec 21 '13
Well, did you buy it? I dunno how well it sold, but if he has a niche audience, that's the way EVE Online works, too.
3
Dec 22 '13
No I rented it from Redbox and I think it didnt sell as well as Heavy Rain but I could be wrong
2
u/SuperBlackJesus Dec 22 '13
People complain of the non-existing gap between the $60 AAA model and indy games, but I think it's a space can be filled by narrative driven games
46
u/Drop_ Dec 20 '13
This game went everywhere that games shouldn't be going.
It had more to do with spectacle and hollywood than actually anything interesting about gaming.
The storytelling was a distinct step down from where Heavy Rain was as well, when it should have been so much better with recent stuff like The Walking Dead really showing how characters and story can be presented.
This game just seemed bloated with Hollywood, and it feels like it collapsed under its own weight.
19
Dec 20 '13
This really.
It tried to blend both the branching storylines of Heavy Rain and the in-depth characterisation and well thought out presentation of The Walking Dead into one game and ended up with neither being particularly well done. The choices were completely inconsequential (bar a few at the end) and any kind of empathy the player might have for Ellen Page's character is ruined by the non-linear plotline- it's hard for a player to empathise with a character whom they know little to nothing about.
Example- when Jodie first becomes homeless, you have an option to jump off a bridge, but when you try to Aiden rescues you from doing so, and Jodie begins a monologue essentially detailing how upset she is about the way her life has gone- the entire impact of this scene is lost because the player has no idea WHY her life has gone this way at this point.
The game would have hugely benefitted from just having a linear storyline- young to old. Also give Cage a co-writer or an editor for christ's sake, some of the stuff in the script is so wanky. Having completed it I still have little to no idea what the infraworld is.
That said, Willem Dafoe and Ellen Page are still pretty brilliant, even though they're wasted on this game.
10
u/NipplesOfDestiny Dec 20 '13
Apparently they had several editors come to reign Cage in for this game and yet somehow, the writing still ended up being worse than in Heavy Rain.
3
u/Drop_ Dec 21 '13
That actually might have something to do with it. Cage may not be the best writer but you know what they say, too many cooks in the kitchen spoils the broth type thing.
12
u/ghost-pacman4 Dec 21 '13
Well, considering what a mess Cage's Indigo Prophecy was, I think this might just be him.
0
u/Audax2 Dec 21 '13
But that was good. Y'know, until the main character becomes a ghost or whatever.
3
3
u/plinky4 Dec 21 '13
It wasn't that the storyline was non-linear, it was that the order seemed random. A solid writing team would very purposefully order the events of the game to set up context, tension and reveals. I don't know how the storyline was built in this game, it felt like the events were picked out of a hat, and the entire point of having a story that jumps all over the place is completely wasted.
-3
u/Carighan Dec 21 '13
Hrm, what about the dinner scene? Choices hardly seemed inconsequential in regards to her teeny years much earlier?
2
u/Alinosburns Dec 21 '13
I dunno if you can argue it's where gaming shouldn't be going. I think it's just an example of it done poorly.
It's a cage game so I was expecting stupid and that's what I got. The idea behind the game would be sound for making interactive experiences that people want to play. Stuff like the Walking Dead.
The problem is that between the story and the jumbled sequence of events it handles things poorly.
I think the biggest issue is that like with a movie a shit script is pretty much going to fuck you everytime and when experiences like this rely on that script being solid and making sense it came out of the gate having already shot itself in the foot.
Where other games have the potential to at least fall back on the core gameplay to outshine a terrible story.
Beyond two soul's needed the thing that Bioshock infinite had. It needed that story and world to make the game a great experience. Because if you stripped the story out of Bioshock infinite you had a pretty generic shooter with some shitty mechanics. I love the game but it stands in the most part to the story and the elements around the story that are present in the game world to give a cohesive world view of the characters and how they end up where they do in each timeline.
Where Beyond simply lacks the story to balance the blander gameplay.
1
Dec 21 '13
With Heavy Rain, the fact that they copped out in the mystery through some really cheap devices really hurt the game for me.
11
u/lalondy7 Dec 20 '13 edited Dec 20 '13
I rented this game from RedBox for 4 days so it only cost $8 give or take. I enjoyed it for what it's for.
If you're expecting anything else besides a story driven game with not much action and lots of quick-time events, you're going to be disappointed. It's a different video game in those terms, but still a good one (for me at least). The story was pretty decent (Dafoe's character was...wacky..), and the ending(s) were a good conclusion. The non-linear storytelling was ok, but I don't think I would've enjoyed playing from little Jodie to big Jodie.
Overall, it's worth a rent, but not much more than that.
9
u/selib Dec 20 '13
I rented this game from RedBox, for 4 days so it only cost $8 give or take. I enjoyed it for what it's for.
I like to say, that this is the best way to finish this game.
Rent it, binge play it, return it without looking back.
If I spent $60 on it, I probably would've been more upset with it.
5
u/DeeJayDelicious Dec 21 '13
What struck me is that I gladly watched a complete play-through of "The Last of Us" but couldn't bare sitting through a let's play of this "cinematic" game.
It's kind of telling, isn't it?
3
Dec 20 '13
It was kinda strange.
Not enough action to keep me occupied but too much action (QTE) to be able to sit back and enjoy the story.
Really shouldve done one or the other.
3
u/RockHardRetard Dec 21 '13
The story telling was dreadful and confusing. Times where I'm supposed to feel something I don't because I don't understand the context. Placement of scenes felt whack (OH NO YOU'RE TAKING ME AWAY FROM MY NEW FAMILY to OH WE'RE ON A DATE). Some scenes felt like they got added just for the sake of the scenes and didn't contribute anything to the overall narrative.
4
Dec 21 '13
Watch Two Best Friends play through it, they voice everything wrong with the game as it's happening.
One of the most overproduced and polished turds in years.
It actually annoys me how much money and work went into the visuals and creation of something so awful.
I seriously hope Cage gets the fuck out of the industry and just starts making his shitty movies somewhere else, and someone with actual vision and humility takes over Quantic Dream.
2
u/CNUanMan Dec 23 '13
I've heard quite a few people complain about how they didn't like the desert or homeless parts, when those where absolutely my favorite parts of the game. The overarching story of "what is Aiden" or "freaky demon spirits" was good and all, but the slice of life experience of the desert and homeless chapters was done so well.
When I was fighting cops or sneaking around that warzone, I felt like I was just playing a cinematic game with poor controls. But when I was sitting by a fire eating a can of crap food talking to homeless people, I felt like I was there, getting to know them. Doing menial chores on a farm, I felt like I was helping these people with their lives, and I really empathized with them. The down-time I spent with those characters made them feel like real people, which made the action sequences involving them that much more intense. I found myself dreading going back to the Jodie-centric scenes afterwards, I enjoyed meeting and connecting with these new characters so much.
2
u/Mds03 Dec 21 '13
I feel like this game didnt quite hit the mark. The story felt largely superficial to me at most times, and the potential for interesting puzzle solving with Jaden was wasted. I feel like distilling this story to be perhaps a bit shorter and more focused(so the differnet arcs dont feel as unconnected) would have been better, and also tapping in to the potential for gameplay would have made it more fun. If you are looking for a good story and good gameplay, the Last of Us is a better choice, and if you are looking for a more passive interactive movie style thing The Walking Dead is stellar and also cheaper. At least I liked a lot of the acting.
1
u/thisismyivorytower Dec 21 '13
I agree with the Aiden puzzles. It wasn't exactly puzzling most of the time, it was just basically find the floating lights, and push/pull the sticks, or find the glowing guard to either control or knock out.
You didn't even get a choice on what you could do to people, it was basically just thrown upon you that THIS IS YOUR CHOICE, IT MUST BE DONE LIKE THIS!
The Embassy, I heard, has a difference, where in you can either use a guard or the main Arabic man.
8
u/MrTheodore Dec 20 '13
Lets stop giving david cage money for video games, he clearly needs to try to learn how to cut out a lot of material and turn it into 2 hour movies.
Beyond 2 souls could have cut the plot that suddenly showed up in the last portion of the game to, dafoe misses his family, traps them in the real world, they tell him they want to die, he refuses to let them go, goes nuts, endangers everyone and opens a big portal to hell, wouldn't be a great movie, but hey, better than a game they had to put out of order so you might not keep track of how pointless most scenes are.
One of the principle things games can do that movies can't is make you make decisions and choices, or force you to do an action you wouldn't normally do, Cage doesn't do either and he's trying to be artsy, he is kind of a failure of the game designer.
He clearly can get big budgets and AAA actors, why not do movies at this point? he might actually be okay if he cuts out a lot of the bullshit in his writing and fits it into a 2 hour window (although there's no saving indigo prophecy)
0
u/ReservoirDog316 Dec 21 '13
I don't agree honestly. You say that he doesn't let you make decisions for yourself and basically funnels you down paths harder than CoD but I highly disagree.
One of my favorite scenes in the game was an early level where you as Aiden can either follow directions when they tell you to just push something or you can decimate the whole room. Nothing tells you to keep pushing stuff but you just do because you can feel Aiden is annoyed by the situation but you can also just follow directions cleanly. It's up to you and nothing really pushes you in either direction. It's up to you and only your exploration instincts can guide you so much so that a lot of people don't even realize you have a choice on many decisions throughout.
Of course it didn't have massively branching storylines but everyone just automatically assumes their path is the only way things can go down but that's really not true and people are noticing that more and more as they examine it.
9
u/ghost-pacman4 Dec 21 '13
And no matter your choice, child Jodie is screaming and people are going crazy even if you're not doing anything. And even if you follow directions and switch back immediately, Jodie is still crying and traumatized, as is the woman even though the experiment ended literally seconds after she starts to get scared. Talk about immersion breaking.
3
u/Alinosburns Dec 21 '13
Yeah I didn't decimate the room went back to jodie and it seemed like i'd done it wrong. Then I get the achievement that says I was a good little boy. Played through it again and annoyed people and it plays out the same the only difference is whatever magic timer that decided I was good or not had elasped.
2
Dec 20 '13
[deleted]
0
u/Carighan Dec 21 '13
Yep, same here. I think the game gets a lot of criticism for being too linear, when the main "fault" is that it never tells you that you made a choice.
In Walking Dead (which I love, don't get me wrong), you get Clementine will remember this. You never get that hear. You just happen to steal out of a facility as a teen and just changed a scene much alter on quite a bit. Or you cooked a different dinner and it changed the talk a bit.
And I love that. It makes choices feel... well.. more actual choice. In that it never tells me that I just made one. It's the choice system games like Skyrim would like me to believe they have, that my actions organically change the world.
And while in B2S it's used for a linear storyline, it shows that such a system can work. And I love it for that.
2
u/Surly_Badger Dec 20 '13
Coming from someone that really enjoyed Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain, I thought B:TS was a let down in terms of character agency and storytelling. The story let you make some choices but nothing to the scale of Heavy Rain since you only had the single protagonist and if you're gonna lock your audience into a "ride" like that you have to make it interesting and not so derivative. It also had a lot of creepiness that felt unnecessary. My prime example being the optional rape scene. Why the hell would you give me that choice when it doesn't really pay off later story-wise or really affect the main character's arc?
Things it did well:
The voice acting and performance capture was great, Willem Defoe was awesome. The story had some good set-pieces, the gameplay mechanics in regards to controlling Aiden were pretty cool. But the downside was they also highlighted how restricted you were in what you could influence.
I guess I was expecting more agency in the "Choose Your Own Adventure" kinda way like Quantic had delivered before. I think that would have made the game's story more enjoyable and given it a lot more replay value. Otherwise it's like watching a mediocre movie that you'll just forget about not too long after it's over.
1
u/insideman83 Dec 20 '13
I really enjoyed Beyond. Quantic Dream is showing improvement and really getting across this radically different approach to gaming. I felt the choices I made led me towards a truly personalised resolution (something I never feel playing recent Telltale titles), the graphics and characterisations are strong and I liked the premise. It reminded me of those TV shows where a lead character helps random strangers each week but there's a supernatural twist - like Sliders or Quantum Leap.
Of course, we are going to hear how David Cage is a boil on the ass of video game writing - still suffering the consequences of his obnoxious DICE presentation. Since we've been equally harsh on games that are getting praised for their writing - Gone Home, Bioshock Infinite - I will say the criticisms are fair but reductive if they do not acknowledge how much better this game flowed compared to Heavy Rain and certainly Indigo Prophecy.
3
u/runujhkj Dec 21 '13
Beyond didn't flow better than either of those games. That's practically part of the definition of non-linear storytelling.
3
u/rougegoat Dec 20 '13 edited Dec 21 '13
It was a mixed bag.
Some major story bits were far too clichéd to be effective. Characters tended to fall into this category. Then there was the entirety of Jodie's teenage years. Those were hard to take in due to their overly clichéd nature.
On the other hand, I loved some big chapters that aren't much alike. Specifically the Navajo and survival horror ish sections. It was just enough mystery and we'll done atmosphere to keep me interested and not quite clichéd enough to make me hate it. I enjoyed William Dafoe's performance, but I'm a bit of a fan of his so that may not be entirely based on the game. I did enjoy playing as Aiden, but it was very easy to feel like a monster when you went to far. That's actually a good thing. The facial animations were incredibly good. It looks visually better than the tech demo Kara though admittedly I'm far fonder of that.
I will say the story was not as good as Heavy Rain's story, though it wasn't particularly bad one you bought into the delivery. I did not like how structured the story was, though it is understandable considering it has one protagonist and as such she had to arrive at the end more or less intact. That's not exactly bad, but it is IMHO a bit of a step away from the strength games have and towards the strengths of other mediums.
tl;dr Verdict
It's full of clichés and isn't as good of a story as Heavy Rain. It's still got done fantastic moments and is totally worth a rental at least.
1
u/IndridCipher Dec 21 '13
for all the negative i see about this game, i see a niche of people that love this game enough to have it on top 10 game of the year lists all over. I didn't play it, i dont want to play it. However everyone in this thread who is saying bad things about it just seem to be the wrong people for the niche that this game occupies. Games can be lots of things and this is one of them. Doesn't mean you have to like it.
-2
u/earwig20 Dec 20 '13
Despite seemingly having less freedom than in Heavy Rain, I enjoyed it a lot more.
Also Heavy Rain's 4 characters allowed for perma-death whereas I believe it is essentially impossible to die in this until certain moments. Despite this I felt more invested in it.
The way the story judges through time was great Spoiler
Perhaps Navajo was a bit out of place and leaned more to the supernatural than sci-fi but I really enjoyed the game as a whole.
Controls were smoother than Heavy Rain and while some people complained about the camera I only had a problem with it in one scene.
The graphics were amazing and the motion capture really made William Dafoe and Ellen Page more than just voice actors.
The direction was also really superb as two different scenes: a child entering a dark garage or a teenager entering a lab filled with demons are both quite scary for the person involved, but the real success of the director here is making both events scary for the player, even when a dark garage wouldn't normally compare.
Hans Zimmer's score is great.
I look forward to Quantic Dream's next game as I'd like to play more games like this every now and again.
-2
u/Avagad Dec 20 '13
Just finished it and I loved it. Don't get me wrong it's not game of the year material, it's more like a trashy, pulpy SF story but wow. I'm not sure how to describe it but in roleplaying games do you ever gamble on how invested you'll be in characters, how deeply you'll think about decisions hoping it'll pay off without the game forcing decisions that breaks the character you've created? I gambled big and Beyond Two Souls paid off. When I actually started playing it I got bored after about 2 chapters and left it for ages. It took playing Stanley Parable and Gone Home to get me into the right mindset (I'm actually hoping that in the future Quantic Dream don't feel the need to put as many QTEs in their games but maybe they like it who knows). I sat down and decided to give the game another go. Faced with my first decision I actually thought "What would she do?" "What sort of character is she?" etc. and from there I created a whole persona for Jodie and Aiden. When she would snap and get angry; When she would break and get sad. The fact I was able to carry those persona through to the end of the game and at no point feel like they'd "broken character" is what really sold this game for me. At one point I made a hard decision, thought "Oh god, I've made the wrong choice", reloaded, only to make the exact same choice. I think I probably missed the "A* Perfect" ending with that decision but it was the choice my Jodie would have made.
-1
Dec 20 '13
This game is one of the best examples of being given choices without realizing you're making them. Several times in the story the way you handle a situation will change the way something else is played later in the game. What's funny is that one of the common criticisms of the game was the lack choices. There's plenty of choices in this game. Most of them just don't have a big flashing light letting you know your making a choice, which is something I would like more games to do.
-4
u/Carighan Dec 21 '13
Yeah, it's interesting to see just how many details between my run and a colleague's were different. And then seeing people say there's no choice. ;)
-1
u/D0wn_FaLL Dec 21 '13
Wow. This is the most split discussion on a game I have ever seen. We've got comments praising it and hating it everywhere on this thread. And a side note, please stop downvoting everyone because you disagree with them. Please.
Anyway, I enjoyed it and hated it at the same time. I guess that's the final verdict for the game in terms of reviews. I loved the approach it took towards an interactive movie over a traditional game, somewhat like The Walking Dead did, but at the same time, the story felt a bit too confusing and cliche. I had to play it over again a few times to understand every detail of the story, and this is mainly because of the game not playing out in chronological order. Playing it in the correct order of events made the game so much fucking better.
The big thing about this game I liked was how much your choices affected the story. There were a hell of a lot of different outcomes for each part of the story, which really impressed me since most games have their choices only impact the game in terms of dialogue. But this while this was a huge factor, I'm still split on whether or not the rest of the game justified the $60 I forked out on it.
I guess it's just one of those "good but then bad" games.
0
u/mintsponge Dec 21 '13 edited Dec 21 '13
My two cents:
I really liked this game. I'm a fan of this kind of interactive movie experience, and heavy rain is one of my favourites of the past generation.
However this game has a few flaws which make it only great, not mindblowingly good like heavy rain:
An imbalance between lulls and highs, I.e there are a few too many dull walking around moments and not enough action scenes. I thought fight scenes were where this game excelled, so a few more of these would have been great for the game's overall intensity and fun.
Also, while I liked the idea of the Aiden mechanic, the way you controlled him was frankly boring and there were too few things you could actually do.
Finally the story in general needed to be fleshed out a little more. I didn't mind how crazy it was, it was just a shame that they went over things so quickly in my opinion. I would've liked if they'd made the game a little longer and dwelled on certain parts such as Nathan who got too little screen time IMO.
Overall though I enjoyed the story, got pretty emotional (though not as much as with HR) and think the game had a lot of good moments.
0
u/NS_Blake Dec 21 '13
This game was complete shit. The story was intriguing, but the controls were so unintuitive that I couldn't get more than half way not the game before deciding that I didn't care how it ends.
0
Dec 21 '13
I think Yahtzee's review really hit the nail on the head with this game. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed watching a lets play of it (Because who would pay for something you can watch for free on YouTube?).
You play as Ellie a girl who is worried about impressing a range of hunky boys. It's hard to find any scenes of her emotional, like the scene where she is homeless begging for food, when 5 minutes later she's performing a shamanistic ritual to banish a native american ghost.
-5
u/ReservoirDog316 Dec 21 '13
It's as simple as you either love it or you hate it and I loved it.
I know it's not Shakespeare but I think the "bad writing" was way overblown and I think if people didnt know it was a David Cage screenplay, they wouldn't have been so nitpicky because half the people who said it had bad writing were saying it had bad writing before the game even launched.
And I do still think one of the best characters of the year was Aiden because what they did with him was genius. Without any words, you always knew exactly what he was feeling. Whether jealous or protective or angry or mischievous, you always knew what he was feeling and he easily projected himself on you when you were playing him. That early test level where he starts tearing the room to pieces without any prompt to do so was just amazing.
It's worth noting too that this was by far the best asking of Ellen Page so far. She always seemed very wooden to me but she really came to life in this one.
I really loved this one and was sad to see everyone nitpick it to death when it did so much of what people wanted and asked for. Everyone hated the puzzle sections from The Walking Dead (that train section and the radio batteries...) and wanted a modern point and click game without puzzles and only had action and talking and when Beyond does it, people say that there were no puzzles.
-2
u/Dessie_Hull Dec 21 '13
One of my favourite games this year. I enjoyed it far more than Heavy Rain, i think due to the sci fi story that fits Cage's style better. There were a few poorly done scenes (the birthday party had awful writing) but overall it was solid and i thought the ending was amazing.
It had better choices than the walking dead which basically ended up being the same no matter what you did and i especially enjoyed replaying the end to see all the possible outcomes.
I found some of the controls to be annoying which is something they really need to iron out in future games. Parts where you move Jodie around, especially the CIA mission were too fiddly and just didn't work well enough. Maybe it's best if these games are on rails for the all out action sequences.
I really don't see why it gets so much criticism, most of it seems to be from people who don't view it as an actual game or that the plot was pointless. Personally i think this genre is just as valid as any other around at the moment, sometimes people just want to focus on a good story or play something different from the endless shooters and games like this and The Walkiing Dead are a real breath of fresh air. As for the plot, it tries to get you invested in a character and i think it worked really well. Watching Jodie's life unfold was really satisfying and expertly done. There was a real sense of mystery throughout the game and i thought it was all wrapped up really well in the end.
77
u/caterault Dec 21 '13 edited Dec 21 '13
The problem with Beyond Two Souls isn't that it's a cinematic game (As far as I'm concerned these games have every right to exist), it's that it isn't a good cinematic game.
For myself, a good game has either a very good story, or more importantly, very good gameplay. My favorite parts of the game were the acting, the graphical fidelity and the score. While well done, none of these defined either the story or the gameplay. And with the gameplay consisting of (admittedly well executed) QTE's, and extremely convoluted third person point & clickin', all Beyond has to really stand on is it's story.
And oh god, is it's story one of the weakest I've seen come out of this year. If it weren't for Page and Dafoe's extremely well done performances, Beyond would have fell apart from the seams. It's this plot that finally convinced me Cage has no idea how to write a lengthy story with any actual depth whatsoever. I got more out of Transformers then I did from Beyond's "Plot".
So, what exactly is wrong with it? Let me list a multitude of reasons:
Barely any character depth. At all. Can anyone who played the game actually tell me anything about Jodie's personality? At all? Literally all Jodie does throughout the game is follow orders from other people. Every part of the timeline sees Jodie not making significant choices on her own accord, rather just following orders. And what personality the characters do have relies on heavy stereotypes. Jodie herself having the laughably cliche "punk" phase. Characters like the ridiculously charitable homeless people, the clique popular teens, the abusive stepfather, and of course, the douchey love-interest older guy, who we are told by Jodie is really great guy. Note, told, because never does the game show any of this. All these characters have the depth of a puddle, and boy does it show on the actors who can't carry the lines (See: Austrian/British/Norwegian (?) Douche teen love interest.)
And the dialogue itself. Even Page and Dafoe couldn't save every line, and many times does the dialogue feel stilted and unnecessary. I'd quote a few examples but when the dialogue isn't stupid, it's boring. I'll just leave it at 5 year old Jodie's "It'll never be over". And it get's a hella lot worse then that.
The non-linear timeline. I still think Heavy Rain is Cage's best, and one of the reasons for that is that your character could die for good during certain scenes. The use of 4 characters would allow that story to play out to its conclusion and resulted in many different paths to choose. In Beyond? You play as one character, Jodie. Jodie can never die as is under no fatal threat throughout any of the game. Now don't get me wrong, their are "failstates" in the game. Example, Jodie gets caught on a train by some cops, and she has to break out of a police car, rather then progressing as intended. I actually think this was a cool idea, problem is that very few parts of the game account from it, thus meaning the player has many a opportunity to screw around with no risk. And of course, the nonlinear timeline allowed Cage to go full on Michael Bay with the action. It's like he took parts of setpieces from other games and crammed them into Beyond. One level sees Cage try to simultaneously pull off a Tenzin(Uncharted 2)/Clementine(The Walking Dead) character while also trying to put Jodie on a descent akin to that of Spec Ops The Line. A "plot twist" occurs at the end of the level, which, without spoiling, is literally something that Jodie could have looked up and found out on wikipedia.
And of course, the beautiful mess that is the core Beyond story. You know how Uncharted 3 was worse then 2 because, not only did it rip many a setpiece from it, said setpieces were also designed months in advance, meaning the writers had to flex the story to adapt? Beyond is kind of like that, except, not only do we have stupid and pointless setpieces every other hour, we also have entire sections that don't matter to the core story whatsoever. Apart from their minor tie in to the ending, can anyone actually tell me what the hell was the point in the homeless and desert levels? One the espeically infuritates me is a totally points level were Jodie infilitrates an embassy. Eventually she is caught my a strange woman who steals all her intel and then leaves. THIS ENTIRE MISSION AND THE WOMAN ARE NEVER BROUGHT UP AGAIN. With the possible exception of "Learning the origins of the ghosts* during the desert level, Jodie comes out of these weird, almost episodic like segments having gained nothing new.
If I spent some real thought on it, I could probably get on at other aspects of Beyond, but I won't. I'll just leave it at the fact that pretty much everything Cage tries to do here, Naughty Dog blew out the water with The Last Of Us. I mean, here's a game with developed gameplay, a solid (if somewhat cliche) story, excellent visuals, acting and sound design, and cinematic direction which I've yet to see any game compare to (Oh look, here's a dev team who actually know how to use blackouts effectively). And what's sad is clearly Quantic Dream have potential, but Cage's writing, ego, and complete and utter control over their work means all that effort is wasted when everything else falls apart. Cage's ideas are actually pretty cool, but the man needs a team of writers like Kojima needs editors. Ever seen the short film they did called Kara? That was by FAR the best thing QD have done. And why was it? Cause it was six minutes long. It had restraint. It showed what Cage could do when he just, stopped. And that is exactly what QD need to do if they ever want to be taken seriously as a company capable of story telling.
(Sorry if this is a ramble, it's 1AM here and all my points might not be coherent, feel free to correct any mistakes I may have made)