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You can see this review here with pretty pictures and shit
If you have played a Quantic Dream game and/or are interested in Beyond, I'd love to know what you think:
Beyond: Two Souls
This was an interesting one – I finished it a little over a week ago and have been mulling over how it should be approached from a critical perspective. At it’s core, Beyond: Two Souls feels like an extraordinary evolution of the old text-based ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ games, with high quality visuals, acting and script. However, this creative philosophy has come at the expense of what most would consider good game design.
Beyond features a female protagonist named Jodie, inextricably linked with another soul named Aiden, a ‘ghost’ if you will, who has varying abilities to alter the environment around Jodie and shield her from harm. The game covers Jodie’s life from birth right up to the present (and some glimpses into the future, hinting at possible sequels), with the narrative presented non-sequentially, as the player jumps around a linear path pre-determined through Jodie’s lifetime.
Beyond features an evolution of the combat mechanics from Fahrenheit and Heavy Rain, immersing the player in high-quality motion captured combat. I thought the combat was animated and captured extremely well, quite an astonishing feat when you consider the sheer amount of pathways and potential combinations of moves throughout the scene.
However, I was continually disappointed throughout by the actual interaction within the scene, flicking one joystick in various directions to perform attacks or dodge felt clumsy and unimaginative. The experience bordered on frustrating when the scenes became too chaotic and dark – sometimes direction was vague and clumsy.
One of the aspects of the game I found most interesting is it’s determinedness to shrug contemporary concepts of game design. Along with the last two Quantic Dream titles (and a few other similar titles in recent memory, e.g. Telltale’s The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us), Beyond stands out from traditional games as something akin to an interactive movie. And that’s what it really is – a fully acted, scripted and animated movie, which places the player in the director’s chair.
So therein lies a conundrum – how should Beyond: Two Souls be reviewed? It isn’t really trying to be what most would consider a video game. It combines the kinaesthetic feel of video game interaction with the formal narrative structure of a film or novel. I would argue Quantic Dream’s titles, including Beyond, have done much to reinforce and reinvigorate interactive movies as a viable genre of media. Thanks to the powerful technology showcased, the potential of interactive movies seems largely limitless now compared to the then stilted, awkward and generally awful attempts of the 80s and 90s.
That being said, the game has flaws. Oh boy. Consistent with David Cage’s (the Owner/Writer/Director of Quantic Dream and their games) previous games is an absolute lack of consistency regarding narrative and character interaction. Some things just don’t make sense, and there are plot holes so large you can park a semi-trailer within. I had particular distaste for the existence and omnipotence of Aiden – a shamelessly convenient deus ex machina. Aiden is exploited and re-used time and time again in order to facilitate tense moments and thrust the protagonist in otherwise impossible situations.
Some of the dialogue is nonsense and occasionally characters will appear schizophrenic. There is a scene within the game focusing on Jodie’s first experience at a teenage party, and it is particularly awful for this reason. It is without a doubt the worst scene in the entire game, although benefits from letting me throw chairs at bratty teenagers.
That being said, I think that one has to acknowledge the many problems and limitations of creating a cohesive and consistent story when you are trying to provide for various player choices and create a branching narrative. The tension between trying to provide for a wealth of player choice yet provide a tightly driven narrative is palpable. The reality is that real choice makes a substantial amount of content necessary yet superfluous. Should they create enough content to populate two full games, just in order to satisfy a desire for meaningful player choice? Where do you draw the line? These are hard questions for any creator to answer, particularly engaging within a medium in its infancy.
A game where that the player could navigate through the game and see half the content, requiring another playthrough to see the whole product, would certainly be divisive. Not only from a business perspective (thinking about the costs of production), but from a players’ perspective, you might create an amazing game for some, and not others. For those who would like to see the full game and hence playthrough multiple times, this could devalue the experience of the original choices and story.
In Beyond, Cage decided for the safe approach, creating a relatively linear story and populating each scene with superficial choices. Most of the player’s decisions are fairly meaningless, serving a purpose in the scene they are contained and largely do not have further ramifications. All experiences within the game serve a peak importance when the player reaches the climax, and is given many branching choices of how to conclude the game. As far as compromise goes, its a pretty shitty one, but understandable nonetheless.
A special mention has to be given for the the soundtrack – truly phenomenal. It features some of the last work of Normand Corbeil (the Heavy Rain composer) who sadly died during the game’s production cycle. Filling in the gaps is the legendary Hans Zimmer, lending a hand to his colleague Lorne Balfe, who does a fantastic job of capturing emotion and providing a rich aural landscape for action scenes.
Overall? I… quite enjoyed the experience. Whilst I found myself tutting at various moments of awful dialogue and had frustrating experiences with the combat system, I truly did enjoy my time with the game. It provided a rich, unique and immersive experience which was a refreshing contrast to the general swathe of modern blockbuster video games.
Quantic Dream have cemented their place as a pioneer of interactive movies, and while their titles are deeply flawed, I am always curious to see what they do next. Do yourself a favour: suspend disbelief and don’t think TOO hard about the story, and you’ll have a thumping good time with Beyond: Two Souls.
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Great review 
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Thank you, my interest is peaked, but the game seems flawed in so many ways  . I've heard many people say that Ellen Page is the only good thing it has, with average combat/gameplay and a subpar storyline. I'd like to give it a shot because I've seen some interesting-looking videos, but @ $60 for a last-gen console game it's hard to justify...
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Bisutopia19138 Posts
I thought naughty dog and telltale were the pioneers of interactive story telling. Did you play, the last of us? How does it compare if so?
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![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fe/God_Wars_II_screenshot_of_dungeon_with_MUSHclient_plugin.png)
Games like that are the pioneers in interactive story telling. Interactive story telling has become dumb and mainstream, like a hollywood movie.
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I assume you wear a scarf during the summer
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On November 26 2013 00:34 SupplyBlockedTV wrote:Games like that are the pioneers in interactive story telling. Interactive story telling has become dumb and mainstream, like a hollywood movie.
I agree, MUDs have done far more with storytelling, far earlier - and this includes things like community-driven stories within games rather than whatever linear ride the developers have laid the tracks for.
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Bisutopia19138 Posts
On November 26 2013 00:34 SupplyBlockedTV wrote:Games like that are the pioneers in interactive story telling. Interactive story telling has become dumb and mainstream, like a hollywood movie.
Let me rephrase with "Modern Storytelling". IMO those two companies have done it better then anyone else so far in their respective styles. By no means was, the Walking Dead Series or The Last of Us, dumb and mainstream. Both did an incredible job of character development and creating emotional attachment.
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On November 26 2013 01:00 Dfgj wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2013 00:34 SupplyBlockedTV wrote:Games like that are the pioneers in interactive story telling. Interactive story telling has become dumb and mainstream, like a hollywood movie. I agree, MUDs have done far more with storytelling, far earlier - and this includes things like community-driven stories within games rather than whatever linear ride the developers have laid the tracks for.
I think non-linear stories are awesome, and it's one of the strengths games have and movies can't reproduce. That said, I think it's wrong to say that linear rides are outright inferior.
I much prefer a linear game with a good linear story than a randomly generated 'adventure' with no real internal coherence. You show me this story which tells me about the motion of swinging a blunt object. 'Still a better love story than twilight' certainly, but it's limited.
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It's dumb, but fun to mock, like every other David Cage game.
PRESS A TO CONTINUE THE CUT SCENE. PRESS X TO SHOOT MAN IN HEAD.
Imagine someone tried to make a cg movie using a dumb video-game plot and occasionally you could change completely meaningless details. Do you knock over a book, or do you knock over a lamp? Also you can change the position of the camera, but don't bother because there is literally nothing but invisible walls and boring bullshit if you do.
I think there's a place for this kind of game, but this is not where it should go. You can't just make the controller a device for doing easy and boring quick times. People play games so that they can have some interactive experience with the game and some mental stimulation. An interactive movie should be more than 'press play to unpause the video.' Or wave the controller like a dumbass to emulate the motion the character on the screen is doing. Imagine if in Metal Gear Solid you were repeatedly asked to do quick times in cut scenes, and then the gameplay part of the game was cut out, and that's what a David Cage game is. Also more than half the cutscenes are snake doing something mundane, like brushing his teeth or eating cereal.
What I can say that's nice about Beyond Two Souls is at least they made you play the game as a little girl lol. That happens in some other games, but rarely enough that I kind of give credit for trying to make a more human and relatable character, and I don't mind at all that the protagonist isn't just a blank slate for you to put your personality into. But even if the protagonist is sometimes a little girl, it does it in a way that is no more interesting than your average crappy B movie kick-butt girl, who eventually joins up with the CIA as some kind of super soldier. So basically it's still easy to make fun of David Cage's dumb games.
If I were to improve this genre of games, I'd say Papers, Please is the right direction. Giving a player difficult choices that subtly effect the content of the game, even if the basic plot is linear. Making the player care about the character, role playing that character... etc. One striking example in Beyond Two Souls is a scene where the protagonist is a little girl in bed and afraid of the monsters. There's a toy horse stuffie on the floor. I wanted to be a nice ghost and give it to her (my friend was playing the girl), but the game thought all I wanted to do was muck around and be a douche. There are lots of places for moral decisions in the game, things where you could reward the player for thinking of something and exploring without outright telling them that's what they have to do, but the game really thinks 'okay, the player as the ghost is gonna have fun knocking shit around! great! we're done!' and that's only fun for so long. Some real physics might be nice, instead of just having a choice between 5 things to knock over. Not knocking anything over might have a more sincere effect on the game. Stuff like that. In the end you get the feeling the game is talking down to you 'you want to do this, right?' and it doesn't have to.
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On November 26 2013 01:21 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2013 01:00 Dfgj wrote:On November 26 2013 00:34 SupplyBlockedTV wrote:Games like that are the pioneers in interactive story telling. Interactive story telling has become dumb and mainstream, like a hollywood movie. I agree, MUDs have done far more with storytelling, far earlier - and this includes things like community-driven stories within games rather than whatever linear ride the developers have laid the tracks for. I think non-linear stories are awesome, and it's one of the strengths games have and movies can't reproduce. That said, I think it's wrong to say that linear rides are outright inferior. I much prefer a linear game with a good linear story than a randomly generated 'adventure' with no real internal coherence. You show me this story which tells me about the motion of swinging a blunt object. 'Still a better love story than twilight' certainly, but it's limited.
I won't disagree with that, but you're only tackling the 'good story' part and not the 'interactive storytelling'.
There are phenomenal stories in some games that have only token interaction from the player, and there are some that let the player(s) truly control it, which is the strength that games have over any other form of media.
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I think it is a love it or hate it game.
The line it draws between a book / game is leaning more towards a book.
Personally I loved it, I really like the fact that you can knock off tables etc meaninglessly.
I like that you press some buttons to feel the tension or some actions.
I think most people are missing the fact that the game is meant to be linear and you can't make big influences on most of the time.
Some might want to use Aiden to scare the shit out of jodie (young), another might want to comfort her, some might just want something in between
In this case, the director gets to choose how Aiden will interact with Jodie because their relationship is important and special and without establishing a solid relationship between the two, the game ending might have to be completely different and all the events they go through together will have to be redesigned.
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I think of this game as Avatar. It's experimental and very flawed, but you need games like this to drive forward the medium.
On another note, I find it hilarious when some people insist that the storytelling in really old games is amazing. Some people poo-poohed the story in SC2- apparently they preferred some sprites talking for 30 seconds and non-sequitur cutscenes of BW.
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On November 26 2013 00:20 BisuDagger wrote:
I thought naughty dog and telltale were the pioneers of interactive story telling. Did you play, the last of us? How does it compare if so?
I got about halfway through The Last of Us. I feel my biggest problem with the game was the incessant over-hyping on behalf of almost everyone at the time, but I stopped because I simply wasn't enjoying it.
The problem with Naughty Dog's games (Uncharted/TLOU) is that they have a fairly decent B-grade action movie script, yet the gameplay is completely monotonous. By the umpteenth time of being dumped in an environment and getting shown a carrot (monument/landmark), I couldn't be fucked running the length of the stick to get there.
The combat and survival gameplay felt as though it was just getting in the way of me progressing the story, and the game focuses too heavily on it. I suppose I should go back and blast through the rest of it and give it a proper chance.. but I think I'll be finishing GTA V and dark souls next!
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On November 26 2013 18:31 Jerubaal wrote:
I think of this game as Avatar. It's experimental and very flawed, but you need games like this to drive forward the medium.
On another note, I find it hilarious when some people insist that the storytelling in really old games is amazing. Some people poo-poohed the story in SC2- apparently they preferred some sprites talking for 30 seconds and non-sequitur cutscenes of BW.
I'd agree with the Avatar analogy, especially when you consider both it and Beyond are technological marvels first and foremost.
As for the second point, I think people look at the older Blizzard games through rose-tinted nostalgia goggles. While SC2 has an absolutely abysmal story and characters, BW was hardly better. We were just younger and more naive back then... Warcraft now suffers from much the same flaws - and way too much Metzen.
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On November 26 2013 18:31 Jerubaal wrote:
I think of this game as Avatar. It's experimental and very flawed, but you need games like this to drive forward the medium.
On another note, I find it hilarious when some people insist that the storytelling in really old games is amazing. Some people poo-poohed the story in SC2- apparently they preferred some sprites talking for 30 seconds and non-sequitur cutscenes of BW.
Many of those old games are still by far better then this crap that is being released recently. I know i can still enjoy a game of neverwinter or even baldurs gate these days (they might not be muds, but they are still very old), and the story telling in those games is a world apart from the crap gaming companies are trying to sell us now.
People are becoming lazy, they just want everything presented on a plate, they dont want to take the effort to explore a story anymore, they want the story handed out to them.
I honestly dont understand why games that have alot more money involved in it are worse then 10 years ago. I guess it just says something about the market these companies are targeting.
This has nothing to do with nostalgia. Its simply the same that is happening with movies, compare blade runner for example with recent sci-fi crap like elysium. Movie makers dont care about deep stories anymore, because most people are to dumb to understand them anyway, thats why they would rather sell fancy cgi and shit.
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On November 27 2013 00:01 SupplyBlockedTV wrote:
This has nothing to do with nostalgia. Its simply the same that is happening with movies, compare blade runner for example with recent sci-fi crap like elysium. Movie makers dont care about deep stories anymore, because most people are to dumb to understand them anyway, thats why they would rather sell fancy cgi and shit.
I watched Blade Runner for the first time like 4 months ago, and while I don't disagree that recent sci-fi movies have been trash, IMO Blade Runner is overrated as hell and it's only as appreciated as it is because people are nostalgic. You say you aren't, but I say that people are willing to forgive massive glaring flaws in that movie because it's old and a classic or something.
It seems to me like the movie skipped over a bunch of important stuff. Indiana Jones from the future barges in, easily ganks replicants effortlessly, then fights the guy who was established as the last boss of the movie, feels occur largely randomly, depth is simulated through a plot twist. Hitman-Ford is ethnically enriched. Crowd applauds. It was enjoyable, don't get me wrong, but not much more than District 9, Moon and Serenity, all of which were semi-decent movies that are good for wasting 2 hours.
Maybe I'm not really into sci-fi. I did really really like BSG. Maybe I just don't get it.
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On November 27 2013 01:04 Djzapz wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2013 00:01 SupplyBlockedTV wrote:
This has nothing to do with nostalgia. Its simply the same that is happening with movies, compare blade runner for example with recent sci-fi crap like elysium. Movie makers dont care about deep stories anymore, because most people are to dumb to understand them anyway, thats why they would rather sell fancy cgi and shit. I watched Blade Runner for the first time like 4 months ago, and while I don't disagree that recent sci-fi movies have been trash, IMO Blade Runner is overrated as hell and it's only as appreciated as it is because people are nostalgic. You say you aren't, but I say that people are willing to forgive massive glaring flaws in that movie because it's old and a classic or something. It seems to me like the movie skipped over a bunch of important stuff. Indiana Jones from the future barges in, easily ganks replicants effortlessly, then fights the guy who was established as the last boss of the movie, feels occur largely randomly, depth is simulated through a plot twist. Hitman-Ford is ethnically enriched. Crowd applauds. It was enjoyable, don't get me wrong, but not much more than District 9, Moon and Serenity, all of which were semi-decent movies that are good for wasting 2 hours. Maybe I'm not really into sci-fi. I did really really like BSG. Maybe I just don't get it.
This review from imdb describes it very well:
+ Show Spoiler +This is a film that is so deep, rich, and multi-layered, it may require more than one viewing to fully absorb the brilliance of what you've just seen. At first glance, it can be a bit slow. It's told in a classic film noir fashion, so this is to be expected. Director Ridley Scott seems to want to savor every shot, and an astute audience will be able to sense this.
Now, I say the film is told in a classic Noir style, but this can be misleading. There is no Humphrey Bogart in Blade Runner, snapping off brilliant one-liners once a second. Only hopeless people, in many ways victims of the merciless world of which they are all a part. Deckard is a typically downbeat protagonist, a hard-boiled cynical leading man with a weakness for heavy drinking. The plot is a mystery in name only, as the audience is allowed to know what Roy Batty, Pris and Leon are all up to before Deckard ever finds out. This only lends to the dread and inevitability of the film, lending further to its pervasive gloom. There is no final scene at the end where the bold detective puts all the pieces together and says "Ah-Ha!". Instead, we find Rick Deckard questioning his own existence and drinking away his constant doubts, all the while embroiled in a romantic relationship with someone he's sworn to kill.
Blade Runner requires audience participation, particularly in the Director's Cut, which is entirely devoid of some rather necessary exposition provided by the Original Cut's much-maligned voice-over. Certain facts will not be clear even at the end of the film, requiring personal interpretation in order to be appreciated fully. Other facts will be given away in much more subtle ways than in most modern cinema, such as through visual cues and tenuous dialogue.
Finally, visually, this movie is quite simply a science fiction triumph. It looks better than modern computer effects in every way that counts. Superimposed special effect objects don't give off that unnatural, clearly computer-generated "Lord of the Rings" sheen common in today's effects-driven blockbusters. This, of course, is because Blade Runner - while a gorgeous movie - is not effects driven in the least. Rather, it is a visually driven story that doesn't rely on special effects. This is an important distinction to make in today's Hollywood.
"Touch of Evil" really wasn't the last of the Great Film Noirs!
Movies like district 9 dont even come close to the brilliance of this movie, But yea, i basicly grew up reading sci-fi like the foundation series from isaac asimov and stuff, so i might be a hard judge on what is good sci-fi. But that just one example of many. Wacht Django from 1966 and then watch Django unchained, while they have nothing in common but the name, i still find it suprising how the old movie is so much deeper in story and from an artistic point of view alot more intresting, django unchained has a very bad and simplistic story line, even a 9 year old could come up with that.
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On November 27 2013 01:31 SupplyBlockedTV wrote:
Movies like district 9 dont even come close to the brilliance of this movie, But yea, i basicly grew up reading sci-fi like the foundation series from isaac asimov and stuff, so i might be a hard judge on what is good sci-fi. But that just one example of many. Wacht Django from 1966 and then watch Django unchained, while they have nothing in common but the name, i still find it suprising how the old movie is so much deeper in story and from an artistic point of view alot more intresting, django unchained has a very bad and simplistic story line, even a 9 year old could come up with that.
I view District 9 as a dumb sci-fi action flick with very little depth, so I don't disagree there. However, I read the imdb review of Blade Runner and it doesn't help me to see the alleged brilliance of the movie. Part of me thinks perhaps I've missed something, but I rarely paid this much attention to a movie.
I watched this thing on my laptop during a power outage and by the end of it, I was fully aware that I'd missed out on some details as is to be expected, but I was still left completely unimpressed by this classic movie which I had been told had depth. I see very little depth in Blade Runner, and when my friend tried to explain it to me, I still didn't get it.
I don't remember all the questions I had about the movie, but I remember having loudly sighed in a "yeah right" fashion when Roy suddenly decides to drop feels out of nowhere to save Deckard.
"But you don't get it, Deckard is a replicant", I'm told. Duurh. Again, I don't get it. Maybe I could watch it again and be struck by its greatness, but I watch the thing and it doesn't seem to be particularly deep to me. It's a decent story with a complete 180 turn at the end that IMO is not as artsy as it is random.
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On November 26 2013 18:31 Jerubaal wrote:
I think of this game as Avatar. It's experimental and very flawed, but you need games like this to drive forward the medium.
On another note, I find it hilarious when some people insist that the storytelling in really old games is amazing. Some people poo-poohed the story in SC2- apparently they preferred some sprites talking for 30 seconds and non-sequitur cutscenes of BW.
Having played both recently, I absolutely do. You seem to be arguing that the polish of SC2 makes it better at storytelling, yet aren't addressing the actual story being told at all - the exact same thing D3 suffers from compared to D2.
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EPT
