Developers: Quantic Dream
Platforms: Playstation 3
Rating: 16+
Genre: Interactive Drama, Action-Adventure
Quantic Dream are best known for Heavy Rain, a technological super-achievement married to a fantastically engrossing storyline that, unfortunately, came up short on the gameplay element by sometimes feeling like little more than a multiple choice questionnaire. With their latest game Beyond: Two Souls, the same highs and lows can be found.
You play as Jodie, and you control her at various ages between 8 and 23, as you flit back and forth between fifteen years of her life, to discover the secret behind the entity Aiden (annoyingly pronounced Eye-Den). Aiden is somehow attached to Jodie, a floating spirit (or is it?) that can use some kind of psychic power to manipulate and control some of its surroundings. Depending on how you play the game, you can control both, or you can allow Beyond to be a two player game, one person controlling Jodie and the other Aiden.
One of the major technological breakthroughs of the game is that it can be played using a free-to-download app on your smartphone or tablet, completely replacing the conventional controller if you so wish. This is both more appealing to those who may never normally play videogames, but also a bit too sloggy for those who would play them all the time.
Visually the game is almost beyond compare, perfectly mapping the human face to fully express every emotion, with the lead characters Jodie and Doctor Dawkins played by Hollywood stars Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe respectively. The music is also fantastic, co-produced by Hans Zimmer, the man behind The Dark Knight and Inception scores.
However (and you knew there was one coming), the story and game that all these achievements have been tacked on to is entirely lacklustre. Some of the scenes within the game are truly immersive and tense, only to whip the wind out of you by sending you forward ten years, for an endless scene on a farm where nothing happens for aaaaaaages. Also, unlike Heavy Rain which dangled the potential and endless threat of sudden and instant death over your head, that is missing here, so even in life or death situations, you know the game won’t kill off Jodie, so all of the tension has been sucked out of it. Plus, while the game does have some multiple path decisions, it too often feels like they all end up in the same place, again lacking in something that Heavy Rain excelled at.
Too often, modern movies are accused of feeling like watching someone else play a video-game. With Beyond: Two Souls, that has been reversed. It feels like you’re watching a potentially great movie, that gets spoiled every now and again by forcing you to interact with it.
Presentation: 5 out of 5
Gameplay: 3 out of 5
Replay: 3 out of 5
Overall: 3.5 out of 5