Beyond: Two Souls

[melmer]

I played a little more today and my opinion delved even lower. Now I have no control over the ghost either everyone just doing want ever the fuck they like, don't mind me

[melmer]

Finished. This is the ending I got

[Thrik]

Nice. My ending was a bit more extreme than that:

 

[Apelsin]

I quite liked the first 60% of the game.

However, the game took a severe nosedive at the end which has kind of soured the entire experience for me.

What is it with David Cage and endings? It's not that everything goes batshit insane in his games, it's more the fact that suddenly tons of new developments are just sprung upon you without any build up or warning and are concluded about as quickly.

[80's Bad Guy]

I am convinced none of you are capable of critical thought or empathy and are therefore monsters. 

[brkl]

Surely no-one can say they didn't get what they bargained for if they find this disappointing? It's the only reason to play a David Cage game. That level of sweet, succulent disappointment in a safe environment is completely unprecedented. It's good practice for getting your heart broken.

[Apelsin]

Surely no-one can say they didn't get what they bargained for if they find this disappointing? It's the only reason to play a David Cage game. That level of sweet, succulent disappointment in a safe environment is completely unprecedented. It's good practice for getting your heart broken.

 

I actually really liked Fahrenheit. The ending was weird, but I still liked it.

This... was just a bit too much.

 

 

I am convinced none of you are capable of critical thought or empathy and are therefore monsters. 

 

My avatar is actually a selfie.

[brkl]

I actually really liked Fahrenheit. 

 

That. Fucking. Game.

Fun for three hours, pain for the rest and shame from there on out.

[Laco]

So, I found this article explaining why Beyond comes off so poorly. (Warning, it's rather long and rambly).

 

http://playersdelight.blogspot.ca/2013/10/beyond-two-souls-most-unique-feature-is.html

 

I'm unlikely to play it anytime soon, but this makes me feel like perhaps it has some okay ideas that are just poorly presented, rather than being outright bad. But then, presentation is kind of important in a game like this. Something about the tone (or pace?) at the start of Fahrenheit made its level of seriousness feel believable, but the couple of hours of Heavy Rain I've played just felt laughable.

 

On a random unrelated note, I'm living in Paris right now and the other day happened to meet a couple of North American guys who are writers at Quantic Dream. They were pretty quick to assure me that, no, they didn't have anything to do with Beyond. It must be a weird experience to work somewhere that is so polarising to public opinion.

[JonCole]

I heard that Giant Bomb's spoilercast on Beyond was pretty good, for those finished with it. It's Patrick Klepek, Dave Navarro, Kirk Hamilton (Kotaku) and Justin McElroy (Polygon) -

 

http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/let-s-spoil-beyond-two-souls/2300-8157/

[youmeyou]

So, I found this article explaining why Beyond comes off so poorly. (Warning, it's rather long and rambly).

 

http://playersdelight.blogspot.ca/2013/10/beyond-two-souls-most-unique-feature-is.html

 

I'm unlikely to play it anytime soon, but this makes me feel like perhaps it has some okay ideas that are just poorly presented, rather than being outright bad. But then, presentation is kind of important in a game like this. Something about the tone (or pace?) at the start of Fahrenheit made its level of seriousness feel believable, but the couple of hours of Heavy Rain I've played just felt laughable.

 

On a random unrelated note, I'm living in Paris right now and the other day happened to meet a couple of North American guys who are writers at Quantic Dream. They were pretty quick to assure me that, no, they didn't have anything to do with Beyond. It must be a weird experience to work somewhere that is so polarising to public opinion.

 

This was really fascinating to read. The idea that submerging systems so that they don't appear as systems results in players therefore not interpreting them as systems and slighting the game for it. The idea that we WANT a mechanical experience that doesn't treat us like babies but are, as a group, yet unable to properly take advantage of it.

 

Of course, if the story is bad, the story is bad; but I didn't think the stories for Heavy Rain or even Walking Dead are stories I'd read and enjoy if they were books. It's the manner in which the systems and mechanics effect a traditional narrative that interests me most about these types of games.

 

Judging from that piece, there's plenty of interesting systemic play going on in the game (albeit buried deep beneath the surface) and I'm now much more inclined to drop some bones down and play it.

[80's Bad Guy]

I heard that Giant Bomb's spoilercast on Beyond was pretty good, for those finished with it. It's Patrick Klepek, Dave Navarro, Kirk Hamilton (Kotaku) and Justin McElroy (Polygon) -

 

http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/let-s-spoil-beyond-two-souls/2300-8157/

 

They're tough, but fair. It doesn't help a game already criticized for lack of choice to be so subversive about its gameplay options, but it does highlight how much of the story actually is tailored around your decisions; what you choose to do, how you treat people, what items you interact with, etc... Yes there's a lot of eye rolling and sections that were clearly written by a Frenchman, but in the end if you put Beyond in a sieve and strained out the garbage you'd be left with a nice pulpy lump of interactive story that outweighs the crap that was filtered out. I enjoyed that lumpy pulp quite a bit, but certainly you can be a jerk and just laugh at the crap lying beside it if you want. But then, what is game? 

[Tanukitsune]

I already talked about this game a bit in the "Completed games thread", but I still have more to get off my chest, although I'm glad I'm not the only who hated this game...

 

To me it was Indigo Prophecy all over again, fun at the start, but it gets dumber and dumber as you play on.

 

The never really explain the deal with the "infraworld" creatures that attack Jodie. Since they attack her as a child and even when she was a homeless person, it's safe to assume she was attacked by them HER WHOLE LIFE, and yet... What about her infancy? Surely these kind of attacks would have killed an infant! It's implied that Aiden protects her from them at night... except they attack her in broad daylight in the hobo sequence.

 

Anyway, since she's been brutally attacked for every day of her life.... who does the rape attempt traumatize more than this? In my game they only grabbed her, the infraworld monster beat her up on a daily basis. Not to mention this rebellious stage was stupid as hell, how does she have friends now? Since when does Aiden LET her have friends? In the party the message was "Jodie is alone HAVE FEELINGS because odf this and now she has friends? And why do they decide to meet at such a place?

 

My "head canon" is that she never had real friends and these girls told her to go to this place knowing what would happen, but even that is stupid, because they should know about Aiden and what would really happen if she went there, then again, teenagers can be pretty dumb.

 

I'm pretty sure I'm putting way much more thought in this game than David Cage did... Is Heavy Rain equally as dumb?

[brkl]

After fighting with aperson in the Reading about games -thread, I can't not quote Rules of Play because it ties so directly into this. A section discusses "The Anatomy of Choice" in a game, dividing each choice to five phases:

1. What happened before the player was given the choice? (internal event)

2. How is the possibility of choice conveyed to the player? (external event)

3. How did the player make the choice? (internal event)

4. What is the result of the choice? How will it affect future choices? (internal event)

5. How is the result of the choice conveyed to the player? (external event)

 

Chasing a "cinematic" experience in a game can lead to not conveying players that they are making a choice and what its result is (the external events) because it disrupts the aesthetic. The Walking Dead is a lot smarter in this because it's not ashamed of being a game, so emphasizes instead of hiding the choices as well as their results.

[Tanukitsune]

The game practically YELLS at you that you are making a choice and will go out of it's way to show it's consequences, except it doesn't seem to affect the game at all. The consequences are shown just for emotions, not for a narrative and will be dismissed just to include a new chapter for more emotions.

 

The choices are very in your face, the game will just tend to ignore them and it's consequences for it's "emotional narrative", the game is such a mess that Jodie's personality seems to change from chapter to chapter, even when you think of them in order.

 

I'm pretty sure I'm repeating myself, but I'm pretty sure David Cage cares more about how the games makes you feel emotionally than if the game has a cohesive narrative structure or whether the choices matter or not.

 

There is a reason there's a David Cage "EMOTIONS!" meme after all. Press X for emotions!

[Architecture]

This was one wacky game.

 

The entire section in Africa (Somalia?) where you're partnered with a child gunfighter is just absolutely bonkers.

 

Played better than Heavy Rain, but some of what I appreciated about that game got lost in the process of sanding down the oddities of the gameplay. Worth a Redbox rental.