Thursday 9 January 2014

Beyond: Two Souls Review

I for one was a huge fan of Heavy Rain, finding the unique gameplay and powerful story to be truly outstanding. Beyond: Two Souls doesn't however live up to that, as despite trying to keep the same level of uniqueness, the overall story and gameplay leaves a lot to be desired.

Beyond: Two Souls tries to make the easy controls from Heavy Rain even easier, but throughout the game and especially during fight scenes this can be very frustrating with it being sometimes hard to tell what direction to push the joystick. In saying that besides that the unique control set was once again fantastic, and it was a shame how one bad mistake took away from that.

Much like Heavy Rain writer and director David Cage tries to give a very deep and emotional story. For the most part the story is very enjoyable with the mysterious supernatural nature making it very suspenseful. There was however some parts of the games story that felt a bit unnecessary, making the game drag in places. On top of that there were some dull moments in between some very exciting moments, making the overall atmosphere feel a bit inconsistent.

The best part of the game was easily the characters and graphics. Having actors like Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe always adds extra pressure to a game, but at the same time usual gives great character performances. Page especially impressed me with her acting throughout this game, with her performance really making me care for Jodie as a character. It was however the non-speaking character of Aiden (the entity attached to Jodie) that interested me the most. The constant development of emotion between Aiden and Jodie throughout the game added a lot of depth, with the overall mystery to what Aiden really is adding even more excitement.

The graphics throughout this game also astonished me. It is always nice to see great graphics in a game, as although I'd have much rather the game have slightly poorer graphics with much better gameplay and story, it’s still a nice consolation. I also loved how Beyond: Two Souls used motion capture to show the actors facial expressions, as having the character resemble real actors it is important to show the emotions perfectly.

Overall Beyond: Two Souls is an enjoyable game, but given the many flaws and imperfections it leaves you felling quite frustrated. This along with a story that’s at times dull makes it very hard to recommend this game. It is however almost worth the play so I’d recommend renting or buying at a price much cheaper than the RRP.

Rating: 6/10

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