Beyond: Two Souls
We all know that Quantic Dream has created a lot of creative heavily narrated games. From Indigo Prophecy to Heavy Rain, each game shows a strong narrative and unique gameplay. Heavy Rain was well received by most gamers including myself. It showed a sense of choice and on how far you’ll go for the one you loved, and the ending was great, it had a twist. Now Quantic has a new game recently released and it’s called Beyond: Two Souls. In this game you control a girl that possesses or is accompanied by a supernatural being called Aiden and because of this the girl doesn’t live like an “ordinary” girl.
Ever since she was a little kid she’s been a sort of “test subject” for some experiments. Some people tried to adopt her but in the end the stupid husband wanted her out of the house. I won’t give too much away of the plot. Now, the gameplay is almost like heavy rain, in which you interact with your environment with a simple press of a button. However, there are some changes here and there. An example of that is when you trigger a fighting scene, the game suddenly goes slow mow and you have to move the right stick on the direction of the attacker. Now, having changes is good but if it breaks the game then this approach should be avoided. It’s like the saying, ” if it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it”.
The fighting aspect in Beyond: Two Souls is perhaps the weakest element in the game. I would rather have the battle system of Heavy Rain, in which you press certain quick time events. A quick time event can be a pain if it’s not done properly but in the case of Heavy Rain, it was done correctly. It’s a shame that Beyond: Two Souls wasn’t able to do well in terms of combat gameplay. However, when it comes to the narrative, Beyond: Two Souls works like a charm. It projects a sense of realism with today’s society. It lets you feel the world around you as it goes by day by day. You’ll also be able to know the story of the relationship with the girl and her spirit companion, Aiden.
If you love cinematic gameplay, then you’ll definitely love this game, but if you love games that you want to “play” right away or do some “gameplay” elements on the bat, then this game would be not for you. Quantic Dream is known for its cinematic core gameplay. This unique approach to gameplay may attract or detract gamers. Some gamers dig this kind of gameplay while others simply hate it. Overall, the game is an “ok” game for me. The game’s graphics are awesome for a ps3. It sure did push the PS3’s hardware in terms of visuals.
Playing Beyond: Two Souls is a treat. It all depends if you love this kind of gameplay. Some people love it and some people don’t but I’m sure that it’s a fun and beautiful game over all, aside from it’s flawed combat system. The story may quite be confusing to some at first since it doesn’t present it in chronological order. If you have a spare time you may play this game if you want and judge it for yourself. Quantic Dream is always pushing itself in the narrative aspect of games. When the medium of the game is like his then one may always ask, “Is this really a game?”. As for me, as long as it’s interactive and you need to do something in order to progress the story then this is definitely a game. As long as you enjoy games the it’s all worthy of your time and effort.