Minor spoilers follow, nothing big.
http://www.itsartmag.com/features/itsart/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Beyond-Two-Souls.jpg
David Cage and Quantic dream have a bad history when it comes to stories. They focus their games so heavily around them, specifically around making them like movies, yet they don't seem to be very good at telling them. Indigo Prophecy was a clusterfuck of about 8 different villains including an ancient mayan priest you kungfu fight in mid air, and the physical manifestation of an Alien AI from the internet. It frankly reads like something you'd expect to get if you printed the contents of a conspiracy theory forum, shredded it and then rearranged the pieces. Heavy rain was better, much more restrained, but still full of plot holes (many from the fact that a weird psychic link plot element was cut out about 1/3rd of the way through the game's creation, leaving strange, unfinished plot threads and references to things that don't exist), horrific voice acting, and tons of bad dialog and probably the worst example of a game lying to you that you'll ever find.
Beyond is, unfortunately, not the one to buck the trend. And, much like Heavy rain, it's not the basic story thats the problem, it's the details. The basic story isn't really that different from the story of X-man's wolverine. The main character has special powers, the government wants to use these powers, they train her, misuse her powers and she defects and goes on the run as a result. It's pretty bog standard, the sort of thing you'd expect in a summer movie, nothing complicated but acceptable. Where it completely falls apart is when you start getting into all the pieces that make up the story: The character motivations, the dialog, the plot's consistency, etc.
http://www.gamesthirst.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/beyondsouls.jpg
Beyond's 2000 page script. Someone should tell Cage it's not the quantity, It's the quality.
Many characters are simple stereotypes, and often their actions are completely illogical, being carried out for the rather obvious reason of causing dramatic set pieces. At one point, the main character goes to a birthday party with other teen aged kids. Everything seems to be going fine till the birthday girl opens the main character's present. It's a book of Poe's poetry, which the character says is old and very rare. Clearly not the best present for a teenage girl. Now, reasonably, what would we expect someone to do in that situation? Awkwardly say thank you and then put it aside? Say they're not really into that stuff and give it back? Worst case, make fun of her for being a nerd. Sure, all acceptable.
In this case the girl and her friends immediately surround the main character, burn her with cigarettes, shouting "She's a witch, burn her!" and then lock her in a closet.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qmAGyK6Udjs/TclWNVMKHII/AAAAAAAAATs/8S58ibpCy84/s400/monty_python_witch.jpg
Yes, but is she made of wood and weighs the same as a duck? These are the important questions.
Yeah. No warning, no slow build of hostility, just 0 to full blown sadism in seconds. It's hilariously Python-esque and had me and the people watching me play cracking up. This isn't a "Carrie at the Prom" moment, this bullying and hostility hasn't been set up. This is the first time we see these kids, and beyond being your normal, arrogant, self obsessed teenage archetype, none of them seem like they're barely restrained sociopaths. And yet, sudden, unforeshadowed, disproportionate rage and sadism.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mpBGa4P5jUo/Sqo8dyYq27I/AAAAAAAADsU/0yNSAQdWULc/s400/carrie1.jpg
Surprising lack of pig's blood in this game.
Many characters have very...inelegant lines. They get the job done but they are either extremely obvious in their intent or are just plain poorly written. Children talk like they're much older, adults are simplistic and cliche, and the main leads are, while much more competently voice acted, not very interesting. The villains of the story are Captain planet level mustache twirlers with the most boring of rationals. She can control ghosts? Weaponize the ghosts. We can access the ghost world? Conquer it and then weaponize it. The portal full of angry ghosts went poorly? Shocker. Why are we doing this? Because we are the army, and thats what the army does. It's not terrible or anything, but it would be nice for a game that totes its story as it's main draw to have something that basically isn't a rip off of Doom's "Opening portals to places is bad. The places are always Hell. Why did the military do this. Why?"
http://static.zenimax.com/bethblog/oldcontent/DOOM_II_SP_02.jpg
WAS IT REALLY WORTH IT?!
Gameplay wise...well really, if you're in this for gameplay you're screwed. It's basically heavy rain but with a few more mechanics to lessen the reliance on the QTE's. It's functional, but boring and depthless, a very naked attempt at adding in a minimum of gameplay into what amounts to an 8 hour movie. Whats worse is that it becomes extremely clear very early on that failure is not an option. Literally, you can not get a game over. You can not fail. You cannot diverge from the story path, either by choice or lack of skill. In many cases, if you just wait long enough the game will do your task for you and then quickly railroad you along to the next part. It's disheartening to know you're basically not needed, the game is playing itself and the amount of player agency in the outcome is revealed to be basically zero. There are a handful of actually important decisions, which lead to 1 of 5 endings. A very lack luster choose your own adventure.
http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2013/01/twine-01-580-100021617-orig.jpg
When free Twine games have more complexity then your Triple A game, you're in a bad place.
Graphically, outside of the few actors who were clearly Mo-capped, it seems very similar to heavy rain, with some improvements. It's a rough sort of thing, since some aspects look great while others, such as the facial animations on non-main characters are clearly showing their age. Voice acting is a mixed bag. Defoe and Page do well, but it's a crap shoot for the rest. A boy at the aforementioned party read his lines as though he were both completely bored and heavily sedated. Luckily I can't think of any massive standouts in terms of bad voice acting. Child actors are terrible, par for the course, but at least they're not struggling through massive, thick french accents.
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100801020509/heavyrain/images/e/e0/Heavy-rain-mall-clown.jpg
Can't understand a word you're saying. What is a Ballooogghhhhhahn?
In the end, this really just isn't a very good game. The gameplay is bare bones and does nothing but serve to advance the plot of a story that is sci-fi channel original series material at best. It's graphically impressive at times, and another interesting experiment in how you can handle story telling in a game, but doesn't succeed in its attempts to be a revolutionary moment it gaming. It doesn't even come close.
http://www.itsartmag.com/features/itsart/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Beyond-Two-Souls.jpg
David Cage and Quantic dream have a bad history when it comes to stories. They focus their games so heavily around them, specifically around making them like movies, yet they don't seem to be very good at telling them. Indigo Prophecy was a clusterfuck of about 8 different villains including an ancient mayan priest you kungfu fight in mid air, and the physical manifestation of an Alien AI from the internet. It frankly reads like something you'd expect to get if you printed the contents of a conspiracy theory forum, shredded it and then rearranged the pieces. Heavy rain was better, much more restrained, but still full of plot holes (many from the fact that a weird psychic link plot element was cut out about 1/3rd of the way through the game's creation, leaving strange, unfinished plot threads and references to things that don't exist), horrific voice acting, and tons of bad dialog and probably the worst example of a game lying to you that you'll ever find.
Beyond is, unfortunately, not the one to buck the trend. And, much like Heavy rain, it's not the basic story thats the problem, it's the details. The basic story isn't really that different from the story of X-man's wolverine. The main character has special powers, the government wants to use these powers, they train her, misuse her powers and she defects and goes on the run as a result. It's pretty bog standard, the sort of thing you'd expect in a summer movie, nothing complicated but acceptable. Where it completely falls apart is when you start getting into all the pieces that make up the story: The character motivations, the dialog, the plot's consistency, etc.
http://www.gamesthirst.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/beyondsouls.jpg
Beyond's 2000 page script. Someone should tell Cage it's not the quantity, It's the quality.
Many characters are simple stereotypes, and often their actions are completely illogical, being carried out for the rather obvious reason of causing dramatic set pieces. At one point, the main character goes to a birthday party with other teen aged kids. Everything seems to be going fine till the birthday girl opens the main character's present. It's a book of Poe's poetry, which the character says is old and very rare. Clearly not the best present for a teenage girl. Now, reasonably, what would we expect someone to do in that situation? Awkwardly say thank you and then put it aside? Say they're not really into that stuff and give it back? Worst case, make fun of her for being a nerd. Sure, all acceptable.
In this case the girl and her friends immediately surround the main character, burn her with cigarettes, shouting "She's a witch, burn her!" and then lock her in a closet.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qmAGyK6Udjs/TclWNVMKHII/AAAAAAAAATs/8S58ibpCy84/s400/monty_python_witch.jpg
Yes, but is she made of wood and weighs the same as a duck? These are the important questions.
Yeah. No warning, no slow build of hostility, just 0 to full blown sadism in seconds. It's hilariously Python-esque and had me and the people watching me play cracking up. This isn't a "Carrie at the Prom" moment, this bullying and hostility hasn't been set up. This is the first time we see these kids, and beyond being your normal, arrogant, self obsessed teenage archetype, none of them seem like they're barely restrained sociopaths. And yet, sudden, unforeshadowed, disproportionate rage and sadism.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mpBGa4P5jUo/Sqo8dyYq27I/AAAAAAAADsU/0yNSAQdWULc/s400/carrie1.jpg
Surprising lack of pig's blood in this game.
Many characters have very...inelegant lines. They get the job done but they are either extremely obvious in their intent or are just plain poorly written. Children talk like they're much older, adults are simplistic and cliche, and the main leads are, while much more competently voice acted, not very interesting. The villains of the story are Captain planet level mustache twirlers with the most boring of rationals. She can control ghosts? Weaponize the ghosts. We can access the ghost world? Conquer it and then weaponize it. The portal full of angry ghosts went poorly? Shocker. Why are we doing this? Because we are the army, and thats what the army does. It's not terrible or anything, but it would be nice for a game that totes its story as it's main draw to have something that basically isn't a rip off of Doom's "Opening portals to places is bad. The places are always Hell. Why did the military do this. Why?"
http://static.zenimax.com/bethblog/oldcontent/DOOM_II_SP_02.jpg
WAS IT REALLY WORTH IT?!
Gameplay wise...well really, if you're in this for gameplay you're screwed. It's basically heavy rain but with a few more mechanics to lessen the reliance on the QTE's. It's functional, but boring and depthless, a very naked attempt at adding in a minimum of gameplay into what amounts to an 8 hour movie. Whats worse is that it becomes extremely clear very early on that failure is not an option. Literally, you can not get a game over. You can not fail. You cannot diverge from the story path, either by choice or lack of skill. In many cases, if you just wait long enough the game will do your task for you and then quickly railroad you along to the next part. It's disheartening to know you're basically not needed, the game is playing itself and the amount of player agency in the outcome is revealed to be basically zero. There are a handful of actually important decisions, which lead to 1 of 5 endings. A very lack luster choose your own adventure.
http://images.techhive.com/images/article/2013/01/twine-01-580-100021617-orig.jpg
When free Twine games have more complexity then your Triple A game, you're in a bad place.
Graphically, outside of the few actors who were clearly Mo-capped, it seems very similar to heavy rain, with some improvements. It's a rough sort of thing, since some aspects look great while others, such as the facial animations on non-main characters are clearly showing their age. Voice acting is a mixed bag. Defoe and Page do well, but it's a crap shoot for the rest. A boy at the aforementioned party read his lines as though he were both completely bored and heavily sedated. Luckily I can't think of any massive standouts in terms of bad voice acting. Child actors are terrible, par for the course, but at least they're not struggling through massive, thick french accents.
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100801020509/heavyrain/images/e/e0/Heavy-rain-mall-clown.jpg
Can't understand a word you're saying. What is a Ballooogghhhhhahn?
In the end, this really just isn't a very good game. The gameplay is bare bones and does nothing but serve to advance the plot of a story that is sci-fi channel original series material at best. It's graphically impressive at times, and another interesting experiment in how you can handle story telling in a game, but doesn't succeed in its attempts to be a revolutionary moment it gaming. It doesn't even come close.
