Poll: Buying Beyond Two Souls? Strong female protagonist included and discussion.

[Eve Charm]

*note last option is suppose to be I don't own a PS3 but caption error cause I don't listen to car commericals I didn't see they took the rest of it out in the refresh ;p*


Heh yes this again but I really think it would be a good determining factor of fad vs actual want. Basically Beyond Two Souls is a week away in a week it really doesn't have to compete against anything and has the one thing people are yelling about, a female lead protagonist. It also has big name actors, Maybe not triple A budget but a good one, a ghost.

Now for the fad vs actual want part of this Beyond Two Souls is very easily comparable to Heavy rain in about as perfect as a match up as ever to really see sales of Female protagonists in games vs Males ones, being Beyond with the female made and male back up with Heavy having a male lead with two males and a female back up

So the playing field, Interactive story isn't really an gender dominated genre of gaming so I'll call even there. Both games had a game to refer to that sold well so it's not like an unproven team is behind, Beyond with Heavy rain and Heavy rain with Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit. Both exclusive to just PS3. I'd kinda even give it a bit to Beyond for having Page and Defoe and the whole Female protagonist being the huge buzz after GTA 5. A negative being the new system is the month after, but it shouldn't effect to much.

Point being this at least how I see it, Can be a really good "Put up or shut up" time for if we call this new demand for strong well thought out female protagonists is truth or just a fad. Would Beyond and Heavy be a good or unfair comparison.

 

[krazykidd]

But is the game any good? That takes priority . I'm not going to buy a game " because it has a female protagonist". I'm going to buy a game first and foremost because it's fun and the story is engaging . Anything after that is just icing on the cake . I will not buy this game on release , however , i will wait for some reviews , see if it tickles my fancy ( i really liked heavy rain ), and they i will or will not buy it , regardless of Ellen page look-a-like the protagonist.

 

[Weaver]

I'll probably get it just because I like Quantic's games, not because of the lead female protagonist.

 

[Maximum Bert]

For all the minority shouting about the want for strong lead female protagonists I would wager 90% of people dont care who or what the protagonist is as long as the game is good. I will likely get the game some time as I enjoyed Heavy Rain eventually even though the start was bloody horrible and the emotional engagement fell completely flat on its face for me.

I will likely get it when its reduced in price as I am expecting games to start falling in price quite rapidly after the release of the new consoles give it a few months after and I should be able to get it pretty cheap which suits me as I am pretty poor atm. I may even get GTAV when it gets to a fiver.

 

[tippy2k2]

People have already nailed this one but I'll say it again since I like to hear myself type.

Is the game good?

That is the question I need answered before I will purchase it. I don't care if the main character is a guy, girl, or a transgender walrus. I will buy the game if it is a good game (though unfortunately for it and many others, I am broke and therefore will purchase it once it has severely dropped in price in a year or so).

All I've really seen are cinematic trailers so I don't know what exactly to expect. Though in the games defense, I basically ignore just about all games previews and whatnot since I've been burned by the hype train so many times that it's not worth getting too excited about anything in the entertainment industry.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

I'll probably get it just because I like Quantic's games, not because of the lead female protagonist.

And I probably won't get it because I HATE Quantic's games, not because of the lead female protagonist.

I really don't think that the game having a female lead will affect it in any way, since anyone who would be put off by the game having a female lead wouldn't be interested in David Cage's games anyway.

 

[Miss G.]

It'd have to be very good after playing TLOU, a game in a genre far out of my JRPG comfort-zone, but was given the benefit of the doubt 'cuz story. I don't know much about David Cage or his games other than the fact that they've failed to catch my interest, but from what I can see, I don't want to play what looks like a movie, especially when I can just watch one without having to concentrate on fiddling with a controller. I'd have to see what the reviews are first, maybe some gameplay videos or an LP to give me more of an idea of what it'll be like.

EDIT: After reading more posts from this thread, I gather that this will be one long QTE-fest and the story and characters might be terrible, like its predecessor(s). That said, my answer went from "generally unsure" to "No. I'll just pass on this one entirely". Good thing there are other recent PS3 exclusives that I am more than interested in and have just purchased, like Rain and Puppeteer.

 

[Clowndoe]

I'm not touching it for the reasons directly above me. David Cage's games fail as games as well as failing as stories. I have a funny feeling the character is going to be "strong" in a superficial sense but just as worthless as all of his other characters. If anyone ever bothered to read my posts (not that I blame you) you might think I'm behaving out of character (just like people in his games amirite?) but this is probably the only subject that can elicit such derision from me.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

Probably not. If only because of how deep into the uncanny valley it looks. It may seem shallow, but dammit, just looking at the ads and trailers creeps me out a little.

There's also the fact that I really didn't have any interest in the game to begin with, so I may not be the best person to ask.

 

[Username Redacted]

People have already nailed this one but I'll say it again since I like to hear myself type.

Is the game good?

Given the developer's history I'd actually ask if it's even a game before I ask if it's a good game. The answer is, after having seen my roommate "playing" Heavy Rain and after having seen several trailers for Beyond, that if I ever ended up picking this up it would have to be somewhat discounted (i.e. this isn't a year one buy for me) AND be accompanied by immaculate reviews from multiple people/sources that I trust. In conclusion probably not going to play this.

 

[Brown Cap]

One of the sole reasons I decided to pre-order BTS was because it was a Quantic Dream game.
As soon as I learned more about it, I fell in love with the game.
I'm not that crazy about Ellen Page, though.
She was great in Juno and Inception and what not, but I don't feel the same hype about her than I would if say, Mary Elizabeth Winstead or (if she were younger) Hilary Swank were the role
But that is getting off topic.
Ellen Page will no doubt wow us.
I can't wait for the game to come out.

 

[The_Echo]

Ahhhh... gonna be honest I did not read the vast majority of the OP.

I plan on buying Beyond (thought not at release because of Pokémon X and Y), but it's because I loved Heavy Rain and liked what I saw of Indigo Prophecy. I really don't care about a "strong female lead." I care about a good game with a good story.

Beyond: Two Souls could have been about literally anything and I'd still plan on buying it.

Given the developer's history I'd actually ask if it's even a game before I ask if it's a good game. The answer is, after having seen my roommate "playing" Heavy Rain

Oh, come the fuck on. Don't be that guy.

They are most certainly games. QD's games are kind of like an evolved point-and-click adventure.

Never understood this mindset that such things aren't "real" games.

 

[Genocidicles]

I might. It depends on whether the characters seem like real people or socially awkward robots trying to masquerade as humans... Like the majority of characters in Heavy Rain.

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

Yeah, sorry I can't add anything to the real discussion here.

I'm just buying it because I liked Heavy Rain and Willem Dafoe.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I care far more about whether it's a good game than whether the protagonist is ____________ out of the norm. The part I can't understand is that it wants me to accept Ellen Page as a badass, ass-kicking Secret Agent. Seriously? Ellen Page, who weighs about 95 lbs and still looks like she's 14?

That's like casting Clay Aiken as a professional bodybuilder.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

If I got the money? Yeah. I am. I'll probably download it. Save on taxes and all.
If I don't have the money, I'll curse things, and wait until I do. It seems like a pretty unique game as far as I've played.

 

[The Danger]

*note last option is suppose to be I don't own a PS3 but caption error cause I don't listen to car commericals I didn't see they took the rest of it out in the refresh ;p*


Heh yes this again but I really think it would be a good determining factor of fad vs actual want. Basically Beyond Two Souls is a week away in a week it really doesn't have to compete against anything and has the one thing people are yelling about, a female lead protagonist. It also has big name actors, Maybe not triple A budget but a good one, a ghost.

Now for the fad vs actual want part of this Beyond Two Souls is very easily comparable to Heavy rain in about as perfect as a match up as ever to really see sales of Female protagonists in games vs Males ones, being Beyond with the female made and male back up with Heavy having a male lead with two males and a female back up

So the playing field, Interactive story isn't really an gender dominated genre of gaming so I'll call even there. Both games had a game to refer to that sold well so it's not like an unproven team is behind, Beyond with Heavy rain and Heavy rain with Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit. Both exclusive to just PS3. I'd kinda even give it a bit to Beyond for having Page and Defoe and the whole Female protagonist being the huge buzz after GTA 5. A negative being the new system is the month after, but it shouldn't effect to much.

Point being this at least how I see it, Can be a really good "Put up or shut up" time for if we call this new demand for strong well thought out female protagonists is truth or just a fad. Would Beyond and Heavy be a good or unfair comparison.

Somewhere in there, I get the suspicion that you intend to use BTS as a benchmark of how much people want games with strong female protagonists. I advise against this, mostly because David Cage is a blithering idiot who writes female characters with about as much authenticity and depth as one of those buy-in-bulk Valentine's Day cards.

I basically refuse to believe that David Cage has somehow miraculously overcome years of placing women in their underwear into creepy, rapey situations to write an actually compelling female character. So the whole assumption that BTS will somehow be a triumph for feminist desires and expression is already misguided.

In other words, BTS's imminent failure (or unlikely success) won't prove one way or another whether there's demand for strong female leads, because I am sure it will lack a strong female lead. And probably just be a shit game driven by laughably improbable strings of tragedies.

Then again, what do I know? This is just my opinion based on everything David Cage has ever said, done, and made...

 

[The Danger]

Ahhhh... gonna be honest I did not read the vast majority of the OP.

I plan on buying Beyond (thought not at release because of Pokémon X and Y), but it's because I loved Heavy Rain and liked what I saw of Indigo Prophecy. I really don't care about a "strong female lead." I care about a good game with a good story.

Beyond: Two Souls could have been about literally anything and I'd still plan on buying it.

Given the developer's history I'd actually ask if it's even a game before I ask if it's a good game. The answer is, after having seen my roommate "playing" Heavy Rain

Oh, come the fuck on. Don't be that guy.

They are most certainly games. QD's games are kind of like an evolved point-and-click adventure.

Never understood this mindset that such things aren't "real" games.

With all due respect, point-and-click adventure games have actual thought put into the game design. A well made inventory puzzle can be a beautiful thing. Indigo Prophecy was a prolonged, agonizing game of Simon Says, and Heavy Rain is basically a game of QTEs (part two of a Song of Cage and Fail).

If I could think of an animal that evolved from relative prominence to being a bottom feeder, I'd point to that miserable creature, and say, "QD's games are kind of like an evolved point-and-click adventure in the same way that this squishy thing is an evolved T-Rex."

 

[The_Scrivener]

I would love to play a game like Heavy Rain again. I will buy B:2S if it has the following improvements:

1. It doesn't have a provocative sexual assault scene with zero relevance to the plot whatsofuckinggoddamnever.

2. It doesn't have plotholes that could swallow a city block.

You know why Heavy Rain was a game? Because if it was a movie, it would've been laughed out of the theater. It insulted even the most idiotic members of its audience with it's glaring inconsistencies and pointlessly unanswered questions. It's like it was written by the twin brother character from the film Adaptation, where he writes scripts that he thinks are cool, but that actually make no practical sense. The only people that like them are morons who get hard-ons for arbitrary twists.

You know what? I changed my mind. I'm not buying it.