Developer: Quantic Dream
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Platform: PS3
BEYOND: Two Souls – Review
In 2010 Quantic Dream created Heavy Rain, an interactive drama that conquered a lot of hearts. Now three years later they bring us BEYOND: Two Souls, another interactive drama but this time with two actors, Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe. It feels like the line between games and movies is blurring and the interactive movie is making its way to the big audience. Have you ever seen a movie where you thought: how stupid can a character be? Now that’s all in the past, in BEYOND: Two Souls you can make your own decisions and determine how the story goes.
Story
Experience 15 years out of the exceptional life of Jodie Holmes (Ellen Page), a girl with paranormal skills through her connection with a powerful invisible entity.
In her youth this connection was a real torture. All her friends and family thought she was some kind of witch. After some incidents they thought it was best to put her under observation at the Department of Paranormal Activities, which is led by professor Nathan Dawkins (Willem Dafoe). But when some time has passed her parents think it’s best that she stays there, and so they came to say goodbye.
Jodie grew up under observation of professor Dawkins, who studied the entities for personal reasons. While growing up Jodie learned more about her mysterious entity and gave him the name Aiden. When she finally learned to work together with Aiden, the CIA comes knocking on the door saying they have a use for Jodie’s special ability.
From here on out Jodie will travel the world and has to deal with some unimaginable physical, psychological and emotional challenges. Every decision you make will have an impact on your journey throughout Jodie’s life.
Graphics
Quantic Dream truly made use of the raw power of the PlayStation 3. I’ve never seen another console playing a game so detailed and portray the emotions in the face of a character so accurately. Comparing it to its predecessor Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls actually looks like a next gen game. This is due to the fact that cutting edge motion capture techniques were used to create the characters. By using this technique Quantic Dream was able to perfectly capture every emotion of the actors playing their role and thus produce one of, if not THE most realistic game on a console.
Sound
To have the voices of Ellen Page, Willem Dafoe and other great actors in a game is really amazing. This makes the movie experience of BEYOND: Two Souls even more realistic. Especially because the acting is superb, and after watching the making of, I realized not everything was easy to act. For some scenes an actor was all alone on a green set, so try to imagine how hard it is to pull off a convincing performance with nothing around you to relate to. That’s right, it’s anyting but easy and they still did it brilliantly. Thumbs up for the actors as they outdid themselves for this game.
Gameplay
When playing the game the controls are gradually explained. Whenever you need a new one, it will appear on the screen what to do. The controls aren’t hard to master. When playing as Jodie, the left analog stick is to walk around, the right one to look around. Triangle is to switch to Aiden, while the other buttons are used for Quick Time Events. When playing as Aiden, the left analog stick is to move around, the right to look around. The R1 button is used to move up, while the R2 button is to move down. The L1 button is used to lock onto a target, while locked on you’ll have the chance to perform different actions, depending on the target, with both analog sticks.
There is also the possibility to play with an android or iOS device. Just install the BEYOND: Two Souls app and you’re able to connect your device with the PlayStation 3. This way you can control the game with your touchscreen. This option was added for people who are not used to the Dualshock 3 controller.
When playing with a android or iOS device, the difficulty setting is automatically changed to easy and the controls are simplified to be compatible with the mobile device.
To clarify the difficulty settings, there are two modes to choose from, a mode for frequent players (hard mode) and a mode for casual gamers (easy mode). If you know where the buttons on the controller are, even hard mode is not that difficult.
The game can also be played in co-op mode, where one player will control Jodie and the other Aiden. When playing co-op mode the player playing with Aiden can choose if he wants to play with the Dualshock 3 controller or with a mobile device. So if you have friends over who want to try out the game, but you know they are not really good and might ruin your game you can give them a mobile device to help you out as Aiden. This is a really great option, for example most girlfriends are not real gamers but a game like this might interest them. This way you have a chance to play together with her and she won’t complain because playing with the mobile device is very easy.
There is not much more to say about gameplay. All you have to do is control your character, interact with objects, and sometimes a quick Time Event. And of course enjoy the fantastic story that the game has to offer you.
Conclusion
Quantic Dream really stepped up their game with BEYOND: Two Souls. A great story, stunning graphics, realistic characters and a believable female protagonist. A normal girl like you would see on the street, not one with big breast, miniskirts and running around with a gun like we know from most other games. Ellen Page did a really good job bringing Jodie Holmes to live. They couldn’t have picked a better actress for the role. BEYOND: Two Souls is the perfect game to close the PlayStation 3 era. Games like this really show what the Playstation 3 can do. Hopefully on the next generation consoles more games will be as beautiful as this one.
BEYOND: Two Souls - Review,
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This game immediately became one of my favourites!
Indeed, it is the best game I’ve played on the PlayStation 3 😀
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