It is hard not to be trivial about a new game. It is always a new version of…. or a sequel of…or in this case, an evolution of…
If you want the short and sweet of this game then think Dragons Lair mixed with Half Life/Resident Evil. Beyond Two Souls is from the makers of Heavy Rain, and many would like to compare that, but I never played it, so that part we (me and my keyboard) will skip that comparison in its entirety.
For those under 30+, when Dragons Lair was first released it was like nothing you had ever seen. Consider the early 80’s, console games were in 8-bits. In that same year, EA releases the pinball construction kit and Origin Systems released Ultima 3. 8-bit graphics were not really that great, and in that same year Disney’s Famous Don Bluth is centre to a game that has Disney quality graphics using a laser disc. To give you an idea, consider Xbox graphics in the time of the CBM-64. All our minds were blown. The game was simple, you see segments of a cartoon, and by pressing the right direction on your joystick, you continue, or you die. The system was simple, but the result would not be equalled for at least 15 years (without a laser disc).
Now take that concept and take it in a more modern and more interactive setting and you get Beyond Two Souls.
Wait!
Do not think of this as a simple game, as I said, it was trivialised!
The reality is that this is more than a mere evolution! This game is the first one I witness that uses the 6-axis controller to the maximum degree it can. I want to add to that, that the interactivity between the player and the game is the most complete I have ever seen. It is almost the game Nintendo could imagine, but could never make into a reality!
This game is something else. The story is given to you in a shuffled way! Frank Miller thinks more linear then that, but that does not matter, the story holds on to you like a jigsaw and the picture it paints slowly evolves into a masterpiece, a chronological approach would never have worked this well. Ellen Page IS the real star, as both actress and as character. Willem Dafoe is the supporting character, and as such he is the support, however he is also the glue that holds many of the pieces together. The voices and the looks give you a view into this story like you never seen it before. You control Ellen/Jodie in an amazing way. Like my favourite slogan from FX, ‘The story is everything’ and this story does not fail to deliver.
So, you control Jodie through events with an ‘assistant’ and as such you control where she walks, how she drives and how she interacts. In action scenes your controller becomes control, and as such you interfere with what she does, do it wrong and she does get hurt. This is actually most awesome during fight training. Get it wrong and she gets dropped to the floor, hard! That sequence is actually one of the cooler moments. You get to do it again and again, until you get it 100% right. It actually felt like you were experiencing a martial workout. Very cool!
There are other moments where it is a little unsettling as you might achieve the control over it. The directions for a new player seem a little ‘off’ in the beginning. As I said, the 6-axis controller had never been used to THIS degree before. Tilting it to the left or right (the entire controller), to empty a bucket. To sharply lower the controller as you jump of a wall. Shake when you are being held. It was an awesome experience.
As stated, you get a disjointed story, chapter by chapter and as you start at the end, you jump forward and backwards into the story, it really works! Without linearity you see parts and not know what does and does not connect. As you take control of Jodie or the ‘assistant’ the story unfolds. Uniquely, this game can be played by two, so if you do that, then one controls Jodie, the other the ‘assistant’, a pretty unique experience for this type of game.
Then the graphics, they are high in standard; however there are moments that will do more than blow you away. In a few close-up cut scenes, you control Jodie, and in those moments Ellen Page looks better and clearer than she does on Blu-ray. These are uncanny moments.
I am not giving anything away at this point, so you’ll need to get through it yourself. However, there are ‘hidden’ or hard to spot interacting points. If you get to them you can unlock a bonus. Not sure yet what they are and I only found one so far, but that means that this game has more to offer then you think. I am also predicting that when I was offered a certain choice, I unlocked an achievement. I feel a certainty that going another way will give a different achievement, so replay and experimenting is a part of all this.
So, what about the verdict?
It is a top notch game with a 90% rating. It is no ‘Last of us’, it is no ‘GTA’, it is an evolved game and this game is nothing less than a master evolution of whatever it used to be and the game is better for it. This leaves me with certainty that we will see more versions of this game, especially considering the optional additional interactions on a PlayStation 4 controller, which means that Beyond 2 Souls is only the tip of the iceberg and that already blew me away on the PlayStation 3. So the future of the PlayStation 4 seems to be a solid one. The music which involved Hans Zimmer, a legend in soundtracks, gives this game the atmosphere it deserves. So was this an interactive movie?
No, it is a game where you move, walk around and interact/search for clues and events. In addition it must be said that it has a few really small flaws. At times her movement seems a little less liquid, but not as irritating as we saw with Resident Evil. In addition, the move you make is depending on what you see that means if you are ready to punch and the camera shifts to the other side, that you move you had in mind would be the wrong one. That is part of the gameplay challenge and this game plays that part without a flaw. Whatever flaw it had, was purely the user of the controller. In the end, you will have taken Jodie, from being a small girl of 6-8, to a battle hardened, beat the crap out of anything goddess though places from Urban, to Military complex, to the middle of the desert. The story remains an awesome experience.
There is one other side to all this, it is one that is futuristic. As we see more and more of these games evolve with the use of professional actors, it will not an unrealistic thought that the Videogame industry will actually get its own Oscar category. If so, then Ellen Page might become its first recipient.
Lawrence van Rijn - Law Lord to be 