Jose Zagal's Home Page - Games & Game Studies

Home	Talks and Slides	My GameLog	Research and Projects	Publications	Resume	Teaching
Back // GameBreadth Project // Game Ontology Project // GameLog

Beyond: Two Souls (PS3) Status: Finished playing I started playing this game on Saturday 16 August, 2014 // I stopped playing this game on: Friday 19 September, 2014
Current opinion of this game
Not as good as Heavy Rain, which I really enjoyed.
September 19, 2014 11:40:43 AM
The scene I decided to replay was the one where Jodie is invited to a teenage birthday party. I was curious about the alternate versions due to a cue you get near the end: you can choose "revenge". The party, as you would imagine, goes south with the teens being really mean to her. The first time I played I was "nice" (shy, innocent, etc.) and didn't choose revenge. I wanted to see what the other end of the spectrum was... I was disappointed that: 1. Apparently you can't choose the correct music, you get dissed regardless. 2. You end up dancing anyways. I could be wrong about the above, but that was the feeling I got. As for the revenge part? It was a bit fun to let Aidan run wild and break a ton of stuff. ...and the house caught fire.
September 15, 2014 09:29:23 PM
Finished this over the weekend. I'm glad I saw it all the way to the end because a lot of the questions I had have been answered. Story stuff pretty much. I then went back and played an earlier scene I was curious about. That was a mistake. I peeked behind the curtain and saw how much more linear the game is. A lot of the choices I thought mattered, don't. Some things end up happening anyways regardless of your choice. I understand the problem (branching grows exponentially), and to be honest I'm not surprised. Just a little let down. I wasn't intending to re-play any of the earlier scenes (the same philosophy I applied when I played Heavy Rain), but I was, I'll admit, taken in by the allure of a few extra trophies. Way to shoot yourself in the foot! For this kind of game, where you don't really want to encourage replayability, why not tie the trophies (which I understand are a compulsory requirement by Sony) to simple advancement in the game? The Walking Dead implemented them this way, which I thought was great. The trophy system should enhance the game, not detract from it, no? I recall that David Cage was really opposed to trophies in Heavy Rain, but ended up putting them in for binary choices anyways. Sigh.
September 4, 2014 06:19:38 PM
Played a few more scenes. They're quite uneven and, in a good way, not all intense or dramatic. I continue to feel that the experience is much more linear and constrained than Heavy Rain. I'm not sure it will "open up" at this point, but I could be wrong. More interestingly, there are a few scenes that I'm surprised weren't mentioned or discussed: a. In one of the scenes Jodie is living with some homeless people. A lot of interesting things happen, but I'd highlight a moment where you fight off some rich preppie dudes who film themselves beating up homeless people AND the birthing scene. Regardless of whether these moments are authentic, meaningful, etc. I'd just like to highlight the fact that they exist at all! b. An entire scene takes place with Jodie staying with a Navajo family, living with them, and dealing with an issue they're facing. NOT in the "here's the white person come to save the day" mind you. I just thought it was really cool this scene existed! Given all the recent hoopla about representation, gender, etc. I think it's important to recognize those games that are being inclusive in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, etc.
August 19, 2014 10:14:13 AM
I really enjoyed Heavy Rain (despite being the only one, apparently). I've even written a few academic articles on the game. Needless to say, I was quite interested in Beyond: Two Souls when it came out. I've already played the first 5 or 6 'scenes' and I've enjoyed how they are organized with respect to each other. You're basically jumping back and forth in the narrative, with each new scene filling in blanks and question you may have from the earlier ones. It works quite well for me and has kept me intrigued so far. It's also clear how the experiments with the interface and interactions have evolved. I'm not sure that they've gone in a 'good' direction - mostly because everything seems a lot simpler. By simpler I mean fewer choices. On the other hand, some of the 'obvious' interactions have been simplified so you don't need any complicated sequences to follow. You mostly just flick one of the analog sticks and you're done. What has surprised me is that the game seems markedly more linear than Heavy Rain. At most times I get the feeling that there is only one correct way to address a problem, but I'll admit that I could be incorrect about this. I look forward to, once I've finished the game, exploring some of the scenes using alternate strategies. Actually, there's only one that seems amenable to that approach: the embassy scene. I suspect the rest are either linear (only one choice) or binary (make a choice, but not really any impact).

Beyond: Two Souls (PS3)