After trying out the
demo (and seeing it played before me in full at least once) I can say with some
confidence that out of the one Quantic Dream game I’ve played, this is the best
of them all. Or…technically a slice of
the one Quantic Dream game I’ve played.
Yep. This is gonna be one of those posts.
But on the plus side...hey, three colons in the title.
You know, it really says a lot about a man's priorities when the first thing he shows you is an extreme close up of Ellen Page's face as she stares blankly at you and occasionally pants. Because that's how you know you're in for a good time.
I want to say right off
the bat that Beyond: Two Souls isn’t
the worst thing ever. In fact,
everything that I’m about to say in this post could just be me over-analyzing
things -- looking for cracks and faults when there are none, and then trying to
widen them with my bare hands. Maybe I’m
just subconsciously trying to hate on the game, Quantic Dream, and David
Cage. Maybe I’m doing too much
projecting, and not seeing the game for what it is, but what it isn’t…and
walking away with a different perspective because of it.
On the other hand, I
don’t think I’m completely wrong about the way I feel here. I know it’s impossible to make a full claim
on the game’s quality without playing the
full game; even if that’s the case, the demo hasn’t done anything to win me
over. If anything, I’m even more worried
than I was before. I think that Two Souls has potential, make no
mistake, and it can offer up some good stuff.
But as it stands, the game will either be pretty good or unbelievably
flawed. Once more, it’s a case of
Quantic being not quite there yet. They’re
getting closer, yes, but they’re not quite there yet…and it shows. Repeatedly.
It’s hard to get a bead
on the full plot, but from what I can gather it goes something like this: Ellen
Page Shadowcat Jodie is a young woman who’s tethered to some kind of
spirit, Aiden, who interacts with and causes chaos in the world on her behalf. That doesn’t go over too well with the
non-tethered people of the world (i.e. everyone else), so she’s now on the run
from those that would hunt her and want to…uh…do something with her, I
guess. Probably experiment on her, but
killing her is likely high on the priority list. So Jodie is on the run, and it’s up to the
player to guide her to safety and freedom, all the while -- according to the
trailer and details strewn about -- seeing sequences of her life interspersed
throughout.
This is one of the
things I’m worried about. From what I
can gather, the story plays out in a non-linear fashion, and players are bound
to see key events in Jodie’s life in whatever order the devs want. That’s a format that could work, but it’s one
that could go awry just as quickly. I’m
immediately reminded of movies like Man
of Steel and Cloud Atlas where
sequences are shuffled about, and even now I have a hard time understanding
what the point was of playing a quick game of 52-pick up with said
sequences. (Especially in Man of Steel’s case, considering that
one flashback created a time paradox.) I’m
especially concerned with how those sequences are going to be strung together
in the context of the game; Jodie in the demo is probably at her oldest and in
the midst of the most excitement, so does that mean the action is going to have
quieter moments cut in? Is the action
going to get front-loaded or saved for later?
How and when and why is Jodie’s
horse-riding supposed to fit in to the story’s context? All questions that the devs probably have
answered, but I’m hoping that said answer is satisfying. That’s the ticket. Prove your case, guys. Give me a reason to care. It's not that hard.
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But let’s focus on the
demo. If you haven’t tried it out, you
get to see two main sections of the game.
The first is a tutorial that lets you play as young Jodie, going through
an experiment that’ll get you familiar with the character(s) and what they’re
all about. The action-heavy second section
-- chained to the first via a quick training session/fight tutorial -- features
present-day Jodie on a train, and the police are on her tail. As far as I can tell, Two Souls is more or less one of those “choose your own adventure”
books, where you input an on-screen command ad have an event play out. And as far as I can tell, since there’s
nothing quite resembling a “Game Over” in this game, your actions move you onto
different pages and different routes, toward…well, I’ll get to that.
The first time I saw Two Souls, I did so as an observer. My brother played through the demo first,
while a buddy and I watched and tossed out suggestions. In a way, it was an experiment -- a way to
see just what Two Souls could do that
made it so different from other games.
And what my brother found, almost inevitably, was how much dicking
around he could do with his ghost buddy.
Which is to say, quite a bit.
The experiment section
starts out with the player using Aiden to float into another room and spy on a
woman’s hand to see what card she has.
That part is simple enough, and gets you used to controlling Aiden (in a
way, it’s kind of like moving around a plane or helicopter in GTA).
Once you get past the card segment, the scientists on hand want Jodie to
get Aiden to knock some stuff around as a test of his power. That’s how you learn how to interact with
Aiden, accomplished by moving holding a trigger button and moving the
sticks. But of course, the game knows
players well, and lets them knock over more than just the blocks on the table;
I watched as my bro gleefully sent the table flying, busted the cameras, and cracked
the glass, each time chanting “More!
More! More!” Unsurprisingly, the scientists freaked out
and cut the experiment short, forcing them to rush in and consul an emotionless
Jodie. Jodie responds with a monotone
“It will never be over”, and so ends the segment.
Remember all this for
later. We’re going to come back to it.
The middle part of the
demo is a tutorial section for how to fight with Jodie. It’s interesting that they decided to go with
a stick-based combat system, wherein you use the right stick to perform attacks
instead of hitting a face button. (The
last time I saw that was in the Too Human
demo, and…well, that didn’t exactly sell me on the game back then.) The camera during this sequence tends to
pivot to a 2D angle to ensure that there’s no confusion about what direction
you should be pressing. So if the game
wants you to do a kick with the left leg, the camera will put Jodie at such an
angle where it’s obvious you want to move the right stick to the left. Likewise, if you want to duck an incoming
attack, the camera will go behind Jodie’s back -- kind of like Punch-Out -- and you just have to hit
down without any muss or fuss. It works,
and while the tutorial is done in a controlled environment with explanations of
what you’re going to do beforehand, later sections (for the most part) work as
well. Granted it all feels like a QTE,
but you could say that about the majority of the game. I’m not willing to call it a deal-breaker
just yet. I’m on the fence, but let’s
just see how the rest of this post goes before my over-analyzing leads to
hate…as is the standard for me.
In any case, the second
part of the demo puts a sleeping Jodie on a train, and shortly thereafter she
has to find a way to escape from the authorities doing a “routine check”. Prior to their emergence, my brother spent
most of the train ride screwing around with Aiden, knocking a book out of a
woman’s hand and harassing other sleeping passengers. When it came time for the police to emerge,
he woke Jodie up and sent her running through the train cars -- not exactly the
stealthiest approach, and as expected it led to a chase scene. His Jodie (who I’m going to start calling
Brody for a point of comparison later) stumbled her way through the train until
ultimately deciding to climb atop it.
Unfortunately, the police followed her, and Brody had to fight them off
before leaping into the forest -- something she pulled off thanks to Aiden’s
shielding power.
It’s around this point
where both my brother and I ran into a major problem the full game could
have. Brody lands in the forest and has
to deal with police choppers bearing down on her, so she decides to venture
in. Problem is, the forest section (for
the player more than the character, I’d bet) is EXTREMELY dark. It was pretty much impossible for either of
us to see where we were supposed to go, leading to us stumbling around
helplessly. That wouldn’t have been so
bad if it was the only issue, but
it’s an issue that’s compounded by making the chase into a QTE sequence. Remember what I said about the camera during
fight sequences? Well, it’s true enough
that the camera is pulled behind Jodie so that theoretically all you have to do
is push up or down on the stick to dodge tree branches.
The thing is, the
forest section is so dark that you can’t accurately predict whether you have to
push up or down with real consistency.
So if you’re anything like the two of us, you’re going to be picking
bark out of your teeth and shins for a while.
I can understand if the intent was to make certain QTEs impossible for
effect -- a way to make the forest seem harsher, and to highlight Jodie’s
desperation -- but that isn’t exactly a fun sequence to go through. Nor is the intent clear when it’s masked by
player frustration. I wasn’t thinking
“Oh man, I’m in trouble of the cops get me.”
I was thinking “What the hell?! I
didn’t even know what direction to -- ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!” I’m concerned that this won’t be the only QTE
where the proper inputs are unclear; if that’s the case, it’s going to make for
even more frustration in the full game.
Thankfully, the forest
section doesn’t last for TOO long, and shortly after comes…a motorcycle
chase. Again, problems arise here; the
QTEs get dropped here in exchange for full control, but actually driving the
motorcycle is an exercise in frustration.
Steering feels sloppy and imprecise, to the point where both my brother
and I rode along the rails at several points.
The drive is mercifully brief, though, in the sense that Brody gets the
chance to barrel through a police blockade via Aiden’s shield. After that, Brody makes it to a town and
engages in a sort of “last stand” against a slew of SWAT gunmen, snipers, and a
circling chopper. While she hides, Aiden
goes to work wrecking any aggressors, flipping cars, possessing snipers, and
turning gunmen against one another. At
one point, bringing down the chopper in a fiery blast becomes less of a
possibility and more of a requirement by the game. Brody hides away in a building while the
chaos rages, but once Aiden cleans up the streets she emerges to give a warning
to the sole survivor. Something along
the lines of “Tell them to stay the fuck away from me, because next time I’ll
kill everyone.”
Remember this for
later, too.
If nothing else, the
demo manages to prove that in terms of the “goofiness” that plagued Heavy Rain and ESPECIALLY Indigo Prophecy, Two Souls is a bit more balanced and palpable. Obviously there’s still time for anything --
or everything -- to go wrong, but as
a story I have a bit more confidence in this title over the others. Still, there are a lot of questions that need
answering, and not just the context of what Aiden is or why Jodie is on the
run. Those other games have their
groan-worthy elements, but from what I can gather Quantic Dream put a huge
emphasis on something that’s strangely missing from the demo: conversations. The only real discussions going on in the
demo are between kid Jodie and the scientists, and even then it’s a one-sided
“yes” or “less-enthusiastic yes” affair.
The dialogue options
and choices could be what decide what warrants another playthrough, or even a
purchase of the game. That’s especially
the case considering that good dialogue contributes to (if not constructs) good
characters…and the presence of anyone besides
Jodie, Aiden, and I guess Willem Dafoe’s character isn’t just understated in
the demo, but in my memory of anything related to news of the game. Who are the people that made Jodie who she
is? Who would set her down a path where
murder is the only option? Who is she
going to run towards in a time of crisis, or make a desperate call to? I’m more interested in that than trolling the
populace with ghost powers. And I would
hope that Cage feels the same way, given what
he’s said before on the subject of video game violence…and then very nearly
contradicts with the demo of his latest work.
But the reason I’m so incredibly worried about how the final
game will come it is because I don’t feel like I’ve been satisfied. Again, that’s likely because I’m not getting
the story beats I want (and how can you from just a demo?), but I have a hunch
that it goes further than that. I have a
feeling that the game can’t satisfy
me -- because at its core, it’s fundamentally broken. It's very nearly dead on arrival.
I compared the game to
a choose-your-own-adventure story earlier, and in some ways I think that
comparison holds truer than just calling it an interactive movie (where you
just hit on-screen prompts to start the suddenly-paused movie again). So let’s imagine what it would be like if Two Souls was a straight-up book you
could hold in your hands. Imagine what
it would be like if you knew there were different outcomes, but in order to get
to them you’re not fully told what to do.
That’s not so bad, except when it comes time to choose which page you
want to go to, you’re not told what action you’re going to take. And even if you choose the action you want
(by chance), it leads right back to an option you’ve already seen.
And if you want to go on a certain route, you
just have to stare at a page for long enough…which is to say, you have no idea
when you’re allowed to progress to a different event, so you just end up
turning the page anyway even if not turning the page will give you the action
you want. And because you’re concerning
yourself with getting the outcome you want -- haphazard as it may be -- you end
up engaging less with the story at large.
And worst of all, when all’s said and done and you just go with the
story’s flow, the ultimate outcome isn’t just one you’ve seen before, but one
that stands in stark contrast to everything you’ve done up to that point.
That’s this demo. And if my guess is right, that’s this game. You have no choice.
Guess what
happened? The scene played out EXACTLY
as if I continued to wreck the other room.
I might have freaked out the woman in there, sure, but I didn’t do
anything to make her break into hysterics.
And I certainly didn’t do
enough to trigger the blare of a percussion-heavy “this is a tense scene now”
music track. I just sat there as Jodie, quietly,
not moving, while everyone else around her freaked out. And the experiment finished just as my brother’s
had -- with Willem Dafoe seizing Jodie in a hug and assuring her it’s
over.
It was at that point
where I asked myself two questions. One:
if Option A leads to Outcome A, and Option B ALSO leads to Outcome A, then why
exactly is there a choice to begin with if all I’m changing are variables and
not the overall progression of the story?
Two: if this is what happens in the demo -- and presumably, at or near
the start of the game -- then how many more betrayals of my expectations am I
in for in the full game? And even now,
I’m still waiting for an answer. Come
on, brain, step it up.
But the problems don’t
end there. I saw my brother’s
playthrough of the demo to the very end -- an end that included at least a
dozen people dead, and tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of collateral
damage. That was something I wanted to
avoid, not just because of my Paragon streak in Mass Effect, and not just to see a different ending, but merely
because I didn’t want to kill anymore than necessary. If anything, I wanted to give a pacifist run
a shot; if video games wouldn’t tone down the violence, then I’d have to by
taking control of the narrative as Two
Souls suggested I could. Putting the
game on a leash, so to speak.
It didn’t pan out.
If I didn’t know any
better, I’d say that the game is trying very hard to railroad you into certain
scenes and outcomes; I can’t shake the sense that what I’m doing doesn’t
matter, because what I do leads to something I don’t want. I know that’s kind of the thing with CYOA
books, but here it’s aggressively forcing you down a single road -- the
narrative’s road -- and the most you can do is throw stuff out the window. Example: at the start of the train sequence,
Jodie is asleep when the police step onto the train. In my bro’s playthrough, he used Aiden to
wake up Jodie and try to run, prompting a chase sequence through the
train. I wanted to see what would happen
if I didn’t run. I’d heard something
about a police station in discussions about the game, and I seem to recall a
presentation at E3 featuring a police station (and the much-touted Ellen Page
sitting silently without showing a shred of emotion while an officer talked at
her. Brilliant allocation of funding,
guys). If that police station sequence
is in the demo, I have no idea how to reach it, because I just ended up
triggering the chase sequence on accident.
I’m serious. I had no idea I would end up triggering the
chase, because there’s no indication of what exactly a prompt will entail. I woke up Jodie with Aiden, but instead of
sending her on the run, I left her in her seat.
The two police officers came at me and asked for ID, so I thought I’d
try to do the calm and rational thing even if it landed Jodie in trouble
(because resisting arrest invites even more trouble, I believe). She pulled down her backpack, and a couple of
prompts appeared onscreen. “Okay, I said
to myself, “So I guess I just need to reach into her bag to pull out an
ID.” It looked as if she might have kept
it in a side pocket, so I hit right on the stick -- and she walloped the
nearest guy with her backpack and made a run for it, triggering the chase. “What?
No! I didn’t want her to do
that! I want a do-over!”
So I did do it
over. I went to the main menu and started
the sequence again, only this time I hit left on the stick. And that just led to her smacking an officer
anyway. So I did it over again, and this time I left Jodie
asleep. The only thing that woke her up
was the cop now standing over her, and she pulled down her bag just like
before. Only this time, I didn’t press
anything. I just sat there and
watched. And when I did, it led to Jodie
getting cuffed because she matched the police description. So basically, you can “succeed” in this game
by doing nothing. Just by setting the
controller down and watching, you can get outcomes that are 100% preferable to
anything else. Gameplay!
…Except there’s no
indication of when you should wait for something to happen, and when you HAVE
to press something. This led to several hi-larious sequences where I stared at
the screen for minutes at a time, wondering if something would happen or if I’d
have to press a button and kill someone.
And indeed, killing someone is almost always the way out of a mess, if
not the only way. It really is
disturbing how much the game contributes to the whole “video games = violence”
mindset without any shred of restraint; the mere presence of Aiden (and the
story that plays out regardless of your actions) funnels the player toward the
most violent option.
The demo assumes that you’re going to destroy
everything in the experiment, moves straight into a tutorial on fighting,
pushes you toward a fight on a train against cops who really should know
better, gives Jodie the chance to whack dogs in the face with a stick --
because that’ll go over well with PETA -- and climaxes with a small town rocked
by what’s ostensibly a flaming crater.
And after all of that, Jodie gives a warning that very nearly comes off
as the sort of line you’d hear from an action movie. A bad action
movie. If the demo had offered proof of
conversations to offset the action (or violence), then it would have made for a
more exciting showing. Or should I say,
a more confident showing; if the full
game has plenty of these conversations, but they were pulled from the demo just
to show off more action-based gameplay, and the gameplay itself feels like it
needs a 48-point asterisk beside its name, then Quantic Dream needed to prove
their worth in a way no other game could.
And it didn’t.
…Well, this is growing
increasingly negative. Let’s move on to
a different topic.
It’s worth noting that
for the most part, getting a traditional Game Over is very hard, if not
impossible, in Two Souls…or the demo,
at least. That’s a byproduct of the devs’
design, not just my experience; I think that the idea was to create a game
where even if you mess up, you can still progress -- albeit on a different “route”
with different circumstances and different placement. So if you screw up badly enough, Ellie will
get captured by the police. In most
other games, that would be cause for a Game Over. In this game, it just means that you gain
access to a new event; if you clear it, you’re on your way. In my experience, I
got caught three times (first as a test, second on accident, third on purpose). The first: getting taken into custody on the
train. The second: getting caught in the
forest after failing to climb fast enough.
The third: stopping the motorcycle in the middle of the road because I
didn’t feel like driving that shit any longer than I had to. So the first capture leads to Jodie being
held prisoner on the train, the second in a cop car, and the third in a SWAT
truck.
Aaaaaaaaaaand of
course, here’s where another potential problem arises. Apparently it IS possible for Jodie to die in
the game, but in the demo at least it’s impossible to truly fail in a conventional
sense. There’s a lack of a failure state
by design, but it almost works to the game’s detriment. If there’s no perceived sense of danger, it
minimizes the reward. If there’s no
threat of failure, and I can succeed no matter what I do, then it makes the
success -- the very need to earn that
success -- significantly weaker. But it
gets worse. I can get out of any
situation because I have Aiden; I have a phenomenally unfair advantage in the
demo that makes Jodie nigh invincible (quite literally, considering his shield
power).
If Jodie is ever in a
jam, all I have to do is switch to Aiden, mess with the environment, and things
will be all better. I can use him to
possess a guard and unlock the door Jodie’s trapped behind, and if Jodie’s
surrounded by SWAT gunners Aiden actually has THREE options: make a gunner
shoot the others, make the driver crash up, or -- if you somehow fail either of
those, or just don’t do them because now there’s
a window of time for your actions -- send Aiden outside to blow the tires. It doesn’t make for a compelling game, or a
compelling story, when the deck is stacked high enough to support the Leaning
Tower of Pisa. The only time there’s
ever a sense of vulnerability is when the game inexplicably refuses to let you
control Aiden (which is often), but in exchange you’re using QTEs to do
whatever it is the game demands, and those are hardly rewarding AND makes you
untouchable if you’re 100% on-point.
I don’t feel like I’m
getting the context I need from the demo, and it’s enough to make me worry that
I wouldn’t get it in the full game. But
I’ll give the benefit of the doubt and assume that there is. Let’s pretend that everything I want -- and
you want -- will be explained in the full title. In the context of this demo, why is killing
the primary option? I don’t know who
Jodie is or what she’s been through besides the experiment and training in a
gym. I can deal with her trying to
escape, but why am I being railroaded into murder?
If Jodie is so desperate and/or resolute that
killing is her primary goal, then aren’t the police and SWAT teams justified in
trying to capture her? Why am I supposed
to sympathize with someone who chokes an officer to death with her handcuffs
(which may very well be the only way to escape from the second capture)? Is this supposed to be a bit of
subversion? Am I actually playing as the
villain? I sure as shit hope that’s the
case, because a tragic backstory isn’t enough to justify the murder of people
just trying to do what they think is right, and it shouldn’t be enough.
But again, it seems
like that’s what all roads are leading to.
I’ve seen it firsthand. In the
worst-case scenario, Jodie leaves dozens dead.
In my scenario, Jodie kills one dude, and has the opportunity to kill
several more (and would have if I hadn’t messed up my inputs) through command
of Aiden. And that leads into the biggest, most infuriating, throw-up-my-hands
moments in a while. See, if Jodie gets
taken into the SWAT truck, one of the gunners says that he tranquilized Jodie
heavily.
That doesn’t stop her from
communicating normally with Aiden, though, and -- as I said -- she has the
option of having one guard shoot another, making the driver crash up, or
blowing out the tires. I messed up the
first two and figured that it’d mean I’d head to the police station, but Jodie
chimed in and told me/Aiden to go after the tires. So I did.
And inevitably, it made the truck crash and presumably leave most of the
passengers dead. Except Jodie,
obviously, because as you know armor and helmets don’t account for
anything. In any case, she gets out of
the busted vehicle, and there’s one injured SWAT guy left. And what happens? She gives
a warning to the sole survivor.
Something along the lines of “Tell them to stay the fuck away from me,
because next time I’ll kill everyone.” Sound familiar?
GUESS WHAT? IT’S THE EXACT SAME SCENE AS BEFORE IN A
DIFFERENT LOCATION.
I’m serious. Same vocal recordings, same camera angles…it’s a copy-paste job, and
that’s especially the case if the lone survivor is the same model as the one
from the town sequence. Setting aside
the fact that the player was just told that Jodie had been heavily sedated and
shouldn’t have had the strength or clarity of mind to do much more than drool
and slide about, all my actions up to that point just led to the same scene
playing out in a different place. In the
end, my Jodie ended up virtually identical to my brother’s Jodie; they might
not have seen the same things, but in the end they’re in almost the same place
and are almost the same person. What was
the point of giving me choices if I’m ultimately on a strict narrative
path? Why even bother with the illusion
of choice if what I do is just going to be overwritten, simply because there is
no other path to pursue? Why doesn’t
Quantic Dream just make a movie and be done with it?
Breathe in, breathe
out. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in…and…okay. I’m all right.
I will be fair,
though. I will be fair. Based on my experiences, and based on my best
guess, this is not a game that absolutely demands multiple playthroughs. It’s possible -- probable, even --that
content has been gutted for the sake of a manageable file size, or a means to
highlight the “best” parts of the game.
I have a strong theory that, like a lot of things, Two Souls is best experienced in the company of friends. Pop in the game and make choices, so the movie
can play out according to your decisions.
Play it raw, and play it once, and be done with it. Whatever happens, happens. No takebacks.
No do-overs. Just push play.
As it stands, the demo
seems to highlight -- if not prove -- that the full game is going to offer a
lot of broken promises. It’s possible
that I’m over-thinking all this, and I’m expecting promises to be fulfilled
that never existed in the first place…or if not that, then promises that are
impossible to have fulfilled with the PS3 or even the PS4. That’s fine.
I get that. I don’t need an
interactive movie or a CYOA book; if I want to make my own story, all I have to
do is boot up Microsoft Word and start tying away. I never needed Two Souls, and my life won’t be any worse off without it. It’s possible that the full game fixes the
issues at hand, and it’s possible that sitting out on it may mean missing out
on an incredible experience. But as a
would-be writing hero, I’m all right with that.
I have my own worlds to make, and I don’t need the trappings of a
multi-million-dollar product to realize them.
As it stands, Two Souls seems like less of a game and
more of an experiment…an unsuccessful one, based on the demo. As a story, it could be good. It could
be. But as a game? I get the feeling that it doesn’t really
understand what it means to be a game.
It functions, at least. But the
changes to the formula are -- at least for me -- changes that come off as cute
at best and infuriating at worst. And by
the looks of things, those changes to the formula are going to make for some
serious problems with the story. I feel
it in my bones. I’m willing to be proven
wrong by the full game -- just barely
so -- but ultimately, I really don’t want to get my hopes up. This is not going to be the game that changes
gaming.
So, bottom line? Try the demo.
If you like it, cool. Get the
full game. If you don’t, avoid. If you’re on the fence, then PLEASE check as
many reviews as you can, and see the general consensus. Come to a conclusion based on multiple
voices, concrete evidence, and your best judgment. And for the love of God, don’t get suckered
into a purchase just so you can stare at Ellen Page’s CG-rendered, blood- and
sweat-covered, unnecessarily-zoomed-in face…or the chance to hear her pant
repeatedly. Seriously, you don't know how much time I spent sitting around listening to Jodie pant. I can only imagine how Page must have felt during recording sessions.
Jeez. I guess in the end, it was unavoidable. It really did turn into one of those
posts. I wonder if there’s any way for
me to end on a high note. I sure hate it
when Cross-Up goes super-negative, so maybe --
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!