I return to the blogging medium after many many months because my thoughts and feelings on Beyond: Two Souls cannot be contained in a mere facebook post. So here we go.
Beyond: Two Souls is the spiritual successor to Heavy Rain, which since it's release has become a prime example of cinematic storytelling in video games. It had its issues, from sometimes unintuitive controls to story relics that were once significant but were then thrown to the wayside, but overall I found it to be a superb game where your choices truly did matter to the story because if you mess up, you have to just keep going.
The same applies to B:TS. Make your choice, good or bad, and live with the consequences until the very end.
For those unfamiliar, B:TS tells the story of Jodie, who ever since she was a child has been linked to a ghostly entity named Aiden who, for the most part, seems to be there to protect her. The story is told in a non-linear fashion, starting at the end and jumping around different times in Jodie's life. From her time as a child being kept in a lab and studied, to a young woman being recruited by the CIA, to escaping their clutches and living homeless and on the run, to her final role...which I won't spoil. Throughout the story you play as both her and Aiden, who can assist her in all manner of paranormal ways that I'll detail in a bit. Their unique relationship, and the larger implications of Aiden's existence, are the main thrust of the narrative, and boy what a fascinating narrative it is.
First, though, let's talk gameplay. Just as in Heavy Rain, almost all the action is controlled by this unique variation on quick-time events. Push buttons in a certain order, flick the right stick in a certain direction, mash a button enough before time runs out, etc. However, it felt simpler here. The button commands were not nearly as strenuous as some of the ones found in Heavy Rain. In one sense, that's good, it means things flow more smoothly. In another sense, I found it took away a layer of difficulty that I thought added to the experience. Even with something as simple as cooking a meal. In Heavy Rain if you wanted to cook something, it took some careful moves. In B:TS, however, despite not being a cook Jodie manages to fix up Asian Beef with a couple simple swipes of the right stick. The most difficult part of that sequence was actually deciding whether I wanted to add ginger since it wasn't in the recipe. I know it sounds ridiculously nitpicky, but immersion is the key in a game like this, and Heavy Rain's slightly more complicated controls actually made me feel more invested in the outcome of each action.
What's new here, gameplay-wise, is Aiden. With a push of the triangle button, you pop into Aiden's floating, tethered perspective. As a ghost, you can do basically everything you would think a ghost could do. Wander through walls (though your tether only stretches so far), move objects, possess people, as well as the non-obvious powers of healing wounds, creating a telekinetic shield that reflects bullets, and allowing Jodie to commune with certain objects and/or corpses to see how they ended up where they are. As you might imagine, this lends a kind of puzzle element to certain sections where you use Aiden's various powers to assist Jodie through. And once again, it feels a bit simpler than I'd have liked, but still adds some nice variation.
So the controls may be a bit dumbed down from Heavy Rain, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, as it means the whole narrative experience can flow more smoothly. And what about that story? Does it help for things to be smoother?
In Heavy Rain the story suffered for various reasons, from relics of discarded storylines (the whole blacking out/waking up elsewhere plot) to the often disjointed nature of tracking 4 different protagonists in a branching choose-your-own-adventure style game. In B:TS, unfortunately, some of the same problems persist. Despite only having one protagonist now, the story is told in a non-linear fashion, meaning there's still some fragmenting issues, especially concerning the possible romance with your CIA partner Ryan Clayton (which is a whole nother can of worms about feminism I will likely need a separate post for). The entire section where you're homeless also feels strangely out of place, **SLIGHT SPOILERS** with some unwarranted moments of contemplating suicide as well as a completely random baby birth and escape from a burning building. **END SPOILERS**
I feel I should also mention that B:TS has a recurring problem in that Jodie+Aiden = practically invincible. In Heavy Rain, if you messed up, you could lose a main protagonist. In B:TS, you're (eventually) a trained CIA agent tied to a supernatural being that can protect her from all harm, or heal any harm done. Basically the stakes are a bit lowered. So while the game does do a good job convincing you in the moment that you could die at any moment, when you get the chance to take a step back you're reminded that, once again, things seem easier than they should.
That being said, despite it's troublesome moments, Beyond has one of the most compelling, fascinating, and emotionally-investing narratives ever assembled for a game. I laughed, I cried, I got so scared I wanted to crawl out of my skin and run away, and a couple times I'm fairly sure I forgot how to breathe the action was so intense. It has sci-fi, action, suspense, horror, drama, everything you could ask for. It takes you from science labs to a crumbling middle-eartern city, a suburban home to a desert ranch, even from a horror-filled hospital to an underwater sci-fi base. And somehow, through it all, it never loses its humanity or its emotional core.
What truly helps this is the ASTOUNDING leap in graphics made here. If this is a glimpse of the next gen, sign me up. Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe deserve Oscars for their portrayals here, because each truly do deliver a movie-worthy performance. Every minutiae in their facial expressions can be seen. Every line is delivered with emotional weight behind it. They are the reason this story is as effective as it is. Unfortunately this also means that weaker acting also shows through, like from Kadeem Hardison as Willem Dafoe's assistant Cole, who is supposed to essentially be a father figure (along with Dafoe) for Jodie but simply didn't deliver a strong enough performance for me to have cared about him.
What brave new world is this, where we're not just talking about how a voice actor does syncing their voice to a game, but the actual full performance of an actor? Crazy stuff.
To sum up, Beyond: Two Souls is not perfect, but when you're in the midst of it boy does it play like it is. Yes, it's missing some of the complexity in its controls and has lower stakes for messing up than in Heavy Rain which reduces immersion somewhat. But it also delivers, in my opinion, a better narrative experience that makes up for what it lost. I cannot wait to delve back into the world and see how different choices will effect the story.
Beyond: Two Souls gets a 10/10.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Monday, October 7, 2013
Far Cry 3
**Another one of them posts I wrote and then never actually posted...enjoy!**
First things first, I have discovered in my time playing video games that straight first person shooters are not really my thing. They get pretty boring to me when all it comes down to is shooting people with various weapons that really all do the same thing just with different firing rates/sights/etc. Point is, most of the time I'm not a fan. Which also means that while I went into Far Cry 3 with open arms, it had that bias running against it. Did the game shine through despite it? Read on.
What really got me hyped for Far Cry 3, having never played the other two, were the story trailers with your main nemesis Vaas. It looked to combine psychadelic, surreal story elements with the versatility of combat and strategy that Far Cry is known for, along with a villain that was creepy in the most sinister kind of way. And on those fronts, it (mostly) delivered. The story is an unfortunately predictable but nevertheless engaging look at Jason Brody, a man who went on an island getaway with his brothers, girlfriend, and other friends only to get captured by Vaas and his pirates to be sold for ransom. After an intense initial tutorial, you escape and find yourself in league with a resistance force of island natives, trying to rescue your friends and family no matter the cost to your own sanity and identity. Unfortunately the overall plot wanders quite often, as it is wont to do in first person shooters, with many missions serving as simple excuses to give you more to do or take you to different parts of the island. However, in its meandering it does also come across some quite emotional and gripping moments, as well as some missions that are just plain fun (aka the flame thrower vs. marijuana fields mission) and these moments tend to make you forget the rather boring things they were just having you do. I guess this is where my bias against first-person shooters shows itself. To FPS fans, all of these missions may be quite engaging, especially when left to your own devices about how to infiltrate a stronghold and eliminate a target without setting off any alarms. To me, though, it all just came down to shoot this, shoot that, go here, do this, then shoot this guy, which means my enjoyment of it rested on the plot, and with the plot being so inconsistent it was hard to fully enjoy the experience.
In all other aspects Far Cry 3 is a solid game. It cleverly introduces some RPG progression in the form of tattoos which boost various abilities in three skill trees (Heron for long-range and movement, Shark for combat, Spider for stealth), there's a crapton of collectibles (though with sadly very minimal rewards), the hunting system is very well-implemented with significant rewards in the form of more holsters, better wallet size, etc., and travel (eventually) becomes tons of fun once you get a flight suit and parachute and can traverse practically everywhere with ease. The shooting mechanics are spot on, enemy AI is often a challenge (including rogue beasts) but never feels unbeatable. The quicktime event boss fights are a major disappointment, but otherwise practically every aspect of this game is well designed and lots of fun.
I nonetheless walked away from this one feeling rather..."meh" about it. It is perfectly serviceable in a rather empty market of big sandbox first-person shooters, but the problem with making an FPS so big is that no matter how much variation you try to throw in there eventually it becomes rather repetitive. That could be fixed by a solid narrative driving the thing, but that is simply lacking here despite the presence of one of the most crazy yet loveable villains I've ever seen in a game in the form of Vaas. Is it still fun? Absolutely. But for the story-driven, completionist I MUST FILL IN THAT MARK ON THE MAP gamer like me, there's simply not enough there to warrant anything more than a single playthrough.
Far Cry 3 gets a 7.5/10.
First things first, I have discovered in my time playing video games that straight first person shooters are not really my thing. They get pretty boring to me when all it comes down to is shooting people with various weapons that really all do the same thing just with different firing rates/sights/etc. Point is, most of the time I'm not a fan. Which also means that while I went into Far Cry 3 with open arms, it had that bias running against it. Did the game shine through despite it? Read on.
What really got me hyped for Far Cry 3, having never played the other two, were the story trailers with your main nemesis Vaas. It looked to combine psychadelic, surreal story elements with the versatility of combat and strategy that Far Cry is known for, along with a villain that was creepy in the most sinister kind of way. And on those fronts, it (mostly) delivered. The story is an unfortunately predictable but nevertheless engaging look at Jason Brody, a man who went on an island getaway with his brothers, girlfriend, and other friends only to get captured by Vaas and his pirates to be sold for ransom. After an intense initial tutorial, you escape and find yourself in league with a resistance force of island natives, trying to rescue your friends and family no matter the cost to your own sanity and identity. Unfortunately the overall plot wanders quite often, as it is wont to do in first person shooters, with many missions serving as simple excuses to give you more to do or take you to different parts of the island. However, in its meandering it does also come across some quite emotional and gripping moments, as well as some missions that are just plain fun (aka the flame thrower vs. marijuana fields mission) and these moments tend to make you forget the rather boring things they were just having you do. I guess this is where my bias against first-person shooters shows itself. To FPS fans, all of these missions may be quite engaging, especially when left to your own devices about how to infiltrate a stronghold and eliminate a target without setting off any alarms. To me, though, it all just came down to shoot this, shoot that, go here, do this, then shoot this guy, which means my enjoyment of it rested on the plot, and with the plot being so inconsistent it was hard to fully enjoy the experience.
In all other aspects Far Cry 3 is a solid game. It cleverly introduces some RPG progression in the form of tattoos which boost various abilities in three skill trees (Heron for long-range and movement, Shark for combat, Spider for stealth), there's a crapton of collectibles (though with sadly very minimal rewards), the hunting system is very well-implemented with significant rewards in the form of more holsters, better wallet size, etc., and travel (eventually) becomes tons of fun once you get a flight suit and parachute and can traverse practically everywhere with ease. The shooting mechanics are spot on, enemy AI is often a challenge (including rogue beasts) but never feels unbeatable. The quicktime event boss fights are a major disappointment, but otherwise practically every aspect of this game is well designed and lots of fun.
I nonetheless walked away from this one feeling rather..."meh" about it. It is perfectly serviceable in a rather empty market of big sandbox first-person shooters, but the problem with making an FPS so big is that no matter how much variation you try to throw in there eventually it becomes rather repetitive. That could be fixed by a solid narrative driving the thing, but that is simply lacking here despite the presence of one of the most crazy yet loveable villains I've ever seen in a game in the form of Vaas. Is it still fun? Absolutely. But for the story-driven, completionist I MUST FILL IN THAT MARK ON THE MAP gamer like me, there's simply not enough there to warrant anything more than a single playthrough.
Far Cry 3 gets a 7.5/10.
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