WeView Verdict: Beyond: Two Souls

As expected, your reaction was quite mixed, despite being mostly positive. A lot of people agreed with my 6/10 review, while others absolutely loved the game and some people didn’t like it at all. Of course, they were all wrong according to Tuffcub.

He “enjoyed every single second of it” due to the amazing set pieces and story. “It’s not a game, it never was going to be, and if you can get over your preconceptions of what you should and shouldn’t be able to do, it is utterly unique.”

Likewise, TSBonyman said that it was “the best thing Quantic Dream have done since Heavy Rain”, which make sense, as it’s their only game since Heavy Rain, while Sitorimon felt very much the same, saying they could not put it down, but could see why others may not enjoy it quite as much.

The “fragmented timeline” worked for JR as he loved the way the story played out. The same couldn’t be said for stueeeee who thinks “they should have done it without the time jumping to make it easier to follow”.

Beyond was very unique, and some commenters made it clear that this was a draw of the game: “it was so different from anything else” said jimmy-google, while colmshan1990 followed up a smart comment with a godawful pun (which I just had to include) by saying “This is what every gamer always cries out for but never expects- something different. And it’s well Beyond worth playing.”

There were some odd sections, as pointed out by arrybags – “being dropped into a war zone just felt like it didn’t fit” and the flaws went beyond this, into the writing – Greg Turner pointed out that “Quantic Dream need to get someone else to write and just let David Cage direct” and I completely agree.

3shirts agreed with me, saying that the non-chronological structure felt forced rather than useful, and from about halfway through he was playing exclusively to find the ending.

“This game is all about choice but if you don’t pick one the game just picks for you.” was another good point from OcelHrobka1991 while baggyg similarly noted the issues with the lack of gameplay –  “It’s technically brilliant but not a lot of game there.” Taylor Made was the same, and did not enjoy the controls at all.

Feri left a huge comment about why the game wasn’t very good, where he didn’t enjoy the acting (one of my highlights), found the beautiful graphics merging with “uninspired” environments, was disappointed with the lack of depth in the gameplay, and just couldn’t get along with the story.

Many people were disappointed then, and Gatzee summed it up well:

Gotta say that heavy rain is probably my favourite game of the PS3 era. I was so looking forward to this. However I found this really disappointing. I couldn’t find a way to connect with the characters. I ended up giving up on it as I wasn’t enjoying it at all.

So, that’s a whole dose of mixed opinions as expected from Beyond. Now, where does that leave us in terms of ratings? Well, there were seven votes for Buy It, four for Bargain Bin It, three for Rent It and three Avoid Its. And, like someone sent back from the future, baggyg suggested a PlayStation Now It rating for the game.

Next up we have Puppeteer, so get your comments prepared for that tomorrow. It was a really close competition this week, so Rayman Legends, Splinter Cell: Blacklist and The Stanley Parable all remain on the poll, but we’ve added in Pokémon X and Y for good measure.