Beyond: Two Souls Demo Impressions
Quantic Dream’s Beyond: Two Souls has been highly anticipated and overlooked at the same time. Leading up to the October 8th launch, there’s been mixed feelings on it, but now we get a taste of it with a demo. Here are my thoughts on the demo.
Back in July (I can’t believe it’s already been three months) I talked about how Beyond: Two Souls might disappoint. It’s a game that I’ve had my eye on since it was announced back in 2012 at E3. It’s been a case of the more I’ve seen the less excited I become and the more worried I become that it might not be a really good, top of the line type game. My concerns about the game were the controls. I had my worries after hearing some grumbling about the controls. The fighting system was clunky, controlling the entity Aiden was a problem, and just overall movement was clunky.
The other, for me, was the story itself. Would we get an interesting story? Would it be worth watching other players play the game just to see how differently it plays from your own personal playthrough? We’ve seen so much of Beyond: Two Souls, the game features Jodie Holmes in many places that it seems like there wouldn’t be much choice and difference between playthroughs. Those were just a few of my concerns about Beyond: Two Souls. So, I was ecstatic to learn that Quantic Dream was going to release a demo and couldn’t wait to get my hands on it.
Overall, the controls weren’t as bad as I thought. Controlling Aiden was easy to use. I had no problems controlling Aiden. Controlling Jodie Holmes and the camera around was not exactly a problem, but it was very stiff and awkward. It’s not hard or a massive headache, but it could be better. The fighting I didn’t have a problem with, it was tricky, but I liked it the more I played it. I got use to the slow-down-move-the-stick-in-the-direction-of-Jodie-Holmes’-direction and it wasn’t smooth. There’s some tense action where you are uncertain about what exactly you are doing. So, overall, I liked the fighting action sequences.
One of my pleasant surprises was that the screen was clean. And what I mean by that is there weren’t Quick Time Events popping up everywhere. In Heavy Rain, when you walked up to an object you would get a pop up of twist the right stick in a certain direction, move the controller up, things like that. But, with Beyond: Two Souls nothing like that popped up. Not that QTE’s popping up was a problem, but without those popping up everytime you got near an object it is more aesthetically pleasing.
Now, what about the story? Well, you can’t get a good feel for the story with the demo, but we can playthrough it multiple times to see how much it differentiates. And that’s exactly what I did and for the most part I was pleased with the results. Now, some people might not be entirely happy with it because the demo doesn’t radically change over the course of just this little segment in the story.
For example, “The Getaway” starts off with Jodie Holmes sleeping on the train. The train stops and the cops get on board checking the passengers because they are looking for Jodie. Why are they are checking Holmes? Well, we don’t know that. But, anyway, while you control Aydin you can choose to not wake up Jodie. And, so, if you don’t wake up Jodie, the cops wake her up and catch her by surprise and end up arresting her.
The other scenario is you wake her up and the cops end up chasing Jodie through the train. The end game is making it to the top of the train and fighting the cops. But, before you make it to the top of the train you can get caught and arrested. If you do, it’s the same scene as getting caught before the chase. So, that’s where some people might be a little miffed. In that little segment, some may say there might not be that much of a difference.
As you progress through the demo there are a few different ways for it to play out. As mentioned above, you can get to the top of the train and fight your way off. Or, you can get on the train whether you get caught napping or get caught running through the train. From there, depending on your scenario on the train, you eventually make your way out of the train and run into a forest. Now, here’s where things separate a bit. I played through a few times and one time I just did the minimum. I eventually got caught in the forest and the demo just about ended there. Jodie was caught in the forest and was taken away in a car. From there you control Aiden and have to blast out the vehicle and get Jodie out. Eventually, you do, how you do that is your choice and it ends with Jodie telling off the feds. This scenario plays out all the same no matter how you play it and again some people might be a bit annoyed at that, but hey, what are you going to do?
Overall, I like what I saw from Beyond: Two Souls. The graphics were really sharp and crisp; the controls were fine. I had no problems with the controls at all, and I’m looking forward to seeing the story play out. I’m interested to see the different paths the story can take and where and how the story ends up. Beyond: Two Souls will launch exclusively on the PlayStation 3 on October 8th, 2013.
