Beyond: Two Souls (No Spoilers)

[Skunk_Giant]

This isn't a review, as I've only just started the game (I'll probably post a review later), but has anyone played Beyond: Two Souls?
When Quantic Dream released Heavy Rain, I loved it, and quickly found their older game, Indigo Prophecy/Farenheit.
So when they announced Beyond, I was super duper happy.

Then I started reading reviews. Not so great. They said the plot was ridiculous and that it was barely a game.
Still, I decided to buy it, as many a game/movie have been said to have ridiculous plots that I ended up loving. As for the game bit, I didn't expect it to be much of a game in terms of action or anything. Heavy Rain wasn't either, but I still loved it.
So far, about 2 hours in, I'm finding Beyond: Two Souls to be awesome.

Anyway, if anyone has played it, what are your spoiler-free thoughts?

[Lord_Mountbatten]

That's nothing, real Quantic Dream fans clearly played Omikron - The Nomad Soul first. /hipstershades

[Skunk_Giant]

Well
SOOOOOOOH---REE!

[Lord_Mountbatten]

Speaking of Quantic Dream (which I have now destroyed the OP with), I recently finished Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy.

I'd been going into it knowing that the last third was somewhat of a mess (publisher's fault as usual), which usually makes me expect worse and finding it better than expected. Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy's last third was just as bad as they say and possibly even worse. By the time I'd finished I was less than impressed.

You can tell they'd go onto make Heavy Rain as well, given the billions of QTEs. I didn't think I minded them all that much but the sheer usage of QTEs meant that there were many occasions to highlight everything that's wrong with them.

They say the publisher messed them around, but honestly I don't know what the hell they could've done to fix these intrinsically bad plot choices. It's brought me to the conclusion that Quantic Dream are average writers striving to be more. Doesn't help that they're the video game equivalent of M. Night Shymalan either. Y'know, twists that make fuck-all sense.

[Skunk_Giant]

I'll admit, David Cage isn't the greatest writer of dialogue, but I think his actual stories are alright. He's fighting a losing battle for his 'interactive movie' style of gaming, and despite it still failing to gain an immense amount of popularity, I respect that he's sticking with what he thinks works. And hey, I personally love the style.
That said, the QTEs have always been Quantic Dream's Achille's Heel. I think the action in Beyond is a lot better (no more buttons leaping from the screen saying 'PUSH THE STICK THIS WAY'), but it could still improve. For one, every time Jodie punches or leaps out of the way or does something in an action scene, it goes into slow motion, giving you time to push the stick in whichever direction she's moving to make the action successful. This works pretty well, as it can be challenging at times, and it doesn't break the game up too much. However, I WISH there was an option to turn of the slow-motion. Make it difficult. Make me really need to pay attention to avoid getting knocked into a tree or whatever it is the evil entities are doing to me now.

/rant

[Lord_Mountbatten]

They've never been very good at gameplay - Nomad Soul is pretty fun but I can't say they really got their shit together, be it the puzzles, shooting sections or fighting sections. At least it has David Bowie.

And I'm not complaining about the dialogue really. Sure, there are sometimes rather silly choices, but it really has been the overall stories that go wrong.

Again, I can't speak for the last two games, just the first ones. If Heavy Rain or Beyond do whatever I've said in the spoiler box (like a bizarre plot twist), I'd like to know (one day I'll probably try the latter two out).

Big spoilers for Nomad Soul and Fahrenheit below:

Spoiler! :

Nomad Soul's twist is odd, but not too bad. It's far too self-consciously meta though. You're essentially told that the main bad guy created a video game that you, the player, can inhabit only through your soul. He plans to steal your soul and add it to a reservoir of them so that he will once again be powerful enough to rule whatever it was he wanted to rule.

Fahrenheit's ends up involving Mayan cults, worldwide conspiracies, AIs that inhabit the internet, and hobos who know all about this and have tasked themselves with maintaining a balance. Also you become a zombie and the police detective who was chasing you for most of the game instantly falls in love with you. Oh, and pre-natal alien magic. It wasn't too impressive in the end.

So yeah, both games started out promisingly (Fahrenheit especially so) and then took bizarre turns. Nomad Soul managed to stick together, though the last third was again at lightning pace, but Fahrenheit fell to pieces.