Zero Punctuation: Beyond: Two Souls

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Y'know, am I the only one who notices that practically EVERY designer who goes on about wanting to write great stories or bashes video game writing in general are probably the least qualified to say that? Cage rails against games for their stories, but his games have TERRIBLE narratives and tepid dialogue. Another example of this is Antoniades over at Ninja Theory who constantly brags about his narrative talents despite A) having HIRED other writers to write his games for him and B) when he finally DID write a script himself it was a goddamned, pretentious mess. And of course then there's Rhiana Pratchett, who is a writer instead of a designer but is very...average. She's not terrible, but she clearly didn't inherit her father's talent as a writer. The irony is PAINFUL.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

What annoyed me particularly about the game, was that besides Nathan(Willem Dafoe) none of the characters changed all that much(well, maybe that soldier guy): Jodie had no character arc, and she is exactly the same as she was when she was a child, by the end of the game.

The writing is also flimsy (I feel like my ears are being grated when I hear the sentence "Ever since I was born, I've been linked to an entity" also the seance sections where she acts as a conduit for dead people).

That said though, this is quite a consistent game (aside from the asian-french bad guys and the "GUVERNMENT IZ EVIL!1!" nonsense), second to only Heavy Rain, and the sections that stood out the most for me (and I feel for other people) were the more realistic ones.

I wish that Cage had an editor, so that he would make more grounded, consistent stories, as that is what he is good at(see: Heavy Rain, beginning of Farenheit), not spiraling off into nonsense.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

*mock David Cage voice* But Yahtzee it has emotions.

I would love to see Cah-jay defend himself using Metacritic now (like how he did w/ Heavy Rain)

That'd be maladroit.

 

[Piorn]

His Hobo-Love actually started way back in Fahrenheit, when he pulled a Hobo-Rebel-Force out of his ass to fight the mayans and the internet, 5 minutes before the ending.

Also obligatory "X is a failure of the game designer"-joke here.

 

[VanQ]

I like how we're just making stuff up about Sarkeesian now.

"Look, AS is entitled to her opinion that all buildings over 5 stories should be painted bright red, I just don't think that it would be financially feasible. Not to mention it would be a bit of an eyesore."

I would never just "make stuff up" about her or anyone for that matter. It would be as ridiculous as the claims that she personally harrassed 4chan and Reddit to provoke the hatred she initially received.

The thing that struck me about this game is it's almost exactly the game that Sarkeesian asked for. Less like a game and more like a movie. And what gameplay there is, make it easy as fuck. It even has a female protagonist. Dunno if I was the only one that noticed this but I expect to hear her gushing about it any day now.

that is not what Sarkeesian asked for. have you even seen her videos?! she also never said only good games have female protagonists. and quite frankly i imagine she would have a problem with using rape as a cheap way to make us feel sympathy for the protagonist (and rightfully so).

Apparently you're going to tell me I haven't even watched her videos, when I've followed them very closely. Look into her comments on Mirror's Edge, and how she'd have loved to have enjoyed it if it hadn't been so difficult and how she wishes games were more like a TV show or movie.

Has Sarkessian ever talked about gameplay mechanics? Better stories maybe, but "better stories" isn't "all story no gameplay". If Sarkessian said everything that angry guys said she said, she would have a ton more videos.

She has, in particular she spoke about how they're too difficult for her to enjoy. She even implied that was the case for other women at one point, if I remember correctly.

-

My statement was something I noticed about a bunch of things she's said over all of her videos from before and after the kickstarter thing. I'm not even attempting t insult her, you guys assume I am. It's just something I noticed, that it's a game that I assume she would enjoy because it has many of the qualities she has asked for in a game over the time she's been making videos.

Let's calm down shall we. I'm not here to hijack the thread and derail it, it was an off hand comment. Let's save it for another time and place.

 

[VikingKing]

I was still hopeful there was going to be a scene in Beyond Two Souls like Heavy Rain had.

You all know the one.

It involved disinfectant, a chunk of wood, a heated steel rod, one shot of whiskey and a lovely variety of bladed objects.

 

[Itsthefuzz]

Someone in Hollywood needs to give Cage a job writing and directing straight to video movies so he'll stop mucking up the gaming sphere.

To all game makers out there, if your game idea is 50% or more little films instead of game play, it ISN'T a game. Do everyone a favor and get the fuck out of the industry.

Or you could, you know, just don't buy the game and stop telling others what they should or shouldn't consider a videogame.

Because hey, one videogame like this every three years is totally clogging the market, isn't it? So you should complain. It's not like with first person shooters, who are so rare!

Or you could, you know, just stop telling people how they can and can't feel about the game.

Because hey, people having a different opinion about a game than you is totally ruining your experience isn't it? So you should complain about it. It's not like you can just enjoy it yourself and stop crusading against everyone who dared not enjoyed B:TS.

 

[inidu]

I'm starting to wonder if David Beige has ever actually talked to a real woman before.

This review is actually a lot like trying to play through any of David Beige's games: Soul crushing.

Cage

David Cage

 

[Nico4]

While not a total shamble, I do agree with Yahtzee's criticism... it's more a game than a film, since it's not only it's pretty uninteractive, but it hardly makes you feel like you're changing a bloody thing (despite the fact that some sections can end differently). I heard the argument that you're supposed to create your own version as Jodie, but doesn't that contradict the marketing (and what the developers and Sony have been saying, before the game was released?).

The plot is like a kid being in a candy store, with some extremely rich parents who'll give him anything he want, so the kid goes "I want that, I want this!" etc. It's really jarring for the game to go from drama to science fiction, to military espionage, to goverment conspiracy and doomsday.

I also heard an argument, that the unlinear story telling is thanks to Jodie (if you finished the game, you might know what I'm talking about), but that doesn't fly with me. It does make the story intersting, but it's also cheating, because without it, the story wouldn't really work and it would have had a horrible pacing

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I can thankfully say that I have never played any of David Cage's games.
I looked at them and read about them for a bit and they all just seem ... bad ... in a weird way.
Or maybe just weird ... in a bad way.
I can't decide which it is...

Fahrenheit was OK, up to a point. It's going to be one of the best games you've ever played it you stop playing halfway into it.

 

[FallenMessiah88]

I think David Cage is a good writer. Perhaps not a brilliant writer, but a good writer nonetheless. I don't see what makes his writing worse than so many other video games. I cared a lot about the characters in Heavy Rain, especially because your choices had a profound impact on which direction the story took. It all adds up. If anything, the biggest problem with Beyond: Two Souls seems to be that it's just more of the same.

 

[mechalynx]

I also heard an argument, that the unlinear story telling is thanks to Jodie (if you finished the game, you might know what I'm talking about), but that doesn't fly with me. It does make the story intersting, but it's also cheating, because without it, the story wouldn't really work and it would have had a horrible pacing

Interesting. Did you feel the same about Memento and Pulp Fiction? If you have seen them, of course.

Of course the story wouldn't work had it been told consecutively. It was built this way. Just like not many stories told straight from A to Z would not work if the chapters got re-shuffled.

Not targeting you specifically, but I really wish people would stop stating opinions as facts. The game is not broken, the story never contradicts itself. I have played it 4 times from start to finish and replayed some chapters even more (even though Cage said it's exactly what one shouldn't do) and I never found any disrepancies in the plot and character developement.

Also, I don't know about the rest of you, but what I liked most about the game is how relatable Jodie was. Remember that we always see her at the most important points of her life. It's perfectly understandable that she'd be emotional. And noone is cool as a fucking cucumber every second of every day, despite what Hollywood, Naughty Dog and their likes would like you to believe. Every now and then people say silly and cringeworthy stuff. You call it awkward, I call it as close to reality as I've ever seen in a game.

As for her kissing all the pretty boys - there were only two. As rhodo said before me, shock and fucking gasp at a female seeking some comfort in her so far kinda shitty life.

 

[Ishigami]

Hold on for a second!
Are you telling me there are people that actually expected gameplay to be there?

 

[TheomanZero]

If you're interested in the idea of games about ghosts moving furniture, why not try Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective for the DS?

 

[IrisNetwork]

Dear Benjamin Sebastian Godzilla Yahtzee Crowshaw,
I don't know if you read this but I REALLY want to see a Zero Punctuation of "Day One, Gary's Incident".
Not because its good but because its bad. Its TERRIBLE. I'd like to see if it can get into the top 5 worst games this year besides Ride to Hell, Dark and Aliens: CM.

You've been playing Beyond? Beyond Good & Evil... 2???!
I think facial emotes are valid for criticism. After all, you did criticize Mass Effect, TES and Fallout for their character emotes. Maybe 10 years ago, we barely had characters opening their mouths but 9 years ago, we had Half-Life 2 that had perfectly done facial and body language. Is the industry still not catching up to Valve?

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

You know, games like this actually do a good service in reinforcing how wrong psychologists are about human "free will" and the agency with which we appear to control our bodies. Is human behavior really like David Cage presents it? A disembodied agent surveying the scene and acting independently according to its wishes? Or is it possible that in real life events play themselves according to external and internal circumstances - without a "controller"?

Buddhists might have a strong case, considering how disfunctional, awkward and impossible it is to have one person (us, or the "soul") inside another (Jodie, or the "body"), as Beyond: Two Souls haves us believe real life is lived.

 

[Alfredo Jones]

David Cage thinks he's making some new unexplored genre of games when really all he's doing is making a western AAA budget version of Japanese visual novels. And I can name a few visual novels that have way better stories in them than anything Cage made (at least in my opinion).

 

[hentropy]

David Cage thinks he's making some new unexplored genre of games when really all he's doing is making a western AAA budget version of Japanese visual novels. And I can name a few visual novels that have way better stories in them than anything Cage made (at least in my opinion).

Most VNs have significantly more choice than these games do, but it depends.

 

[Flunk]

Wow, I actually thought this game was called "Beyond Two Souls" until I watched this video. The whole thing sounds terrible so I was already giving it a miss anyway. Doesn't even sound like a game at all, more like a boring movie you have to keep kicking to keep it playing.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I think David Cage is a good writer. Perhaps not a brilliant writer, but a good writer nonetheless. I don't see what makes his writing worse than so many other video games. I cared a lot about the characters in Heavy Rain, especially because your choices had a profound impact on which direction the story took. It all adds up. If anything, the biggest problem with Beyond: Two Souls seems to be that it's just more of the same.

I haven't played Heavy Rain, but Fahrenheit was awful. Or rather, it started out a promising noirish tale and then became a Matrix-esque tale involving a Mayan prophecy, a secret hobo network, angel attacks and the end of the world. Not to mention, one of the three main characters is suddenly and inexplicably dropped out of the picture 3/4 into the game, just because. Lots of good building, pay-off sucks.