Zero Punctuation: Beyond: Two Souls

[00slash00]

Well I liked it. I liked all of David Cages games.

Here here! I finished it last night and absolutely loved it, as I've loved every David Cage game I've ever played. I will defend his games to the death

 

[Baddamobs]

Excuse me, but where and when did I ever make a graphic comparison?

Heck, I've even decided to pick up an image from the Ace Attorney live action movie precisely to avoid any graphic comparison.

This is what is fun about the internet; everyone doesn't listen to what the other says but just interprets what they want to interpret.

"Oh dear me, an anime cartoon thing now has "believable characters"."

and

"Such stunning realism."

I'm sorry if I misunderstood but saying that heavily implies that the characters are unbelievable simply because of the aesthetic.

Both of my comments there weren't referring to the aestethics. Unless by aestethic you only intended the crazy dumb anime hair and clothing, in that cases, visuals were definitely a part of what I meant.

Definitely not even the slightest concern about pixel count.

Err, may I raise another objection? (Hahaha, sorry, I couldn't resist.)But I have to say, liking/preferring whether a character was designed with a western 'realist' or an eastern 'anime' style, I find at least, has very little to do whether a character is believable or not. I, personally, find myself relating with characters that have less realistic designs just as well, if not BETTER, then some of the 'real' characters out there. For example, Naruto: what the HELL are those damned lines on his face? And Sakura has freakin' PINK hair! But I find that can be just as relatable as, say, Lee from the Walking Dead.
Not sure if that's a side effect of some of the more uncanny valley characters out there or just a preference...

 

[Baddamobs]

My first impression of David comes from Two best Friends' Playtrough of Heavy Rain and more importantly Indigo Prophecy. I played it myself afterwards because the game has really interesting concepts in the beginning. Its hillariously bad afterwards, the Story goes completely apesh*t. Heavy Rain was a bit less whacko, but had too much needless plot elements, strange scenes and _horrible_ characters. The guy also tends to overdo it in terms of hype and marketing his games. I find the Molyneux comparison really fitting.

Now, BTS isnt offensively bad to me. The Story is again so ridicolous that i will watch LP's purely to laugh at it. But the Game, much like stuff from Telltale, fall into a niche i cant really get into. I never buy Telltale stuff, i watch it. Its exactly the same with stuff from David Cage (Altough i watch Telltale because the Story is fantastic, and Cage because its hillariously over the top and from time to time outright retarded.). They arent games in my book, they are Movies where im required to press a button from time to time to go either left or right.

So yeah, i would be lying if i said Cage dropping out of the industry would have me weeping. On the other hand, if people like it, let them like it. At least he thinks outside of the Box gameplaywise and offers material i can get a good laugh out off. Besides, the niche isnt big enough that it influences anything, noone takes Games with actual _Gameplay_ away from you just because Cage wants to write "Videogame" on the backside of his interactive movie.

People, people, gather around and listen to the voice of reason in this thread!!

Just replying that this is pretty much my stance on this whole affair: I can sort of get why some people would like this kind of game, though just barely. I myself would never rush out to get a game that doesn't really have an amazing amount of gameplay in it, like the games David Cage makes, though I respect the man for at least doing what he wants to do in an industry that seems determined to do nothing but appeal to the lowest common denominator (praise be to the almighty From Software for trying to change that).

Basically: if you honestly like these kind of games, nothing from stopping you from playing them, but if you have criticisms against the game (and you happen to be Matt and Pat), then by all means, fire away.

 

[EvilRoy]

Seems to me all the hate comes from not understanding that this game was always designed to be a visual novel. The game's got QTE gameplay not because it's a failure: but because it was intended to work like this.
Nobody complains that Japanese visual novels mostly consist of pressing a button and reading text on a screen. And yet, there's a bazillion visual novels that keep being made.

Understand this: B:TS is not meant as a gameplay challenge. Just like certain videogames only ever focus on gameplay and don't have any plot at all, B:TS does the exact opposite. Is a videogame not a videogame if it only has gameplay? And is a videogame not a videogame if it only has story?

So, stuff like B:TS that only ever focuses on telling a story is not your thing. That's fine. You don't have to like it. You think a videogame must have gameplay. It's fine, and a perfectly reasonable opinion.

But hating on the game and spitting out insults like "I don't want to see any other game like this / Cage shouldn't ever be allowed to make videogames" is disrespectful of anyone who knows exactly what B:TS was meant to be (a story - a visual novel with a high budget), and likes it this way.
It's not like the market is full of these things. We get one of those every two years. Can I enjoy those, or does it bother you so much?

That's all fair enough, but it does pretty clearly show that the ads and demo you saw were pretty seriously different from the ones I saw. In the promotional stuff I saw there was absolutely no indication, implication, or otherwise that would have lead me to believe that this was supposed to be a QTE visual novel. The demo may have been plodding at the start, but you were blowing things up before it was over.

If they didn't want to be criticized for their 'visual novel' style gameplay, they shouldn't have tried to sell it as an action adventure game.

 

[Darken12]

The mild interest I had to see these so-called hunky boys is buried under several kilometres of "NOPE" towards the gameplay and storytelling.

 

[MaddKossack115]

Well "Beyond: Two Souls" is definitely going to be one of those "love it or hate it" kind of games, and based on Yahtzee's description, I'd probably be one of the guys who would end up hating it. And what kills me is that, not only did the gameplay have potential beyond QTEs for everything but a tutorial and a level shot for "gameplay trailers", but also that the story had potential for an interesting narrative around Jodie Holmes (Ellen Page's character, who does a good job of an admittedly type-casted roll) and her coming to grips with her powers (think of it as "Carrie - The Game").

The reason I mention this is that, as Yahtzee pointed out, the story is a mish-mash of scenes that look ripped out of completely different movies, with the arch-villain of the whole mess being the especially incongruous "CIA jackals". Look Cage, I know America's foreign policy of "Democratize or We'll Shoot You" isn't the most endearing in the world, and rightly should be criticized in a medium where the blockbuster, Triple-A "spunkgargleweewee" FPSs support this cock-and-bull "Shock And Awe" shtick hook, line and sinker, but it should NOT be in a game that's trying to be a somewhat serious Urban Fantasy story of a girl struggling with a Lovecraftian imaginary friend.

At the very least, the CIA shouldn't be so fucking clueless that they honestly expect mistreating and abusing people with supernatural superpowers wouldn't end with the "subjects" using their powers to tear themselves out of their prisons, or that they would have better motivations for trying to awaken Eldritch Abominations that have the potential to wipe the whole world out beyond "We do this for 'MURICA! FUCK YEAH!!! (Except without a single trace of irony in their jingoistic machismo)"

 

[Bat Vader]

I'll just say that all the hate you Americans have towards Beyond is disheartening.

Because I really like Beyond: Two Souls.

And you know what's really sad? If a fps or a third person shooter or even a fighting game is released, and it turns out it doesn't sell enough, well that's a disappointment, but it doesn't matter in the end. Even if that software house won't make any more games, well, there's plenty of other software houses making fps or tps or fighters!

Now, if Quantic Dream doesn't sell enough, I won't be able to play any more games like Beyond: Two Souls or Heavy Rain. Because only Quantic Dream ever makes those. In all my life, I've played only TWO videogames of that specific kind, both made by those developers.

So, f**k you, 'Murican haters. F**k you all.

I'm an American and I like Beyond: Two Souls. I am pretty sure there are other people in the world that hate or dislike Beyond: Two Souls besides Americans.

 

[BarkBarker]

I liked the asshole potential as the ghost character, just fucking with peoples day, being all ethereal and "CAN'T TOUCH THIS" on everyone around me.

 

[Story]

I know this very late, and this probably won't be read, but I feel a need to comment on Quantum Dream and Beyond: Two Souls anyway. Maybe I was just the heated argument spearheaded by rhodo, I don't know but here it goes.

The problem with defending Quantum Dream games as interactive novels is that it wasn't in anyway marketed that way. These games are suppose to be video games, and a good video game should be able to use the two main assets of that medium. This means a game is not just a visual medium, like a movie, but also interactive one (something unique only to video games). When the interaction by the player has little to no impact on making the story meaningful then the video game is a failure in my book. I mean it doesn't even need be complex, it can be simplistic as all hell. Look at the Stanley Parable were game play is minimal but meaningful to the story. Beyond: Two Souls' problem isn't the fact that it's mostly QTE, but the fact that a lot of these QTE are just "road bumps"...and Yahtzee even mentions this. Where the button presses don't mean anything expect "Press A" to continue. The story actually pauses until the player presses that button. It's not exciting because there is only one option for the player and it hinders the story because it hurts the pacing. It works with visual novels, where these is usually text that the audience needs time to read, but if the action is happening in real time, like in Quantum Dream's games, then its not helpful at all.

And another thing, the flaw in David Cage's ideology is that movies =/= video games. Video games, since it's impossible to be completely realistic without using live footage, it is an animated medium. Cage's push towards realism is not very practical and frankly its narrow minded. I know a lot of people enjoy realism in their games, but I feel that only pushing toward that style can be destructive. Not only will video game budgets continue to bloat, but we won't explore other esthetic forms of visual expression that is available for video games if we continue along that trend. Some people including critics, like Jim Sterling, don't like people like David Cage because his idea of producing realistic games like movies are counter intuitive to a medium that can do so much more than movies can. So yeah, emotions= good writing not graphical power. David Cage's fans shouldn't worry though, it seems that Sony will continue to fund his games if only because it is a superficial way of showing off the processing power of their system by pushing more "realistic faces".

But people already know this crap I guess.
Personally, I liked Heavy Rain but I didn't like the demo of Beyond: Two Souls because it felt so restrictive. My grandfather didn't like the game because it controlled terribly...which it does. I don't hate David Cage, but I can see why people might. I think it's an okay writer, but I'd really rather see him as a filmmaker personally.

 

[Woodsey]

I don't understand how Beyond could be so bad that it's getting slashed for being a narrative crapfest when Heavy Rain was well-received.

 

[FFP2]

I don't understand how Beyond could be so bad that it's getting slashed for being a narrative crapfest when Heavy Rain was well-received.

Telltale wasn't in the picture back then

OT: I'm watching a LP of this garbage (Cryoatic's [https://www.youtube.com/user/ChaoticMonki] if you're interested) and he just finished the Native American bit.

The "game" has nowhere to go but up from here. Then again, it is made by Quantic Dream so it'll probably reach new levels of awful in the next part. This "game" is unbelievably bad.

 

[Woodsey]

I don't understand how Beyond could be so bad that it's getting slashed for being a narrative crapfest when Heavy Rain was well-received.

Telltale wasn't in the picture back then

They're nowhere near good enough that their "absence" (they were just writing mediocre stuff back then) caused Heavy Rain to be equal to a good standard of writing.

 

[FFP2]

They're nowhere near good enough that their "absence" (they were just writing mediocre stuff back then) caused Heavy Rain to be equal to a good standard of writing.

It's also an exclusive so that may have been a reason. I never really understood why Cage still gets to make games. He's not even talented enough to make a direct-to-DVD movie.

 

[Kuuenbu]

I am pretty sure there are other people in the world that hate or dislike Beyond: Two Souls besides Americans.

Kind of like the British man who wrote the initial review that inspired this very thread filled with similar bile coming from a primarily European audience. Talk about ironic.

"American" is just easier to throw around as an accusation because it's the one Western nationality that's been made into a pejorative term.