lasermink wrote:
Bamba wrote:
Just played the Beyond: Two Souls demo (new game from the studio that did Heavy Rain). It's another QTE driven thing just like Heavy Rain with only a bit more freedom when flying around as the ghost thing, but the story looks like it might be not half bad so we'll see how it turns out. The production values are predictably sky high for a game that 'stars' Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe so it's worth giving the demo a shot just to see it in action.
I really enjoyed the demo. It seems that when you fail some challenges the story actually branches instead of just setting you back a couple of minutes, which is nice. It is very creepy and paranormal, and I've been waiting for something like that to come along. Like you say, it's worth downloading even if only to see those production values.
Yeah, I was impressed with the first section in that it feels very creepy when everything kicks off even though it's actually you that's in control of everything; which is quite an achievement and grabbed my attention. The sections after that though seemed to fall back much more on the QTE stuff which is fine for short bursts but becomes a totally oppressive game mechanic when it's making up like 90% of your gameplay. Flying around as the ghost does give some respite from that so maybe it'll be more engaging than Heavy Rain, but from the demo those bits really are just fluff with the core of it being 'press X to climb a wall' type stuff.
Where did you see the branching stuff happening? I did fail a few of the combat QTEs and didn't really notice anything changing; I'd be surprised if there were massive differences because the whole thing is so scripted that any branching would be really difficult to work in I'd have thought. Their previous games have done a very good job of making it look like things are changing but really not deviating very much and I'm expecting the same thing here (perhaps unfairly).
Reading my comments back here I sound pretty harsh but I did enjoy it and will probably pick it up because I enjoyed Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit. I struggle with discussing their games though because when you boil them down they really
should be terrible (everything's on rails with little player agency and the 'gameplay' consists almost entirely of hitting button prompts, not exactly a recipe for enjoyment) but in reality they still manage to be fun somehow. Well, I say 'fun' even though that seems like an incongruous word to use to describe the brutal and depressing stuff that made up most of Heavy Rain.