@lusence: That's great, I like the game too but at the same time that doesn't mean that you can't outright despise aspects of a game you enjoy. My favorite game of all time is Ninja Gaiden Black yet I still realize that game has horrible inventory menus, bad camera angles and clunky platforming sections. Its a good thing to criticize things we love so they can become better. That doesn't mean critism of a game is a wholesale attack on it. You can still be actively critical of something and enjoy it.

That's narrow, and a tiny bit delusional. Nobody is forcing you to sit through Beyond to get to whatever it is you're into. Same thing goes for your dance club comparison. You don't have to go sit down and be bored for 12 hours everytime someone wants to play Beyond.

meh id just hate to see people miss out on a good game due to unfair reviews. critical statements usually start pouring in after a week or so after the hardcores have all beat it and start to pick it apart with the second play through. ive got plenty id like to change with the game but at this point its way to early to start picking a part a MASTERPIECE like this game. yes i said it, this game is a masterpiece. i just love games like heavy rain and indigo. just get flustered, seems like people are just being mean and overly critical without truly giving the game a chance first. well, their loss i guess...

Right. The people who didn't have that dream see Final Fantasy 7 as being the beginning of the end for good Final Fantasy games.

The conversation we're having right now is exactly my whole point.

What you consider the "dream" of the medium is what I consider the ruination of the medium. That's why I'm saying there are two groups. That's why the industry needs to cell divide. It's why, to some extent, I'm more into what Nintendo is doing philosophically than I am either Sony or MS, even though I think Nintendo is blowing it right now. If a console manufacturer came out and said "screw all this "boundary-pushing" "escape your reality" BS, we're just about games. Our console has nothing but games and is about nothing but having fun playing games that have rules and challenges." I would buy that thing in a second and say "Thank my God you came along."

No, this is the stupidest fucking thing ever. Both groups are idiotic as hell and I consider anyone who doesn't believe that delusional.

No one style of game is ruining or paradigm shifting the industry, no matter how much some might try to believe otherwise.

No, I don't. But there are finite resources in the industry. For every Beyond that Sony puts out, it doesn't put out something else. It's opportunity cost. It's the root of why anyone doesn't like anything in the games industry. When the Windwaker came out, were people really THAT mad that it looked like a cartoon? Not really. They were mad about the Zelda they WEREN'T getting. That's why people look back at it fondly now and forget why anyone would have been mad about it. Why were people angry in the SNES vs. Sega Genesis wars? Because games would come out for one or the other. They were mad about the games they WEREN'T getting. It's all opportunity cost.

lol propaganda? lol... FF7 was the beginning of the end? wow... you need to just play some Galaga or something? so what is your discription of a game the is making progress into how games should be jazgalaxy? im really not seeing any improvement from 80's style arcade games, hell even pong from what you consider how a game should be... so again what is your idea of a revolutionary game that is making progress into the future of gaming?

Right. And Reality Shows didn't ruin MTV either...

Because comparing the video game industry and MTV is not fallacious in any way?

@jazgalaxy: MTV was hit garbage way before reality shows cropped up. Video Games are large enough medium to support all sorts of experiences. Narrowing what you can do with the medium down to one type of experience is silly. Choices are good.

Games that are doing it right?

The elder scrolls is always fantastic. I only played a little of the Witcher, but I that game seemed to be doing it really well. Ironically, GTA usually was a front runner for a franchise that was doing it right, but with GTA V they messed up quite a bit. I think Jeff Cannata at Weekend Confirmed put it best when he said that the whole game is basically just "simon says". The player has no real freedom of interactivity, the screen just tells you what to do and you do that action. Still, even with that fault, GTA is still one of the franchises doing it right. Halo is still doing it right. DOA 5 I really liked.

I mean, it's not hard a puzzle to figure out what kind of game I like. "Does the game have gameplay? If 'yes' then I'll like it, most likely."

I'm just tired of reviews where the reviewer says "the gameplay is really bad, and I found myself bored a lot. The actions didn't make any sense and I wasn't participating in the story. But the story kept me on the edge of my seat! 9/10!" How could that possibly be a 9/10 game? Why wouldn't it just be a movie and be a 10/10 movie? (except games are graded on such a curve that it would probably be a 3/10 movie. It inexplicably gets points just for being a game that tries to tell a story.)

It's called different tastes. Different preferences. Different priorities. People have them. You don't get to decide what others should or should not like or desire in a video game or what video games should consist of.

They're the same insomuch as there exists a category:

"videogames" in the first category "music television" in the other category

...and then you have people who are arguing that the definition of the category should be more broad.

"Videogames shouldn't necessarily have to be games or contain rules or challenge. They're 'experiences' and can encompass anything one wants them to."

"Music Television shouldn't just relate to music videos. Music Television is a culture and an attitude and the network should focus on content that speaks to 18-25 year olds in the same way that music speaks to them"

meh good games. still dont think beyond is a bad game. i think its great. most emotional, engaging game ive played in a long time. i love the story, i loved the game play and i loved the so called boring scenes almost the best. hell, just walking around dealing with the enviornment with such a well polished game was a treat, pretty much honestly the worst parts of the game for me where the action sequences. not saying this because it was different etc. IM SAYING THIS BECAUSE I LIKED THE FUCKING GAME!!!! I really really want more games that focus on this sort of stuff. im just tired of the same old kill kill kill kill xp xpx xpx xpxpxpxppx lvl up etc, sorry, just understand that please.

No, they're not the same. They're not even CLOSE to the same. Video games do not equate to the subset of another industry they are potentially larger than. If you actually want to make a somewhat valid comparison, that would be comparing the video game industry to the television industry as a whole.

The industry is irrelevant to what I'm comparing, which is the simple concept of a category and people arguing that the category be broadened, or that categories are irrelevant.

Video games are not a category. They are an industry. There is no harm of broadening an industry as a whole when it does not affect its individual categories.

O_o

I don't think you understand what opportunity cost is. I'm not talking about the actual monetary cost incurred by the publishers, I'm talking about the fact that Sony is only going to greenlight a certain number of projects per year. Sony making Beyond meant that there were games that Sony DID NOT MAKE. For example, my favorite Sony Franchise Jet Moto, which has had several incarnations cancelled during production.

Videogames ARE a category. They are a category of "Games".

Again, us having this whole conversation IS EXACTLY MY POINT. You seeing videogames as an "industry" and me seeing them as a sub-category of "games" is exactly the point.

the internet ruined MTV. Ruined CD's etc. the only thing that people would actually watch was reality shows. it was more like a last resort for MTV to get viewers. sure they are like the video game industry in one aspect. they need to make money, so they try to appeal to the masses, the audience. if anything beyond 2 souls is like that really really awesome rock song that only played for a few days as no one liked it. it was ruining the reality TV! ironic, dont yah think?

No, the internet had nothing to do with the end of MTV, although you are right about it signaling the end of CDs. (which are actually doing pretty well right now.) MTV was ruined because of commercial practices. This is an aside from the current conversation, but all networks follow the pattern of trying to attract a niche, and then trying to grow that viewer base. (For example, Fox and UPN started their networks by trying to attract black people. The history channel started by trying to attract seniors. The science channels like discovery tried to attract educated viewers. The cartoon network tried to attract kids). But then, since the only thing that matters to a network is growth and numbers, they try to expand the audience by getting out of their niche. (Adult Swim/Live Action on Cartoon Network, Aliens on the History channel, Faux Shark/Mermaid documentaries on the Discovery Channel, etc.) A little bit of that is okay/encouraged, but enough of it will ruin something outright (no more music on MTV, TechTV turning into G4, etc)

I think this game is pretty solid. I'm going to beat it this weekend.

Nothing ruined MTV... *whispers* You're not the demographic anymore.

As for the game, I think it's Quantic Dream's best game, compared to Rain and Indigo... With that being said, it's NOWHERE near as good as The Walking Dead. I really wanted to care for Jodie but they never game me a chance to really care for her and let some of this shit sink in, where as with Lee and Clem, they give you a moment and give you enough time for the impact... let it ride for a bit, then move onto the next scene. It had a flow that Beyond just never got into.

thats odd. i cant say what game is better. i loved the walking dead game, im a huge walking dead fan, love the comics better than the game. yah giving you 3 months per 2 hour gaming session really let things sink in huh? not your fault you couldnt care for jodie, just not the game for you i guess. i really felt for her in her um problems. and could RP her with no problem.

whispers, wtf are you talking about? ffs just drop this whole MTV crap. if anything wonder why their cartoons went bye bye, like aeon flux, beavis and butthead, etc etc? nothing to do with vid games, really.

Dear

Do you know why you don't use an out of 20 scale? Because most even scores you make will be a fraction you can reduce. 16 out of 20 = 8 out of 10...hell that 4 out of 5 to be technical.

2 out of 20 = 1 out of 10
4 out of 20 = 2 out of 10
6 out of 20 = 3 out of 10
8 out of 20 = 4 out of 10
10 out of 20 = 5 out of 10
12 out of 20 = 6 out of 10....etc

What the hell? Does no reducing fractions sound sexier in french? Lets see, ur...seize vingtième. Nope, I remain unmoved by that combo of words!

@pr1mus: There's no long version because you don't anyone to know about your fecal fetish

Picked up this game on Friday and beat it by Sunday. I absolutely loved it and I am going to give my impression on why, specifically, the reviews might be all over the place. There are a lot of people brandying about the term "either you get it or you don't". I think there is some truth to that. Inevitably, it boils down to a few things: what you expect from a 'video game', what you are willing to sacrifice for narrative, and just what kind of movies/television shows you are into.

Playing through this game, I felt like the child me watching sliders or quantum leap with my Genesis controller in hand pretending to control the actors on screen. It's great that I can finally realize that childhood dream. All forms of media, which are used to tell a story, are valid perfectly valid and I think it's wonderful when the lines between them are blurred. Comics are a great middle ground between the heavily nuanced and descriptive narrative found in books and the cinematic action and descriptive visuals found in TV/movies. Between video games and TV/movies also exists this grey area and David Cage is doing a wonderful job playing around in it. In fact, I finished Beyond Two Souls and immediately thought: "wow...I wish Bio-Shock Infinite was like this!". Infinite was a fascinating story that was shoe-horned into a FPS. Plenty a forum commenter remarked on how it was clear Ken Levine needed to go into proper script writing. Playing through Infinite, as much as I loved it, felt like a chore at times because Booker did not seem like the type of guy to be murdering countless waves of enemies and I felt that the story elements were hindered by being forced into a 'game' in the traditional sense. There are so many times I just wanted to get past the countless waves of baddies (and constant searching of trash cans; broken realism there) to get to the next amazing story bits.

These are issues I did not have with Beyond Two Souls. In fact, the vignette where you are in Somalia to take out the warlord had some of the more conventional mechanics in the entire game and I actually found myself wishing they weren't there. Imagine an on-rail shooter portion thrown into The Walking Dead. They hinted at real choice, popping from cover to cover while avoiding militia-men, but that choice was obviously an illusion. Beyond Two Souls is an interactive television show (with movie quality visuals) and when I viewed it that way I was NOT disappointed. Games can sometimes be too active, requiring too much thought when you just want to veg and enjoy a story. Movies can be too passive, causing you to lose interest and feel unengaged. There are far too few experiences existing between the two and I am surprised to see such criticism over something attempting to fill that void (and, arguably, doing a fantastic job at it).

As for the comparison to The Walking Dead I keep seeing in forums around the interwebs: these are two different types of Adventure games. Yes, Beyond Two Souls is a 'cinematic' adventure game. The Walking Dead is an adventure game focused on player choice, the consequences of those choices, and interpersonal relationships amongst the different members of the group. In order to give the player these choices, and consequences, the developers were forced to sacrifice some of the visual flare and cinematography. The story is told in a much more straight forward and conversation heavy way, eschewing cinematic quality for more static imagery. Areas are smaller, and set pieces seem significantly less grandiose. On top of that, The Walking Dead has a much smaller budget and is told in a more conventional beginning to end story progression. It would have been cost prohibitive and timely for Beyond Two Souls to accommodate that much player choice. It would have also made it near impossible to create the broken time-line that Cage so carefully crafted. David Cage made a concerted effort to create an interactive cinematic 'movie-like' experience and not a choose your own adventure book. I think people need to have their expectations in check before heading into something like this. That is not a pissy statement or an indictment of the greater gaming world, but we seem to have created expectations for what we thought this game 'should' be and many are refusing to judge it on what it actually is.

As for the story: is Fringe any less ridiculous (I like Fringe). TV shows and movies can be over the top and ridiculous (Alias 'pregnant spider lady'), they can have huge plot holes and storyline's that go nowhere (Lost), they can have anticlimactic or disappointing endings (Dexter, Lost, Sopranos) but we give them a pass, why? David Cage touched on a lot of genres and tried to blend them together. I personally loved the constant tonal shifts between, and during, vignettes. I agree with him that life has swings all the time and it's important to reflect that in the story itself. This is another aspect that should be commended yet reviewers say, what was it, "there is a reason movies tend to stick to one genre". Psh...how DARE you push boundaries!

Look at IMDB, especially at Horror movies, and tell me how many - in my opinion - very decent horror movies are rated in the 6.0 or above. People tend to wildly disagree when it comes to movie/TV stories and, since Beyond relies on it's story to keep you engaged, you are going to see many of those differences echoed in reviews. The best I can say is this: if you are quirky and enjoy genre mash ups (horror comedy, sci-fi horror-comedy, whatever) and you don't mind a little camp with your high-brow sci-fi/horror/military thriller/coming of age movies then you'll probably find a lot to like here. It's 'edgy' to say the least. It pulls from many different movies (Carrie, borne identity, FF: Spirits within, anything by Stephen King, Fire Starter, etc).

If this game doesn't sound immediately intriguing then definitely wait for it to come down in price and at least give it a shot. Eventually, this game will drop significantly in price and, at that point, it will be immensely worth it even as just a 12 hour long interactive movie to smoke up and watch. Even as an experiment in interactive story-telling it's worth it at $10 - $15 dollars.

Journey has significant less story (almost none at all) and even more simplistic controls and yet it's lauded as amazing (which it is). Asura's Wrath sacrificed some of it's bombastic nonsensically over-the-top action scenes for what is, at best, a terrible god of war clone and it has significantly better reviews. Hell, Asura's Wrath devolved into some of the most egregious and simplistic button-mashey QTE's and it was still deliciously awesome. I'll never understand the double standards exist. Part of me wonders if it's conflated expectations not matching with the reality. People need more perspective.

That definitely makes me more interested.

great review by Deavyin. Id just love to see more games like this. Not sure if you have seen it or not but ill say I for one would give my left nut to play a game done in this quality based off a heavy horror idea like Jacobs Ladder (the movie). I know that inspired silent hill, hell they even named the subway system streets after it in the 2nd one i belive. Anyways as a big horror fan, Jacobs Ladder being my fav. ever since i saw it as a kid, i would just cream to see a game made just like this based off of the same horror/mind F. that movie was... anyways just saying love this game style and the quality of it all, i just want some hard core horror!

Also just want to comment on how hard some people go down on QTE combat in some games yet in others they are just fine. I think it relates to the rome/gladiator inspired xbox 1 game coming out, people are already pissing them selves about the QTE combat. I love it if its QTE heavy i really hate the tedium of the button mashing just leading up to that. The QTE is just a really cinematic take on combat or any sort of situation that really mixes it up, they change the buttons needed sometimes 2, which is better. making you just stay on your toes. And comparing this to walking dead is not really fair. its like a penny comic compared to a hard back novel, with full gloss art work paintings mixed in. only thing walking dead has over this is the sheer gore and surprise! bam! another one bites the dust...

It's the traditional grading system in french schools. A bunch of video game website use it because everyone in France is used to it. It's the same reason some american websites use letters.

@deavyin: This site needs a thumbs/like button. Great post.

? That review was overwhelmingly positive. I'm not sure how you were thrown for a loop by the text vs the score.

I still don't get the praise for Ellen, her voice acting sounded hokey as fuck in a lot of places. Or maybe it was just the Cage.