Beyond: Two Souls- demo impressions - now publicly available

There were black bars?

I'm being serious, if there were, I didn't notice them one bit.

I knew going in there was black bars and I never noticed them once, lol.

I really liked the demo, no joke I was at the edge of the couch the whole time during The Hunt section. Call it not a game all you want, but it certainly was intense. I do have an issue with the audio though, more that it lacked oomph in certain parts. Explosions sounded extremely weak and it took away from an otherwise brilliantly presented game.
 
I noticed them in the very beginning but then I was too engaged to notice them soon after. I'm all for it if it improves performance. Maybe if RAD goes through with it with The Order, it might be the best looking game ever. =P

just as tvs moved from 4:3 to 16:9, tvs will move to 21:9. that is inevitable.
 
Okay, played through the demo. Technically this is amazing for 7 year old hardware, gameplay wise it seems to be at least two steps above HR, which doesn't say much. Though gameplay wasn't the biggest problem HR had.

If the story is somehow less insultinly bad than in their last game can't be answered yet. I have the special edition pre ordered and will keep it up for graphics and sound alone though, will be a fun ride.
 
I knew going in there was black bars and I never noticed them once, lol.

I really liked the demo, no joke I was at the edge of the couch the whole time during The Hunt section. Call it not a game all you want, but it certainly was intense. I do have an issue with the audio though, more that it lacked oomph in certain parts. Explosions sounded extremely weak and it took away from an otherwise brilliantly presented game.

That
helicopter
going down didn't even sound like an explosion, just a tiny woosh of flames. Highly irritating, especially right after playing GTAV.
 
People seem to forget your brain ignores a static image while focusing on anything moving around it (which is why you can't see your nose unless you are trying to look at it even though it's permanently there). The black bars will go completely unnoticed once you pay more attention to the image on the screen.
 
Not it's not, it's an interactive-movie and i would have much less problems with David Cage, if he would just change this detail in his speeches.
Aren't most games with a story technically interactive movies anyway? There's a beginning, middle, and end. You're just interacting with the world between scenes.
 
Oh I guess the scenario is different and you don't get to
deal with the army in town
if you fail the motorcycle scene.
 
Played a bit of the demo. I get why they don't show directions to input during combat/chases, but they still show buttons for QTE anyway. I'm not saying it's hard to know what to push, but it limits how they can approach combat if I'm just hitting left or right and occasionally down.

I don't like quantic games for the combat anyway, I love the decisions and tension with a side of narrative.
 
I really enjoyed the demo. The action was exciting. I really do not like quicktime events but the way that they handled them is quite a nice refinement from what they started in Fahrenheit. I think that I did have trouble interpreting the directions that they were indicating during fights, especially after a camera angle switch. There was a fight scene where they broke the 180° rule and it left me really confused....actually I think that poor camera work is what has left so many confused in the forest area. (Although, you can argue that it was intentionally confusing for immersion's sake)
 
Almost any game that has something they want to mention on the cover to grab customer's attention. Batman Arkham ____ goty boxart.jpg, E3 awards cover.jpg, that Bruce Willis game.jpg.

He mentioned actors which is a different thing. I was wondering if this was becoming a trend.
 
I just finished the demo.Here are my impressions (some spoilers):

It looks great visually even though the demo is a bit dark. It's during night time so obviously it should be dark but there were objects I could not see and avoid because I couldn't see a thing. Add to that a shaky camera during this section.

The acting seems great as well, I've had some lip synching problem though, for about ten-fifteen seconds, during a cutscene while Jodie was speaking, her lips weren't moving. Or maybe she was thinking out loud ?

The writing seems atrocious, and illogical (Jodie jumps off a moving train and lands in the forest in the middle of nowhere but the police track her down and chase her withing 5 to 10 seconds). This being said, I wasn't expecting a lot from the writing and I don't think anyone should.

Now the controls: what the fuck: most of the time it's boring because all you need to do is move the right analog stick in one direction but sometimes it's confusing and/or doesn't work well: ou must move the joystick in the direction Jodie is moving when she fights but sometimes it's hard to tell where the hit comes from: is it left, up or upper left ? (you can't use the upper left on the joystick I think). And so, you miss the target.
Aiden's controls are bit weird as well, I almost had to constantly press R1 (move up) because Aiden seems to go down automatically or something. Also you can take control of some people but then you are not really in control: you're in a quasi cutscene where you move the joystick to move the character. If said character finds a gun you're not able to shoot (a cutscene does that for you)
There are lots of QTE-like controls, think Heavy Rain: hold triangle while pressing R1 and tapping X or such.

I don't think the demo is enough to judge the game (it's very short) but it really didnt make me want to buy it.
 
Demo looks fantastic in some areas. The new fighting system can be confusing at times. I don't have great recognisable skills anymore. The controls are like HR but there's more of them.

In one part though I went straight for a solution to a problem and that option didn't show up till later. Have to play again to see if I just missed it. The story(well, what they show) looks to be ok but it doesn't really get into much. I must admit it may be an emotional experience to the player.

When controlling the other protaganist, it's more floaty to me than laggy. Sometimes I didn't know what to do. (I'm sure it's me though) The acting wasn't bad but it does look like the actors can only work with what they are given.

If you enjoyed HR no doubt you will enjoy BTS. For those on the fence if you want a potentially emotional storyline, give it a shot. I'll probably buy it. Now I have GTA V bundle PS3. Won't be a day one for me. The price will be $59.99 when I do buy it. Played HR twice, still have and liked it.

If you don't like greatly expanded Dragons Lair "type" gameplay it may not be for you.

What little I saw definately grabbed me. It's not for everyone as we all know.
 
how can anyone judge the writing when 90% of the demo is pure gameplay segments? seriously.

obviously the game is not going to be superhero jodie all the time. the goal is to not let her die, so of course aiden is going to help her no matter what.

aidden can't possess anyone anytime because that will be overpowered and will break gameplay.

Well, I was obviously judging the writing that was present in the demo... So... I can judge what was given to us. Seriously.

Yea, I know that.

And yea, the breaking of gameplay thing. Possession has been done before in many games. Successfully. Here, it's just sloppy and lazy design.
 
I think that I did have trouble interpreting the directions that they were indicating during fights, especially after a camera angle switch. There was a fight scene where they broke the 180° rule and it left me really confused....actually I think that poor camera work is what has left so many confused in the forest area. (Although, you can argue that it was intentionally confusing for immersion's sake)

Disregard immersion and "cinematicness", I think these unpredictable angle switches are crucial to keeping the combat at least somewhat interesting over the game's duration as they require you to stay attentive all the time.
 
holy fucking fuckballs, my brother did another playthrough of the demo...and at the beginning when young Jodie is walking around the playroom there's a small/toy guitar she can pick up (hoooly shit i just realized she plays guitar later in life/the game!)...and you have to use sixaxis to play it. My brother kinda bonked the motion and she played a different/broken tune compared to when I did the motion correctly and she played it nicely.


dat detail o_O
 
I think I am crazy enough to buy a console for TLoU, Ni no Kuni, Heavy Rain and this game.

There's 150 PS3 exclusives here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PlayStation_3_games

Based on what you'd mentioned I'd recommend:

Heavy Rain
TLoU
Beyond
MGS4
Ni no Kuni
Tales of
Valkyria chronicles

They seem like nice story games or RPG's which seem interesting based on the games you listed, theres of course big stuff like Uncharted, GoW, Killzone, infamous and LBP, though the ones i listed would be good fits.
 
Why doesn't Aiden help her fighting the dogs? Well, whatever...I was standing there, don't hit any button...and she still won that fight

So yeah, the game plays by itself.

In Heavy Rain characters could die, that's a difference.

That's a big lie. Jodie can't win the fight if you don't do anything. I tried my best and messed up a few QTEs and got punished by
being mauled by the dogs. So obviously you do have to win that QTEs fight.
So it's impossible for you not to just standing around not hitting the button and won that fight.

If you mess it up at this point like I did,
Aiden CAN actually possess the dog. It certainly gave me the option but because I was panicking, I failed this QTE as well.
 
I think I am crazy enough to buy a console for TLoU, Ni no Kuni, Heavy Rain and this game.

I just bought PS3 for the GTAV bundle, and got Tales of Xillia off amazon for $50 and last night bought the TLoU and Ni No Kuni off PSN and will probably get this and some other PSN titles too. All told I've spend like ~400 bucks total.
 
That's a big lie. Jodie can't win the fight if you don't do anything. I tried my best and messed up a few QTEs and got punished by
being mauled by the dogs. So obviously you do have to win that QTEs fight.
So it's impossible for you not to just standing around not hitting the button and won that fight.

If you mess it up at this point like I did,
Aiden CAN actually possess the dog. It certainly gave me the option but because I was panicking, I failed this QTE as well.

yeah my leg got bit and Jodie started limping, even all the way through the next sections of the demo. but my brother didn't fail that section and he was running fine. also, you can get caught in the woods, you end up in a swat van.
 
That's a big lie. Jodie can't win the fight if you don't do anything. I tried my best and messed up a few QTEs and got punished by
being mauled by the dogs. So obviously you do have to win that QTEs fight.
So it's impossible for you not to just standing around not hitting the button and won that fight.

If you mess it up at this point like I did,
Aiden CAN actually possess the dog. It certainly gave me the option but because I was panicking, I failed this QTE as well.

yeah my leg got bit and Jodie started limping, even all the way through the next sections of the demo. but my brother didn't fail that section and he was running fine. also, you can get caught in the woods, you end up in a swat van.

Hmm...that's strange. I did nothing and she won that fight.

edit: Yeah you end up in a swat van but the problem is that all you have to do is
Play as Aiden + take control over one soldier = win
 
Disregard immersion and "cinematicness", I think these unpredictable angle switches are crucial to keeping the combat at least somewhat interesting over the game's duration as they require you to stay attentive all the time.

You are probably correct. The erratic camera work does force you to pay attention. The fights were really exciting. I was on the edge of my seat during the action.
 
I played the game at a GAME Lockin event at my local GAME store (it's UK only gaffers) and I played through various different chapters (about 5+ levels), most of the levels were cut down but just enough to get used to the controls, etc.

I found that the controls are OK, it is a bit QTE at times (thankfully the game has the right analogue stick for combat QTE's), the only problem I had with the controls was the sixaxis motion stuff the demo unit didn't register most of my shaking.

The only problems I encountered were loading times, once it took 10 mins to load a section but afterwards it just streamed through. Also low polys and no AA was visible but framerate was solid.

The Section's I got to play were, Middle East Embassy mission, Interrogation 1, Jodie socialising with some kids as a teenager, meeting Willem Dafoe for the first time, CIA training, and the hunted section.

Unfortunately the Sony rep also had the endgame section on one of the dev units and pretty much ruined the entire game for me in 2 mins as he played through it, I won't spoil it but suffice to say it's pretty dumb :(

I enjoyed playing the game and will pick it up, the rep said there was over 14 different endings and that the game is pseudo open ended (it relied upon whether or not you abuse Aidens powers too much or you fuck up in general), but it is an enjoyable weekend game from my brief hour.
 
Oh my god, terrorizing the lady and the kid as the ghost was awesome

I can't believe Cage is fooling me into wanting one of his games again
 
What a fantastic demo. Game looks amazing, framerate is rock solid and the camerawork is crazy good. There were many times I was telling myself, there's no way I'm controlling this right now, and sure enough, I was. They truly blend the lines between cutscenes and gameplay, I really loved it.

Reading all of the things/scenarios that others experienced, I'm going to need to play through the demo more than a few times to discover them all.

So good.
 
yeah my leg got bit and Jodie started limping, even all the way through the next sections of the demo. but my brother didn't fail that section and he was running fine. also, you can get caught in the woods, you end up in a swat van.

Oh man, I really need to replay that section. It pissed me off that I lost against those dogs. Then I missed out the opportunity to use the 1st soldier and shoot the other people in the van. So I had to use the other soldier to steer the car off.
 
Oh man, I really need to replay that section. It pissed me off that I lost against those dogs. Then I missed out the opportunity to use the 1st soldier and shoot the other people in the van. So I had to use the other soldier to steer the car off.

you know you can get control of multiple soldiers in the area, its quite an elaborate scene. You can get more than one car to steer into a building and stuff.

also, anyone know if there are pre-order bonuses?
 
GameStop is the only place with any preorder things that I can find

BEYOND: Two Souls Special Edition
(GAMESTOP EXCLUSIVE)

Exclusive Steelbook Premium Packaging
Extensive Behind The Scenes Video Features
Soundtrack
Dynamic PS3 Theme
PSN Avatar Pack
GameStop exclusive 30-minute playable additional scene DLC
 
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