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[ViciousDS]

so I'm guessing its safe to assume there are only 5 endings total?

1 Death...I mean there are varients of the people on that side depending on who you saved. Shimshani and mother(she'll only be there as well if you choose to put her out of her misery.) were the only ones standing there last night because I saved Paul and Cole.

Life has a universal ending I'm assuming for the first half of it and then the second half of life is whichever of the 4 options of who to live with.


Which means that your decisions in this game just effect chapter length.

Only thing i could really see effecting the beyond ending is if you don't save cole....going to have to try that tonight and see what happens.

Sucks you have to play that whole black sun chapter just to see each ending......its an hour long (still really emotional and brings tears) but damn wish I could shorten it lol.

 

[DC1]

At Navajo, how far till I'm done?

Couple of hours post Navajo.

 

[MattKeil]

Just finished it. Main thoughts:

- The non-linear storytelling doesn't work. At all. It would have been a far more effective narrative to follow Jodie through her life as it unfolds. The ham-handed "I'm forgetting my memories so I'm writing them down" thing at the end just doesn't justify anything, and is a weak handwave to excuse the technique. Non-linear stories need to have a thematic or overwhelming narrative reason to be non-linear, and I don't think Beyond does to any real degree. In fact, the only real effect is to horrendously telegraph Dawkins' sudden psychotic motivation with the Haunting chapter.

- The Navajo chapter works pretty well, and is necessary to Jodie's development. It's where she realizes that she can exert power over the entities and is not helpless against the other world's incursions into the real world. For the first time since the Condenser she is able to really own that side of herself, and it's what gives her the confidence to deal with the Black Sun at the end. This would be clearer if the story was told in chronological order.

- The game seems to want me to think Ryan is The One for Jodie, but I don't see where the game shows you that in any real sense. The Dinner doesn't really sell it, and there's obvious romantic feelings already present in that scene that seem to come out of nowhere aside from the fact that he's pretty much the only young guy Jodie has regular contact with. It's not unbelievable, but it's also not very compelling in terms of making him a major life choice so many times through the last third of the game.

- Nice job showing the literal last shot of the game in the fucking TV commercial, Sony.

Overall, not bad, not great. It at least has different flaws than Heavy Rain did, and the performances are solid throughout. If Cage can bring himself to have a co-writer to clean up some of the narrative snags for one of his games, I think he'll end up with something really special.

As it stands, Beyond is another flawed experiment that rides entirely on the backs of Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe. I think it's progress, and interesting to see two games in one year whose primary strength is the performance of its lead characters (the other being The Last of Us), which is certainly not something that can be said of videogames as a medium in the past. For all the furor over game/non-game, I can't see Beyond as anything but a positive piece of work in terms of interactive entertainment.

 

[rockman zx]

So in "The Condenser" if you let the bad entities kick your ass as soon as possible, you get out of the building without closing the portal.

In the "Navajo" scenario, when you have to draw the ritual symbol in the ground, if you fail 3 times (pick anything but the right symbol), Shimasani dies inside the house, but if you perform the ritual right, she dies outside the house. No performing the ritual in the right way removes the graveyard scene at the end of the chapter.

The game didn't give me the chance to kiss Jay, but I don't know if is because I lie to him or because I failed the ritual.

 

[HeelPower]

Just finished it. Main thoughts:

- The non-linear storytelling doesn't work. At all. It would have been a far more effective narrative to follow Jodie through her life as it unfolds. The ham-handed "I'm forgetting my memories so I'm writing them down" thing at the end just doesn't justify anything, and is a weak handwave to excuse the technique. Non-linear stories need to have a thematic or overwhelming narrative reason to be non-linear, and I don't think Beyond does to any real degree. In fact, the only real effect is to horrendously telegraph Dawkins' sudden psychotic motivation with the Haunting chapter.

- The Navajo chapter works pretty well, and is necessary to Jodie's development. It's where she realizes that she can exert power over the entities and is not helpless against the other world's incursions into the real world. For the first time since the Condenser she is able to really own that side of herself, and it's what gives her the confidence to deal with the Black Sun at the end. This would be clearer if the story was told in chronological order.

- The game seems to want me to think Ryan is The One for Jodie, but I don't see where the game shows you that in any real sense. The Dinner doesn't really sell it, and there's obvious romantic feelings already present in that scene that seem to come out of nowhere aside from the fact that he's pretty much the only young guy Jodie has regular contact with. It's not unbelievable, but it's also not very compelling in terms of making him a major life choice so many times through the last third of the game.

- Nice job showing the literal last shot of the game in the fucking TV commercial, Sony.

Overall, not bad, not great. It at least has different flaws than Heavy Rain did, and the performances are solid throughout. If Cage can bring himself to have a co-writer to clean up some of the narrative snags for one of his games, I think he'll end up with something really special.

As it stands, Beyond is another flawed experiment that rides entirely on the backs of Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe. I think it's progress, and interesting to see two games in one year whose primary strength is the performance of its lead characters (the other being The Last of Us), which is certainly not something that can be said of videogames as a medium in the past. For all the furor over game/non-game, I can't see Beyond as anything but a positive piece of work in terms of interactive entertainment.

I feel that without Ellen page and Dafoe it would be difficult if not impossible to enjoy this.
The game has too many bombastic action sequences that are NOT suite to the type of game it is.

There is considerably less of what I want from a Cage game: personal interactions and choices.And I suppose that's because jodie is such an isolated person that they only showed key moments of her life.

I agree completely about the jumbled mess that's the order of narration cage chose to go with.Adds nothing to the experience whatsoever.It merely breaks up the pacing so bad.

I think he couldn't find a way to tie the story in a chronological order ,and it made his work suffer in the end.

Overall Heavy Rain was much better.

 

[The Smoking Bun]

I feel that without Ellen page and Dafoe it would be difficult if not impossible to enjoy this.
The game has too many bombastic action sequences that are NOT suite to the type of game it is.

There is considerably less of what I want from a Cage game: personal interactions and choices.And I suppose that's because jodie is such an isolated person that they only showed key moments of her life.

I agree completely about the jumbled mess that's the order of narration cage chose to go with.Adds nothing to the experience whatsoever.It merely breaks up the pacing so bad.

I think he couldn't find a way to tie the story in a chronological order ,and it made his work suffer in the end.

Overall Heavy Rain was much better.

Very good point. The following is especially ostentatious:

CIA Training: Jason Bourne
Traiun Escape: Carrie
The Condenser: Resident Evil
Homeless: Oscar Bait Drama

Rather schizophrenic tone honestly. Pick one. The entire game plays like Jodie is going, "This one time... I did this thing..." What's the arc here?

 

[Treechopper]

*responses*

While I'm willing to accept some of your answers (and would like to debate others!) the point I was trying to make was that those moments seem unbelievable. They may have an answer but those answers didn't come naturally through the story because of a lack of proper foreshadowing, solid hints or too much discontinuity. Navajo is unbelievable to me because Jodie is on the run and I can't imagine that she went without incident from where she was to where she ended up. Maybe she did but seeing as how we're asked to believe that she's barely one step ahead of the CIA in the last chapter it creates a very jarring contrast for me. (Attempted to verify timeline but I'm on mobile and I can't find any results)

 

[ComputerMKII]

I've just finished the game for the second time. Chose the Beyond ending. It's not as good as I expected. It's kind of sad and dull.

 

[Wozman23]

Despite my best efforts to be helpful, truthful, and optimistic, almost everyone I loved died. Norah, Nathan, Ryan, half the Navajos... all dead. And now I choose to forge ahead alone.

 

[Setsuna]

I agree completely about the jumbled mess that's the order of narration cage chose to go with.Adds nothing to the experience whatsoever.It merely breaks up the pacing so bad.

I think he couldn't find a way to tie the story in a chronological order ,and it made his work suffer in the end.

chapters have links within each one referencing either an earlier chapter or a later chapter in the capabilities of what Jodie can do and why she can do it

Ie. putting the chapter of child jodie being a vessel for dead spirits to communicate to the living right before jodie does the same thing in a chapter set years later it solves the problems of a player remembering an events that happened very early on in the play through as well as it just coming up randomly later on

Another one is having child Jodie experiencing being attack by monsters in her room while being taken care of by norman and cole before skipping forward to her teenage years of her experiences in the same room

 

[Jinjo]

Just finished the game. Picked Ryan, really liked the ending, but then the game almost pulls a Mass Effect 3 and throws in an extra, but unnecessary dumb scene in the future (I presume) where you are off to save the world again? Died twice already, what? It ruined the moment.

 

[HeelPower]

Very good point. The following is especially ostentatious:

CIA Training: Jason Bourne
Traiun Escape: Carrie
The Condenser: Resident Evil
Homeless: Oscar Bait Drama

Rather schizophrenic tone honestly. Pick one. The entire game plays like Jodie is going, "This one time... I did this thing..." What's the arc here?

In addition to the whole chapter in africa, then the one in kazirstan...just so many unnecessary action sequences thrown about.They are so drawn out and totally undermine cage's gaming method(QTEs)

I think cage maybe fell into the trap of trying too hard to seduce the teen-action obsessed gamer.

The quieter, more personal interactions are his speciality ,but they were too far and few between in this game.

Also, I thought heavy rain was a lot more gripping and caught my attention so many times.4 unique , fairly well developed characters in a crazy murder mystery that you thinking till the very end.

 

[Gskyace]

What's the meaning of the ending?
True fighter of the soul, just don't get it.
Why has she died twice?

 

[BearPawB]

I liked indigo prophecy and heavy rain, but this one had me worried.

So instead of purchasing, I redboxed it last night, beat it this morning.
So for what i paid for it i loved it.

Story: I guess i liked the premise more then the "story". A bunch of good/interesting ideas, but felt forced for one person to live all of those experiences.

I chose to go with Zoey and happy I did, that ending was by far my favorite. The fact that you can end up with the native american man felt bizarre, given that he is in the game so little.

I too wish choice mattered more. There are a lot of "experiences" you don't get if you do things wrong, but none are game altering in any significant way. I didn't get to have sex/military man now has an eyepatch.

Gameplay: Way too simple. I liked how difficult heavy rain could be, the sequences were complex. There are very few variations on what you need to do, especially as aiden.


Overall i liked it a lot, but it is for a very certain gamer. A person who likes slice of life elements to their story. A person who likes supernatural stuff. And a person who doesn't mind very little game in their game.

But then again, I paid like $4 to play the game. For $60 i might have felt differently, hard to say now. Definitely not a game i want/need to replay in the slightest. But it was one i felt i needed to finish, which is more than I can say for GTAV.

Just finished the game. Picked Ryan, really liked the ending, but then the game almost pulls a Mass Effect 3 and throws in an extra, but unnecessary dumb scene in the future (I presume) where you are off to save the world again? Died twice already, what? It ruined the moment.

To be fair it wasn't quite out of nowhere...that was hinted at earlier in the game



Also in regards to narration order, It was fine until it got close to the end. Too much action in one place. Also some sequences went on far too long...I would have preferred more short sections

 

[Aurongel]

Finally beat this, what a giant disconnected mess of a game. The "ending" I got lacked both satisfaction and common sense. Dafoe's character ends up becoming the villain from every JRPG towards the end with the whole "destroying the world to bring back your dead lover" angle. I really can't understate just how lousy and obvious the entire script is. Major props to Page and Dafoe for maintaining some pretty strong performances during the end where the script just abandons ALL common sense to crank up the drama.

Quantic Dream either needs to axe David Cage as the writer/director or give him a script consultant because he really is the weakest part of the entire production at this point.

 

[ViciousDS]

Finally beat this, what a giant disconnected mess of a game. The "ending" I got lacked both satisfaction and common sense. Dafoe's character ends up becoming the villain from every JRPG towards the end with the whole "destroying the world to bring back your dead lover" angle. I really can't understate just how lousy and obvious the entire script is. Major props to Page and Dafoe for maintaining some pretty strong performances during the end where the script just abandons ALL common sense to crank up the drama.

Quantic Dream either needs to axe David Cage as the writer/director or give him a script consultant because he really is the weakest part of the entire production at this point.

for script consulting...........get the guy who wrote inception.......now that dude can find some shit wrong with scripts.....

 

[mattiewheels]

I chose the homeless people ending, but did I miss the part where they all got money? I must've drifted off at the end of their sequence...

 

[ViciousDS]

I chose the homeless people ending, but did I miss the part where they all got money? I must've drifted off at the end of their sequence...

most likely some form of help form the government because of her having the child......something like that.

 

[statham]

Just finished it and quite enjoyed it, will probably youtube the different endings. quick question, because my baby yapping during this scene, but is Aiden my twin brother?

 

[AltanUrag]

@ bishopcruz: THIS! aaaaaannd:

so I only watched it on Youtube so I guess I'm not qualified to give feedback concerning the gameplay mechanics etcetc..... and I think some things weren't as intense as they could MAYBE have been since I was only watching [but then..... I was all invested in TLOU (yeaa sorry for comparing it) just by WATCHING it]

My personal rating? 4/10

I'm really bad at writing stuff down, well let's try anyways
(inb4 long ass rant with awful english etc)

The plot was so cliched bad it really HURT sometimes.
geez.... some stuff...

Jodie helps those homeless people asap, helps giving birth to a child and rescues everyone from a frigging fire (+ some secondhand embarassing guitar playing).

She also wants to date a guy who was a super jerk in the scene 5 seconds ago.
We have SO MANY SCENES, why not show why this guy is boyfriend material?
(I hate how they wanted the player to get together with him.... give him more character than that)

Then she also meets a frigging child soldier in Africa, right before she murders the elected president she asks herself if she could kill him (after she murdered tons of other people) and OF COURSE it's the child's father.

The native american thing.... oh boy.... how RANDOM was this whole thing. I feel stupid for not seeing any character development AT ALL.

Bully birthday party felt awfully forced, the misunderstood gothic teeny part was horrendously bad. Nathan "plottwist" was facepalm-worthy and came out of nowhere.

and for me the worst thing: I never felt any real (ok.... I'm gonna say it) real emotional bond between Jodie and Aiden which sucks so hard. There should have been more scenes like the shadow elephant thing in order depict their relationship. It felt very one sided... like Jodie never gave anything back?
Jodie either asks for help or is mad at Aiden - wth. 2-3 more little scenes were they had FUN together...
Of course we see Jodie crying when she 'lost' Aiden but it really did nothing for me.
We are SUPPOSED to feel bad for her.... but he didn't give me any reason.

There are MANY parts where just SMALL adjustment would have made everything so much better and believable.
Everything was so obviously planned out with ZERO depth. It felt like Cage had a checklist with small notes.. like.... FATHER HATES JODIE and it is done in the most uninspired and lazy way.

geez.

ok maybe one or two things @ gameplay:
I wasn't even playing but it ANNOYED me so much how everything was IN YOUR FACE... if not Jodie was informing you on what you were supposed to do there sure was another guy TELLING YOU EVERY GODDAMN TIME.
and I wish there would have been more riddles but maybe that wouldn't have fit in Cage's 'movie vision' flow.

oh and we have THREE evil guys at the las third who can't keep their mouth shut and talk WAY too much (evil chinese guy, evil army guy, 180° nathan)
(ahh there is so much more which screams PLOTHOLE... the whole entity stuff etc)

that all said... shockingly I was ok with the endings. After all the crap that happened before, they were quite good in comparison.
Liked the homeless or alone ending the most.

Stuff that I also liked: uhhh... the underwater ghost thing at least looked cool and I liked how Aiden showed Cole and Ryan the way to rescue Jodie... some calm moments in the desert....
I guess.... that's it.


I didn't think Heavy Rain was a masterpiece but Beyond has some lazy ass writing (with some of the worst dialogue writing I've ever witnessed) which is supposed to look epic and awesome.
aand in addition: man sometimes the graphics were super ugly. There were this super polygon emotion faces clashing with some clunky animations, oh boy oh boy.

oh PS: I'm really genuinely happy for those who enjoyed the game and replaying it etc. I just isn't that good for me but I wish it would have been!

 

[rockman zx]

Got the bad ending.

Spoiler

In "Black Sun", when you are walking toward the black sun, after Nathan kills himself, Jodie will be attacked by this black snake-like spirit, don't touch the pad and you will get the bad ending. No thropy unlocked for this ending.

I remember seeing a scene with Ryan and Jodie kissing inside an aircraft, how do yo get that scene?.

 

[Setsuna]

She also wants to date a guy who was a super jerk in the scene 5 seconds ago.
We have SO MANY SCENES, why not show why this guy is boyfriend material?
(I hate how they wanted the player to get together with him.... give him more character than that)

game isnt pushing them together if anything hes pushing himself on jodie you can tottaly deny him though which is the point also the scene before the one where ryan comes over happens 3 years earlier

if anything the game fails to show why he wants jodie so much even after being repeatedly rejected

 

[ComputerMKII]

In my second playthough I tried seeing if missing QTEs really had no consequence. So, when I had to leave the submarine and swim to the surface, I didn't push X.

Jodie fell unconscious and Ryan saved her with mouth-to-mouth ressucitation but she didn't immediately wake up. As a result, I wasn't able to tell Ryan whether or not I forgave him for Somalia or whether I loved him.

 

[rockman zx]

As a result, I wasn't able to tell Ryan whether or not I forgave him for Somalia or whether I loved him.

I think that is not relevant because in Black Sun you can say that you want to be with him and all is good.

I really don't get how this game can have 23 ending/small pieces.

 

[Setsuna]

I think that is not relevant because in Black Sun you can say that you want to be with him and all is good.

I really don't get how this game can have 23 ending/small pieces.

it has 5 or 6 unique endings and those 5 or 6 endings can change depending on who lives and dies

 

[Felsparrow]

Despite all this, you know what annoyed me the most?

The butchering of how Navajo culture is portrayed.

Putting them in teepees in the flashback sequence when even in the normal life they showed hogans.

The burial ritual? Navajo actually have some pretty distinct rituals that would have been nice. Maybe not quite modern day, but they're pretty specific about not agonizing over the dead so that you help them move on faster. Also not visiting the body was a part of it.

All they had to do was a web search, but not even that.

As for the overall game, I actually think Heavy Rain had more interesting scenarios, even if Heavy Rain also had more flaws. Nowhere was the kind of intense sequence where you're trying to

Spoiler

remember the clothes your kidnapped child was wearing, or trying to frantically remember everything you touched in a place to wipe down before the police arrive.

Such things felt more like actual gameplay that meshed well with the cinematic presentation.

 

[WrenchNinja]

game isnt pushing them together if anything hes pushing himself on jodie you can tottaly deny him though which is the point also the scene before the one where ryan comes over happens 3 years earlier

if anything the game fails to show why he wants jodie so much even after being repeatedly rejected

Duh, she's Ellen Page

 

[ComputerMKII]

Duh, she's Ellen Page

I can't think of any better explanation.

 

[anddo0]

He always gets injured, but you have to go into his room and heal him with Aiden before the talk with grandma before the spirit ritual. I wasn't aware he could live at first either(I don't think by this point in the game they had even made it known that Aiden could heal people), but then I replayed it and tried it and it worked. You can also let Cole live or die in the final chapter.

Didn't know. I'll make sure to save him on my second playthrough.

I choose Life/Ryan.. But everyone is raving about the Zoey ending. So that will be my pick next playthrough.

 

[Mononoke]

Just beat the Homeless part. Simply incredible. Isn't this game almost already over?

 

[Callibretto]

Well, after just having finished it a couple of hours ago, it's in some ways better than HR, and Fahrenheit, and in some ways worse.

Cage is probably one of the most frustrating designers out there. In each of his games he reaches for the stars, and in each of his games he comes crashing to the earth, HARD.

I think the thing is, he is actually GREAT at his gaming cinematography, and he is also really good at setting a mood, and he can even get some real emotion out of me at times. Particular chapters of this game are paced beautifully, the acting from Paige and Defoe was quite good, sometimes even amazing, and he is one of the masters of inserting quiet moments into a narrative gaming experience.

He just can't write his way out of a paper bag. He has passion, he has heart, he has a technical knowledge of how to frame a scene, make it interactive, and make me care. But he just can't escape horrible horrible cliche's. I feel like I am watching an amazing gymnast pull off the best series of flips I have ever seen only to shatter their femur on the landing.

Some examples:

-The party scene. It started off great, with a girl who is awkward from lack of social interaction trying to fit in. It then just goes into the absolutely silly with over the top villain kids who exists only to have her get a one up on them carrie style, or leave, crying. Either one of those two scenarios has been done to death, and because the game ties itself to film and TV so much, I couldn't stop myself from feeling that it was done better elsewhere. It felt just plain obvious.

-The bar scene. HOO BOY! While the freak outs, and the escape weren't bad. The second I entered the bar I knew exactly where the scene was going, and lingered in the vain hope that the clearly obvious rapists, weren't. The scene felt so forced it was almost laughable.

-The cliche minority usage. Yowza. Ok so we have the African nation of notrealia, the central asian nation of notrealistan, and the Navajo. Each one of these is so damned on the nose in its portrayal that it feels like someone got all of their knowledge about these cultures from the movies. The Navajo sequence was one of the best paced chapters in the game on my initial playthrough, but even it couldn't escape the pungent aroma of cheese. I am rarely one to talk about something feeling exploitive, but these did. Hell only worse example I can think of is in Fahrenheit when you have the black partner who was possibly the most stereotypical character this side of Punch-Out.

-The heavy sci-fi. It's ironic that Cage never quite seems to know how much is enough when it comes to sci-fi/supernatural. Both this and Fahrenheit had the issue of TOO much sci-fi while Heavy Rain's plot got ruined by its removal. Suspension of disbelief was hurt early on by just how big the DPA was, big enough that it had an entire TOWN devoted to it. But by the end, holy crap, that facility was ridiculous.

-The cliche majority usage. Yeah, the US government is evil, as are white dudes. WHEE! We send psychic agents to kill democratically elected presidents, we rip holes in reality for shits and giggles, we will eventually be responsible for the apocalypse. And if you are a white guy, you are either a company yes man, a asshole teenager, a bum-killing douchebag, a crazed scientist, an abusive father, or a hick rapist. Unless you are homeless. Then you're good.

-The need to be EPIC. Last one I will touch on is the same issue that Fahrenheit had at the end. This is a personal story, or at least it tries to be. The story didn't need to be about averting an apocalypse. AT ALL. But as the stakes kept getting increased it turned from Jodie running from the law, to Jodie saving the world. Eventually we know she will have to do it again, in a post apocalyptic setting. My question is why is this necessary? The scope felt forced, we care about Jodie already, we don't need to see her save the world.

Still, I did enjoy the game overall. And I still pray that one day we will get a mix of Cage's directing and scene setting, with Telltale or ND's writing. I'll keep playing QD's stuff to see their evolution, and one day, maybe they will finally get the story to work.

pretty much my feeling about David Cage, he's really genius when he direct the playable scene to pull emotions out of you, and it's not a one trick pony either, he come up with various cool gimmick in Heavy Rain and Beyond for that, even simple stuff like dialog option shaking like crazy so you have hard time reading what button correspond to which option, or turning the qte prompt upside down when you're inside a flipped car etc. but he really have problem writing dialog and making story flow from one scene to another smoothly and believably.

that said, I'll still buy David Cage game because I like those glimpse of brilliance he come up with. and he said he's working with another writer for his next game, so hopefully the other writer can fix Cage's flaws.

 

[ViciousDS]

I can't think of any better explanation.

neither can I.....shit I would never give up on Jodie/Ellen.


♥Ellen Page

 

[Setsuna]

Just beat the Homeless part. Simply incredible. Isn't this game almost already over?

homeless part is like the halfway point i think or a little before half

 

[Kaldea]

I must be the only one who feels like I've seen enough of Ellen Page's face for ten lifetimes. I had zero opinion of her either way before this and now I'm kind of sick of her. Might be because I started and finished the game all in one session and it was a bit much for me in the end.

It was an okay game though. Mixed feelings in a lot of areas but I liked the general idea of it. I just don't feel it was as good as Heavy Rain.

 

[Mononoke]

homeless part is like the halfway point i think or a little before half

Oh okay. Well I can't wait to beat the rest of the game today. Will probably do so in one sitting. I'm really loving this experience. I'm still blown away by how this game looks and feels. I said it before, and I'll say it again. THIS is what I expected out of Next Gen titles. Of course, this game is also heavily scripted, so I understand why other genres this gen weren't able to get up to this level of graphics/cinematics. But this is why I'm so excited for the next gen. Imagine other genres with this kind of graphics/cinematics.

And honestly, I'm shocked this is 720p. I'm someone that always ragged on it, but damn.

 

[nOoblet16]

Just done with Navajo and that was a totally random, corny and out of place chapter.

 

[boosh5]

Did anyone else see that green woman/ghost/whatever in the garage when you had to get the oil for Jodie's mom? I kept expecting it to do something and it never did as far as I could tell.

 

[chrominance]

Just finished it. I feel like this is the gaming equivalent of Panic Room--sure, you'll poke all sorts of holes in the plot the second you step out of the theatre, but for the two hours you're actually watching the movie, you're in it. Deep.

David Cage takes a lot of shortcuts as a writer; his intentions are usually quite obvious. The birthday party is to show you that teenagers are dicks and Jodie will never be accepted as normal, which Cage does by literally having everyone turn on Jodie at once like crazy people. The mission debrief is to show the CIA can't be trusted and that Jodie is talented but naive, which Cage does by having a news report on TV tell Jodie what should be obvious to anyone who pays attention to world news, let alone a CIA operative in the Middle East. The homeless section is to show Jodie's resilience and capacity for empathy, which Cage does by literally turning her into a saint (the word "miracle" gets thrown about a lot). And so on and so forth. It's fine for him to have all these ideas he wants to express through the story, but by resorting to cliche so often, the underlying machinery of the story is laid bare. There's little in the way of artfulness about the plot.

That said, I really liked this game. Beyond: Two Souls is very character driven, which feels unusual to me in the video game world--it's not a story about Jodie having to do anything in particular like save the world, find treasure or survive the apocalypse. It's a story about Jodie and Aiden trying to find their way. Not every chapter advances the plot--the childhood sections, the party and the date stand out as obvious instances--but every chapter informs Jodie and Aiden's characters.

Contrary to most of the people in this thread, I liked The Mission. Because the game mechanics are so unorthodox, I started that chapter very tense because I literally had no idea what to do. I sort of had to feel my way through the first bit of that chapter up to the hotel. I also found it interesting that the game presents you with a child soldier--again, not something many games ever bother to depict. Sure, Cage does his usual heavy-handed "war is destroying our children" and "U.S. realpolitik turns friends into allies" schtick, but even that stuff is more nuanced than any Call of Duty plot. Also, I think the game's QTE-style mechanics held up surprisingly well in an action context--far less about quick reflexes and more about careful tactical planning. I wish those sections were less obviously on rails (ex. if you have a group of soldiers and one of them is orange, you know exactly what you're supposed to do) but that would probably be stretching the mechanics too far.

The date scene. I thought it was interesting that some people felt uncomfortable about playing the role of a woman in a sexually charged encounter (which I think was at least partially intentional). Picking out clothes to wear for the date was oddly memorable, even though it was mundane and somewhat cliche, just because I could sympathize with Jodie's state of mind: what's he going to like? am I overdressed for this? shit, what is he expecting from this date anyways? what if I choose wrong, can I play this off as if it were nothing? (Funny, then, that I got the Perfect Lover trophy after agonizing so much over what to wear and what to make for dinner.) I liked the people who used Aiden to fuck up her date with Ryan because fuck Ryan, but I did the exact opposite: besides a tiny bit of tinkering with the phone, I left the two of them alone because I wanted to give Jodie a chance to be happy. Which is strange to me, because while you're playing as Jodie, the game definitely tries to convince you that Aiden would act like a dick, so I felt like I was almost (but only almost) out of character when I let her have her nice dinner date.

That's something else I really liked, too--throughout the game I would make decisions based almost on gut feeling, and then justify them later as part of the Jodie and Aiden I saw in my head. So Jodie kissed every guy she could because Jodie felt like someone who needed love and companionship and so rarely got it. Jodie could never bring herself to commit suicide because she couldn't bring herself to do it. Aiden doesn't mess up Jodie's date because, at the end of the day, Aiden does care about Jodie's happiness and wants to trust her. And so on and so forth. The Mass Effect series gave me this sense too, but Shepard is such a blank slate that you can essentially impose whatever morals and personality you want on him/her--you're literally able to conjure up whatever character you want. Jodie is clearly not that; she has a well defined character, and there's a tension between doing what you want and doing what you think is "right" for Jodie's personality, but even inside those confines you can carve out your own personal take on who she is as a person.

One day, someone will make a much better Beyond: Two Souls than David Cage has, but I don't begrudge Cage at all for making the game we have today. I hope one day he manages to perfect his peculiar formula, and in the meantime I look forward to his next game.

 

[nOoblet16]

Just finished it. I feel like this is the gaming equivalent of Panic Room--sure, you'll poke all sorts of holes in the plot the second you step out of the theatre, but for the two hours you're actually watching the movie, you're in it. Deep.

David Cage takes a lot of shortcuts as a writer; his intentions are usually quite obvious. The birthday party is to show you that teenagers are dicks and Jodie will never be accepted as normal, which Cage does by literally having everyone turn on Jodie at once like crazy people. The mission debrief is to show the CIA can't be trusted and that Jodie is talented but naive, which Cage does by having a news report on TV tell Jodie what should be obvious to anyone who pays attention to world news, let alone a CIA operative in the Middle East. The homeless section is to show Jodie's resilience and capacity for empathy, which Cage does by literally turning her into a saint (the word "miracle" gets thrown about a lot). And so on and so forth. It's fine for him to have all these ideas he wants to express through the story, but by resorting to cliche so often, the underlying machinery of the story is laid bare. There's little in the way of artfulness about the plot.

That said, I really liked this game. Beyond: Two Souls is very character driven, which feels unusual to me in the video game world--it's not a story about Jodie having to do anything in particular like save the world, find treasure or survive the apocalypse. It's a story about Jodie and Aiden trying to find their way. Not every chapter advances the plot--the childhood sections, the party and the date stand out as obvious instances--but every chapter informs Jodie and Aiden's characters.

Contrary to most of the people in this thread, I liked The Mission. Because the game mechanics are so unorthodox, I started that chapter very tense because I literally had no idea what to do. I sort of had to feel my way through the first bit of that chapter up to the hotel. I also found it interesting that the game presents you with a child soldier--again, not something many games ever bother to depict. Sure, Cage does his usual heavy-handed "war is destroying our children" and "U.S. realpolitik turns friends into allies" schtick, but even that stuff is more nuanced than any Call of Duty plot. Also, I think the game's QTE-style mechanics held up surprisingly well in an action context--far less about quick reflexes and more about careful tactical planning. I wish those sections were less obviously on rails (ex. if you have a group of soldiers and one of them is orange, you know exactly what you're supposed to do) but that would probably be stretching the mechanics too far.

The date scene. I thought it was interesting that some people felt uncomfortable about playing the role of a woman in a sexually charged encounter (which I think was at least partially intentional). Picking out clothes to wear for the date was oddly memorable, even though it was mundane and somewhat cliche, just because I could sympathize with Jodie's state of mind: what's he going to like? am I overdressed for this? shit, what is he expecting from this date anyways? what if I choose wrong, can I play this off as if it were nothing? (Funny, then, that I got the Perfect Lover trophy after agonizing so much over what to wear and what to make for dinner.) I liked the people who used Aiden to fuck up her date with Ryan because fuck Ryan, but I did the exact opposite: besides a tiny bit of tinkering with the phone, I left the two of them alone because I wanted to give Jodie a chance to be happy. Which is strange to me, because while you're playing as Jodie, the game definitely tries to convince you that Aiden would act like a dick, so I felt like I was almost (but only almost) out of character when I let her have her nice dinner date.

That's something else I really liked, too--throughout the game I would make decisions based almost on gut feeling, and then justify them later as part of the Jodie and Aiden I saw in my head. So Jodie kissed every guy she could because Jodie felt like someone who needed love and companionship and so rarely got it. Jodie could never bring herself to commit suicide because she couldn't bring herself to do it. Aiden doesn't mess up Jodie's date because, at the end of the day, Aiden does care about Jodie's happiness and wants to trust her. And so on and so forth. The Mass Effect series gave me this sense too, but Shepard is such a blank slate that you can essentially impose whatever morals and personality you want on him/her--you're literally able to conjure up whatever character you want. Jodie is clearly not that; she has a well defined character, and there's a tension between doing what you want and doing what you think is "right" for Jodie's personality, but even inside those confines you can carve out your own personal take on who she is as a person.

One day, someone will make a much better Beyond: Two Souls than David Cage has, but I don't begrudge Cage at all for making the game we have today. I hope one day he manages to perfect his peculiar formula, and in the meantime I look forward to his next game.

This man knows what's up. Eventhough I haven't finished the game I can see what he was trying to do, I can see what he wanted by having a non linear storyline...only problem being it doesn't work that well and is beneficial to the storytelling only in certain areas.

Also I liked The Mission, for once it was nice to have good control over you character.

 

[Achtius]

Holy crap. I didn't realize there were so many choices that could affect the ending.

Didn't know you can save paul and cole. Ryan is blinded in my game. Didn't know you can not screw up the date scene.

 

[dragonbane]

I've just finished the game for the second time. Chose the Beyond ending. It's not as good as I expected. It's kind of sad and dull.

Yeah Life it is. You go to the Infraworld anyway if you die, so what's the point? She went through all this shit, she better gets another chance to live a normal life. I thought about it for like 15 minutes. Weird how such a simple game choice can be this difficult. But Life was ultimately the right choice for me.

Just finished the game. Picked Ryan, really liked the ending, but then the game almost pulls a Mass Effect 3 and throws in an extra, but unnecessary dumb scene in the future (I presume) where you are off to save the world again? Died twice already, what? It ruined the moment.

Not the future, it's what she dreams the future might look like. Probably when the Pentagon builds another Condenser.

I chose the homeless people ending, but did I miss the part where they all got money? I must've drifted off at the end of their sequence...

In the hospital there are flashbacks explaining how Stan started to lead a normal life again.

Finally beat this, what a giant disconnected mess of a game. The "ending" I got lacked both satisfaction and common sense. Dafoe's character ends up becoming the villain from every JRPG towards the end with the whole "destroying the world to bring back your dead lover" angle. I really can't understate just how lousy and obvious the entire script is. Major props to Page and Dafoe for maintaining some pretty strong performances during the end where the script just abandons ALL common sense to crank up the drama.

Quantic Dream either needs to axe David Cage as the writer/director or give him a script consultant because he really is the weakest part of the entire production at this point.

It makes perfect sense for his character. It's a bit shitty that a lot of it happens off-screen though when Jodie gets to the CIA. In this scene he even gives her only objects that are related to his family, because he wants her to talk about them again. This is also the part where he gets promoted and starts getting obsessed with the idea of bringing his daughter and wife back. He thinks he is doing the world a favour so to speak. I didn't think of him as a villain at all, till the final second I felt pretty sad for him. He lost his daughter twice (Jodie too) and his wife.

 

[Loakum]

How do you have sex with Ryan? I've tried everything so I hope it isn't tied to a choice I made earlier in the game.

Spoiler

in the part when you play as goth Jodie (who wants to go out to a bar with her friends) get caught by not speaking when aden possesses that dude (who always call Jodie "little princess") that will prevent her from going to that bar (where she almost gets raped). Now when you get to Jodie apartment part, DON'T have aden knocking stuff down, instead, just have him watch. Doing this Ryan will end up sleeping with Jodie.

 

[ReturnOfTheRAT]

I'm going to quote Trainspotting when I say, "Choose life." That's what I did. I was a taken aback by the choices in the cabin and ultimately decided to go with the Zoey because they all seemed like genuine people regardless of the living situation when we first meet that. I'm more than happy with that ending since it seems like an impending apocalypse is on the horizon and two baddass female leads are better than one.

Now I've got some reading to do on the rest of what people have been saying in here.

 

[shem935]

I just finished the game. And wow that is quite an ending.

Regarding the story and the fact that everyone is saying it is ridiculous and way too out there and "Why does the CIA want to invade ghost land?"

What were you expecting? Honestly I don't know. The game was pitched as a character driven story where a girl was tethered to a ghost. The game is well with in the bounds of reason it sets up when it pulls these supernatural twists. Anyone coming in expecting a completely grounded story in which everything made scientific sense and was therefore disappointed by how crazy the story got was setting themselves up for disappointment.

The story is a backdrop for the theme running through the story which I interpreted to be loss and how different people deal with it.

Jodie buried the losses she experienced within herself and chose to runaway from her problems for her entire life. This changes in the Navajo section when she ultimately decides to face her past with renewed confidence in aiden and herself. My Jodie chose Life which I interpreted to mean her choosing to finally let go of all the people she had lost. Her family, the navajo's who died, her biological mother (whom i killed out of mercy). She (I) left all of these people at peace and chose to try to live a life in pursuit of happiness and love (ryan).

This is in direct contrast to Nathan who, instead of burying his problems, let them fester and eat at him for years. He obsessed over Jodie, not because he cared about her, but because through her he saw his daughter and wife living again. He went so far as to drag his wife and child back from beyond (in a sense tethering them to him) and in the process torturing them. My nathan eventually killed himself and found his family who he had been desperately searching for.

Addressing the fractured narrative. It is confusing at times and sometimes even frustrating. However it does serve a tangible purpose which is to obfuscate the reasons and motivations of nathan, and compare and contrast key moments of jodies life. Also and probably the biggest factor of the reasons for the fractured narrative is to disperse action scenes through out the game. If it had not been done action would be heavily one sided towards the end of the game.

Just my thoughts

 

[Felsparrow]

Spoiler

in the part when you play as goth Jodie (who wants to go out to a bar with her friends) get caught by not speaking when aden possesses that dude (who always call Jodie "little princess") that will prevent her from going to that bar (where she almost gets raped). Now when you get to Jodie apartment part, DON'T have aden knocking stuff down, instead, just have him watch. Doing this Ryan will end up sleeping with Jodie.

Spoiler

You can also just leave that bar before anything untimely happens.

 

[dragonbane]

I just finished the game. And wow that is quite an ending.

Regarding the story and the fact that everyone is saying it is ridiculous and way too out there and "Why does the CIA want to invade ghost land?"

This was never even said. "A new world for us to conquer" doesn't mean they want to invade the Infraworld. He is holding a speech, so he is obviously making everything sound more awesome than it is. From everything he and Cole said we can deduct that they simply want to let the Infraworld spread inside the dome (where it can be controlled), study it and eventually find a way to link entities to human soldiers. Find ways to use it against the enemy. And since they are the only ones with access to it they are "conquering" it. Never once was it implied they would send soldiers in there to somehow take over the other world or something like that lol

 

[K.Sabot]

Finished it in a very long single segment on a (now gone) day off.

Cole is the best. THE BEST

I chose to be alone in the end, seemed fitting that it would return to Aidan and Jodie like it started.

If only they gave me a "be cole's next door neighbor" end.

Also I fucking hate Ryan and how he's pushed to be some sort of love interest, dude's a scumbag who goes through multiple redemption attempts and then he turns around and pulls his "leave him behind" attitude for the 45th time. What a terrible character, looks nice with one less eye.

 

[Keihart]

Flawed game, but a fantastic one anyhow.

I might be jumping conclusions here , but the ending reminds me of stalker, and the whole problem with memories and the option to choose your happie ending followed by the future escene, makes me think that theres more to the story then what it's told.
I think the end its some kind of illusion perhaps, kinda of a fake happy ending.
Weird , gotta play it more and find all the pieces.

Edit: Also , remember the begining? she had short hair and the effect around her it's just like the one on her mother.
Maybe she never scaped with Aiden and Ryan's help? IDK, there seems to be some hidden truth behind all the nonsense. BELIEVE!

 

[hornetpie]

Wait, the boy in the party scene is Ryan CIA guy?

MIND BLOWN WTF i didnt realise that :O

anyone know what happens if you blab to the army colonel under the sea before ryan is hacked up?

also cage is not a fan of US foreign policy clearly. I felt the child soldier scene was amazing and the end where you kill his dad is shocking to say the least, and the kid turns on you. Very much i think a commentary on world events.

 

[Necrovex]

Wait, the boy in the party scene is Ryan CIA guy?

MIND BLOWN WTF i didnt realise that :O

anyone know what happens if you blab to the army colonel under the sea before ryan is hacked up?

also cage is not a fan of US foreign policy clearly. I felt the child soldier scene was amazing and the end where you kill his dad is shocking to say the least, and the kid turns on you. Very much i think a commentary on world events.

WHAT?! Now when I do my replay, I'm going to be so god damn cruel to him.