Beyond Two Souls (PS3)

[Winnow]

This game boils down to: Look for a blue dot and click the button you're prompted to click.

Jodie (Ellen Page) has visions from the past from dead people. "I see dead people!"

Graphics (especially the people, look very good. The animations are well done (walking, crawling, etc) They tried to thow in a few six axis things in there so you'll need to shake your controller a few times.

The story isn't that great so far so that's a major negative considering there's zero game play. You have chapters, flashbacks that cover 15 years of Jodie's life from small kid to I guess early 20's.

Positives:

-sound effects
-graphics (particularly avatars although the general textures, etc are pretty good)
-voice acting is very well done

Negatives

-it's not a very interesting story and that story makes you click things to keep watching it.
-Puzzles aren't satisfying. It's just a matter of finding a blue dot and interacting with it.
-the events that trigger Jodie to do violent stuff with her entity seem very forced as she's growing up.
-in order for Jodie to have a flashback you need to direct the "energy" stream from the dead body to her head using the (poorly placed) joysticks. It's gimmicky and really tiring after you do it once or twice.
-most actions you take in the game may as well be like unpausing a movie to move along. There's no real decision making.
-this game is a prime candidate to give you motion sickness. The camera jumps all over the place and while traveling around as the entity it's very disorienting. Lots of dark scenes as well where you can't see much of anything. I've had to stop a few times already as I was getting sick from the shaky cam and jumping camera angles. You also won't be a big fan of this game if you have epilepsy...tons of strobe lights.

I guess wait for it to be a freebie in a year or so on PS+

I'm about 3 hours into it I guess. Will keep playing a little longer to see if it improves. Something would need to change where you actually have to make decisions and not just wait for the key prompt for the button you're supposed to push appear on the screen. (flashing X! button mash X!) At its worst it's like a dance game that you wait to see what to click...for example, climbing up a cliff R1 = right hand, L1= left hand, R2 = right foot, L2 - left foot....wait for R1, L1, R2, L2 to appear on screen then click that button to get up the cliff...good job! The problem is you can't figure it out for yourself as you have no idea what to click next until the button pops. The rest of the game is moving your right joystick toward the direction you see the white or blue dot.

If Heavy Rain put you to sleep, this will have you snoozing even faster. If you liked Heavy Rain, here's more of the same for you.