Unlike Heavy Rain, there’s an almost arrogant tone with the game’s presentation and a lot of this stems from sacrificing a cohesive story for star power and breathtaking visuals. The unconventional narrative switches between Jodie’s childhood, teen and adult life with little thought to narrative structure and pacing, sabotaging what interest there is with the intriguing premise. The story here sees you control Jodie and her psychic companion that possesses poltergeist-like abilities. With a supernatural storyline and an incoherent narrative structure, Beyond: Two Souls sacrifices story for graphics in one of PS3’s best looking but structurally flawed games. With a confusingly structured story and an unnecessarily convoluted narrative, Beyond: Two Souls pales in comparison to its interactive storytelling predecessor. Whereas Heavy Rain manages to produce a compelling narrative despite its flaws, Beyond: Two Souls does not. Each of the four playable characters do have a good arc, albeit with a few plot inconsistencies here and there, but the story continues regardless of whether a character dies or not helping to heighten tension during these crucial moments. Most of the trickier segments in the game come from having to press three or four buttons simultaneously or quick time events. It’s not only intrusive to the experience of the game, but the controls themselves are so frustratingly archaic and awkward, it arguably makes Heavy Rain a more alienating game to play now than when it was originally released.Īll of Heavy Rain’s characters have their own reason for hunting the infamous origami killer Holding down R2 sees you move around while the left analog stick changes your head movement from left to right as you examine different items in the environment. Heavy Rain defiantly steers away from tried and tested controls with an awkwardly contrived scheme, much to the detriment of the game. When you aren’t sitting through cut scenes, most of the gameplay sees you controlling each of the four characters in their respective storylines, navigating awkwardly around beautifully rendered environments. It’s ultimately the narrative and cohesive storytelling here that keeps the game engaging and with the exception of a couple of niggling plot inconsistencies, has a good pacing and mostly satisfying endings, depending on how you play and which one you unlock.
Other conversations do have a significant impact in the way the story progresses. Some of this is inconsequential – the infamous “Press X to JASON!” is one example here – along with bites of dialogue that uncover more about various characters but most of these conversation trees lead to the same destination.
Heavy Rain’s characters are well fleshed out with Ethan as the lead protagonistĪs you may expect from such a story-driven game, vast swathes of Heavy Rain involve lengthy cut scenes with various dialogue options along the way. The game puts you firmly in control of how the story plays out too and with over 20 endings and a plethora of game-changing choices for each character along the way, Heavy Rain is certainly an impressive narrative feat in the world of video games. A slow trickle of clues are uncovered along the way that help you piece together who the killer may be with a small dose of supernatural and futuristic elements thrown in for good measure. After a brief introduction, you switch control between four main characters – FBI detective Norman Jayden, a photojournalist Madison Paige, distraught father and main protagonist Ethan and a private detective Scott Shelby. As the game progresses, the mystery unravels through the four intricately connected stories that each have a connection to the killer. Heavy Rain’s story revolves around a self-proclaimed origami killer who uses rainwater to kill his victims. Unfortunately for this two game collection, time has not been kind to these games but despite the flaws, there’s still some enjoyment to be had across both games. Originally released in 20 respectively, the video game industry has come leaps and bounds in the 6 years+ since their initial releases with more immersive, absorbing stories combined with gripping gameplay as seen in games like The Last Of Us and Tomb Raider. Graphically enhanced and released together as a single package, Quantic Dream’s cinematic thrillers are certainly unique, bringing an element of consequential choice not seen in other story-driven video games with the exception of Until Dawn.
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