Beyond: Two Souls PS4 - Gaming Review.

Posted on: 2015-12-10

Our rating:

The game?s visual presentation is fantastic with the motion capture of the actors mirroring their real life look it does look it belongs on the PS4 and is really impressive.


 

Beyond: Two Souls was originally released on the PS3 back in 2013, which had gamers split down the middle, where some loved it and others absolutely hated it. I understand both sides of the argument, but overall I like it.

Beyond: Two Souls Review

The story of Beyond: Two Souls follows a woman named Jodie and you journey through many stages of her life from a child, teenager and eventually an adult. Jodie is not a normal woman as she has a ghostly entity named Aiden following her helping her to an extent, but he also wants Jodie to himself as he has an attachment to her. She finds out about this entity as a child where she is spooked at night by him, her parents find out about Aiden where then she is sent to a unit to be analysed by doctors to find out what she can do with Aiden’s abilities. It’s an emotional rollercoaster ride as you see Jodie from being in the CIA to living on the streets during the cold and dark winter.

If you’re familiar with Until Dawn which was released near the end of the summer then you’ll be right at home with Beyond: Two Souls’ gameplay. You explore environments finding clues to help you learn about certain characters or areas etc. or you’re making key decisions in conversations that can affect things later on in the story. Keep in mind when playing this game focuses on the narrative rather than gameplay so you’ll be doing more watch rather than playing.

There are action segments where you’re sneaking around and taking down enemies by snapping their necks or punching them in the face. You’ll also have control of the ghostly entity Aiden where you’ll move stuff around to help Jodie progress or destroying stuff because it’s funny. It’s great fun to mess with people when you have control of Aiden by knocking plates of food against the wall or making them jump out of their skin. Besides that you’ll be soaking in the atmosphere and getting to know all the characters and the performances are fantastic with Willem Dafoe and Ellen Page giving fantastic performances.

Beyond: Two Souls Review PS4

The game’s visual presentation is fantastic with the motion capture of the actors mirroring their real life look it does look it belongs on the PS4 and is really impressive. I couldn’t tell you if it looks any different from its PS3 counter-part as they both look so similar, but it’s beautifully animated with the environments really reflecting on me with the rain soaked forests of the wilderness to cold snowy streets.

So what’s new in this re-release of this game, well you can now play the game’s story in chronological order which is a bonus because the story is all over the place when you play in its original form. However even when you play this game in order it’s still quite hard to follow because it has a habit of suddenly jumping to another part of Jodie’s life with no context.

Beyond: Two Souls Review PS4 for 365 Bristol

The only negative I can really think of are the controls can be very awkward if you know what Resident Evil use to control like then you’ll know what I mean. When you’re walking forward and the camera angle decides to change you’ll end up turning around and walking back in the other direction which can be annoying but you do get hang of it eventually.

So is this game worth picking up? Only if you haven’t played it before because otherwise not much has changed to prompt a re-purchase and bear in mind you’ll be watching more than playing if you don’t like narratively driven games then this game is not for you. Overall I enjoyed it, the story is well performed and kept me hooked from start to finish. 

4/5

Reviewed by Sam Coles, The Bristolian Gamer, for 365Bristol.com

Beyond: Two Souls Review for 365 Bristol



Article by:

James Anderson

Born and raised in the suburbs of Swansea, Jimmy moved to Bristol back in 2004 to attend university. Passionate about live music, sport, science and nature, he can usually be found walking his cocker spaniel Baxter at any number of green spots around the city. Call James on 078 9999 3534 or email Editor@365Bristol.com.