In all their diaper-changing, table-laying, guitar-playing glory

Quantic Dream's Epic Game Store exclusivity deal is coming to an end. As such, cinematic pseudo-trilogy Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, and Detroit: Become Human will all be available to purchase on PC via Steam from June 18.

Originally released back in 2010, Heavy Rain is a murder-mystery thriller wherein the player controls a number of characters whose lives become intertwined by the common bond that unites them all: an at-large serial murderer known as The Origami Killer, who is leaving a trail of bodies around Philade??lphia.

2013's Beyond: Two Souls is a psychic thriller ??starring Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe. The former plays Jodie, a young woman with powerful and dangerous kinetic abilities. The player guides Jodie through numerous stages of her life as she attempts to carve out a semblance of n??ormality for herself, chased down by shady governmental types who wish to harness her unasked-for powers.

Finally, 2018's Detroit: Become Human is a sci-fi anthology set in a near-future where androids have become commonplace within society. Again, players step into the shoes of multiple charac??ters, learning of their lives and loved ones, while dealing with the politics and prejudice of living as an "inhuman" within a hum??an world.

All three titles feature 4K resolution and 60 frames-per-second gameplay. The St??eam store pages are live now, and a demo is available for each title if you want to get a test of Quantic Dream's quirky blend of point-and-click meets QTE gameplay.

Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, and Detroit: Become Human launch on Steam June 18. They are also available on Epic Games Store and PS4.

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The iconic 'guitar-playing' boss fight

Quantic Dreams' psychic thriller Beyond: Two Souls has been listed on the Steam database, (as spotted by @Nibellion), suggesting that the 2013 QTE-fest is preparing to move out of its Epic Game Store excl??usivity deal and be made available to purchase on Valve's digital s??torefront.

Beyond: Two Souls, the third release in David Cage's chin-stroking interactive adventure series, sees Ellen Page in the role of Jodie Holmes, a troubled young woman who can perform acts of psychic phenomena through?? her spirit guide, Aiden. Forced out of an ordinary life and into a series of hazardous, extraordinary situations, players guide Jodie as she attempts to carve a semblance of normality out for herself, while evadin??g the shady forces who wish to harness her amazing powers.

Originally released on PS3, Beyond: Two Souls, along with its brethren Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human, have since been re-released on PS4 and PC via Epic Games Store. The PC port of Beyond: Two Souls launched on EGS July 27, so assuming that the exclusivity deal was for one-year, Jodie's adventure should, in theory, arrive on Steam soon after that. Incidentally, Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human launched on EGS June 24, so fr??om a calendar standpoint these titles s?hould arrive on the Steam platform first, if at all.

Beyond: Two Souls has been listed on Steam [VG247]

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Dafriend or Dafoe?

I'm pretty sure this is the only current contest on the internet featuring Willem Dafoe, so come win a PC copy of Beyond: Two Souls.

For anyone ?who's been around here long enough, you'll remember the days when you couldn't go two front page posts without bein?g reminded of Willem Dafoe. It's been a while, but man those were crazy days. RIP Dafoetoid.

Let's resurrect that creepy-faced bastard from the dead, and give away some copies of Beyond: Two Souls, starring Dafoe, himself. Also El??len Page. Can't forget her.

I'm going to copy and ?paste some PR?? because otherwise I'd just keep talking about Willem Dafoe.

A unique psychological-action-thriller featuring A-list Hollywood performances from Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe, Beyond: Two Souls takes players on a thrilling journey across the globe as they play out the remarkable life of Jodie Holmes. Born with a connection ??to a mysterious entity with incredible powers, Jodie is different. Players' actions will determine her fate as she faces extraordinary challenges, danger and heart-wrenching loss on a journey to discover the truth of who she is.

Players will be able to experience the entire Beyond: Two Souls story, complete with "Advanced Experiments" downloadable content and featuring stunningly optimized visuals, including 4K resolution, widescreen 21:9 compatibility and 60 fps frame-rate. Jodie's story can be played in either cinematic or chronological order, and players can share the experience with a friend ?in local co-op mode.

4K Dafoe sounds....uh.......

To enter to win your copy, tell us what Willem Dafoe is doing right now. Imagine that creepy, large f?ace of his staring at something. Following something. Consuming something. What is it? What's happening? Why do I feel breathing down my neck? Dafoe is out there. Tell us about it.

We have three PC keys for the game to give away, redeemable from the Epic Games Store. Winners will be drawn Monday, August 5. Don't have a Dtoid account? Sign up here to creep out your fellow internet denizens.

Beyond: Two Souls is available for consoles and PC now. Dafoetoid lives!

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Roll out all those memes again

French video game developer Quantic Dream has announced demos and dates for the PC ports of their most recent releases: Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human, all of which will be made available exclusively on the Epic Ga??mes Store.

"Bringing our last three interactive dramas to the PC platform will enable ??new audiences to experience what Quantic Dream games are all about," said the company's co-CEO Guillaume de F??ondaumiere in a press release. "Through these demos, gamers will have the opportunity to look into the hard work and dedication we have put into the PC versions of our beloved titles. For those who have never played a Quantic Dream title, this will be a great opportunity to experience the unique nature of our games."

Noir mystery Heavy Rain will launch June 24, with a demo available May 24. Psychic tale Beyond: Two Souls will follow July 27, with a demo on June 22, while Robo-political drama Detroit: Become Human will be released sometime this Fall. The former titles will cost around $20, while Detroit is expected to sell for around $40.

Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human are all available now on PS4 as individual releases or compiled as the Quantic Dream Collection.

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Interactive movies unite for low price

If you get a k?ick out of the cinema?tic adventures of David Cage's studio Quantic Dream, then a compilation of their last three releases has been made available to purchase today, in both physical and digital format.

The Quantic Dream Collection is comprised of three titles; 2010 murder-mystery Heavy Rain, 2013's psychic thriller Beyond: Two Souls and, from this year, the "What if robots... HAD HUMAN FEELINGS?" sci-fi title Detroit: Become Human. Missing from the collection is PS2/Xbox release Fahrenheit (or The Indigo Prophecy).

The set costs around $40, which isn't too bad considering Detroit is only about six months old. So if you fancy an adventure ??through some well-worn genre conventions and awkwardly animated digital sex scenes, then this compilation should satisfy.

Are you gonna pick this set up?:
Cross - Yes
Circle - No
Square - Put Down Dinner Plate Hard
Triangle - "We, The People..."

Quantic Dream Collection is available now on PS4.

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*cough* *sniff*

We’re in full-on germ season right now, with temperatures dropping below zero. All the tea and soup in the world can’t stop the IT guy at work from coughing all over your keyboard, so one bout of illness is a?lmost inevitable as the colder seasons roll in.

This is shaping up to be a poor time for my immune system, jumping from a pretty nasty cold to a stomach bug that is making me feel like I ??have an acid bath in my guts. Unable to go to the gym because even walking for too long is painful, I’ve chomped through my backlog like never before?? over the past week, and it got me thinking. Sometimes when you are sick, you can’t even look at a TV or computer screen. Other times, light entertainment really can be the best medicine.

Here are the games I have played when I am (mildly) sick, and why I f?ound them so therapeu??tic, or why it was a poor choice, as the case may be.

A sickly New Year’s Eve with Beyond: Two Souls

Last year’s New Year’s Eve was a uniquely memorable one, because it was the first time I rang in the new year in Germany instead of in the UK. However, I didn’t go out on the town, but instead stayed in my pyjamas feeling very sorry for myself with a monster head cold. I couldn’t breathe out of my nose too well, but the headache had faded away, so I decided to play Beyond: Two Souls – this is before it was a PS Plus game, ??so I must have decided to spend actual money on it in my delirium.

It was a good choice in a way, because all you have to do is respond to prompts on the screen. It doesn’t require as much brainpower as strategy games or the like, so it was perfect for vegging out completely gormless on the sofa. However, the plot gets pretty convoluted, and to be fra??nk, nonsensical at points. So while the gameplay was simple enough not to hurt my head, the story did. One positive o??f the PS4 version, though, is the ability to play the timeline in chronological order, lest timeline hopping while operating at 50% makes your brain melt out of your nose.

Exactly what my DS is for

Lately I’ve noticed that when I am feeling sluggish, I would much rather play games in bed than sat on a couch. It’s comfier, easier ??to just fall asleep if I feel like it, and I can prop my laptop up and watch YouTube videos at the same time. I’m definitely a person who likes multi-tasking, particularly watching TV while I make some progress on my game of the week.

I’ve been chipping my way through Picross DS levels for years now, and I’m getting close to ??finishing all the puzzles. The handy hint function will fill in one horizontal and vertical row for you, which usually makes even the hardest puzzles very easy to solve by giving you a starting point. That combined with not finding nonogram puzzles particularly hard makes it the perfect challenge, keeping my brain somewhat alive while under the weather without burning me out.

Let’s go on an adventure (?while stayi??ng in our dressing gowns)

A recent realisation has been that I love point-and-click (or similar) adventure games when I’??m feeling sad or unwell. They usually come bundled with a cheery and/or gripping story, and the more you play such games, the more you have a feel for what to click on. I’ve also put my pride to one side and started to use guides when I get stuck, which always makes these games go from hard (or sometimes unplayable) to a fun ride.

I spent a couple of days earlier this week while sick with stomach problems playing Oxenfree and To The Moon, and got sucked into both worlds. The multiple endings of Oxenfree and the fun little puzzles in To The Moon kept me preoccupied,? and distracted me from my discomfort. For me, it is also important that these are relatively short games, as playing s?omething lengthy that trudges along can get quite frustrating when you’re feeling peaky.

Ultimately, being mildly ill is a really good time to clear out your Steam backlog. Particularly when it comes to those small and oft-discounted gems that everyone talks about, but for som?e reason, you just never got round to.

What games do you play when you are sick? Do you have any memorable moments of playing games during a sick day? Let me know in your comments down below!

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DAFOEVERSE

May is looking a little emotional for PS Plus. To build hype for the launch of Detroit: Become Human at the end of the month, Sony is handing out Beyond: Two Souls on PS4 for Plus subscribers. Now everyone can ?experience the brilliance that is Willem Dafoe in digita??l form!

Along with Quantic Dream's PS3 swansong, Rayman Legends will also be available for PS4 players. PS3 gamers will be getting Risen 3: Titan Lords and Eat Them! while Vita gamers will have access to King Oddball! and Furmins. This is quite the eclectic collection of games, but variety is always nice. Sadly, I can't say I know much about anything beyond the two PS4 games, though I've heard Risen 3 is pretty terrible.

• Beyond: Two Souls (PS4)
• Rayman Legends (PS4)
• Risen 3: Titan Lords (PS3)
• Eat Them! (PS3)
• King Oddball (Crossbuy on PS3, PS4 and Vita)
• Furmins (Vita)

PlayStation Plus: Free Games for May [PlayStation Blog]

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Fahrenheit rising

A few months back, reports started coming out that developer Quantic Dream, known for titles Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit, had allegedly been running a fairly toxic workplace. There were claims from former employees of sexist and racist jokes being thrown around the stu?dio as well as a pretty disgusting report about employees' heads being photoshopped onto naked bodies. It made the studio seem like a real hellscape and founder David Cage's response didn't really help matters. His "judge me by my work" retort made no sense in the context of the reports and mostly seemed to ignore the allegations against his studio.

It seems Quantic Dream wasn't just sitting idly by while these claims started circulating through various channels. According to a report on Kotaku, the company is now suing two French media outlets -- website Mediapart and newspaper Le Monde -- over their reports on the allegations. Kotaku writer Cecilia D’Anastasi??o discovered this information during an interview with Cage, where the founder bluntly stated, "we're s?uing their journalists."

Canard PC, one of the other outlets that broke news about Quantic Dream, is not being sue?d. While the outlet received threatening letters before and after their story went live, nothing yet has come from those messages. Publishing director for the site, Ivan Gaudé, told Kotaku the two sites being sued will now have to prove to the judge that their outlets used appropriate caution when reporting the story and had reached out to all parties involved in an attempt to offer their perspectives.

Detroit Dev??eloper Quantic Dream Sues?? French Media Over Articles On Toxic Work Conditions [Kotaku]

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It's pronounced A-DEN, Jodie, not I-DEN!

When Beyond: Two Souls released at the end of 2013, it epitomised not just the lofty ambitions of creator David Cage, but ?also the capability still lurking in the PlayStation 3’s ageing infrastructure.

But whilst it??’s difficult not to be mesmerised by the state-of-the-art facial and motion capture and that ambitious, cinematic storyline, as the credits rolled that first time around, I la??id down my controller and felt nothing but a nagging sense of fulfillment. Despite the glossy polish and Hollywood glamour, it was as though Beyond: Two Souls was a richly painted optical illusion, a beautiful but?? achingly - frustratingly - two-dimensional experience lacking any meaningful depth.

And now, it's on PS4 too.

Ellen Page and Wil??lem Dafoe lead an otherwise unremarkable cast in the tale of Jodie Holmes, a seemingly ordinarily girl blessed - or cursed, depending upon your viewpoint - with an extraordinary secret. Abandoned by her adoptive parents (all the hallmarks of a superhero origins tale, I know) and essentially brought up by Dr. Dawkins, her parent-by-proxy at the paranormal agency at which she lives, Jodie’s tale is at once both a Teenager Simulator and an episode of the X-Files, her life inevitably dictated by the fiercely protective entity, Aiden, inexplicably linked to her.

The story unfolds as we step into non-sequential chapters of Jodie’s life, watching - and occasionally orchestrating - the girl’s passage from child, to teen, to woman. The vignettes focus on the key moments of her life that shape both her growth and her relationship with Aiden, but also those rites of passages familiar to all of us who&r?squo;ve reb?elled (if unsuccessfully) growing up.  

While Page’s portrayal of protagonist Jodie Holmes is perfectly fitting in a perfunctory kind of way, her s??tory fails to resonate fully, possibly because the choppy, Lost-esque out-of-sequence storytellin??g means you rarely grow with her, your time together boxed into disparate adult/child/adult/child again chapters that feel oddly insular. 

There’s also very little conseque?nce to the decisions you directly influence. Regardless of what you choose to do - or don’t do - to your emotionally-frozen father or those assholes in the bar, the story marches on regardless, with only a hand?ful of actions having a meaningful impact on the story before you. 

It’s here where we welcome one of the PlayStation 4 version’s new, and most requested, features. If you were put off by the original gam??e’s pick ‘n’ mix story delivery you can now choose to explore Jodie’s tale in the full chronological order. While the original time-jumping version is (naturally) still available, it offers a fresh take to those who who’d like to take an alternative - and perhaps more comprehensible - route to the game’s finale. 

_{[Image courtesy of Digital Foundry]}

The original PlayStation 3 game occasionally spluttered with the weight of Quantic Dream’s boundary-pushing, but the PS4 remaster performs sweetly. Sony are keen to ensure we know about the 1080p rescale and enhanced graphics - which include motion blur, bloom, field of depth and boosts to the game’s celebrated lighting/shadowing effects - are what?? sit at the heart of this remaster, and to be honest, the game delivers here in every sense.&nbs?p;

Whereas the PS3 version occasionally hiccuped with visual noise and juttery transition, for the most part, the PlayStation 4 version handles the strain with little discomfort. Two years ago there was little we could critique about the graphics (come on, it looked amazing on a near-end-of-life console) and now, able to compare the new with the old, we can see the tangible impro??vements. The lighting looks and feels organic, with the corresponding shadows smoother and more blended. Most marked perhaps is the introduction of camera-sensitive field-of-depth lens, a tool that naturally softens the fore- and backgrounds with beautiful results, albeit occasionally at the cost of sharpness. 

Though it does run at 1080p, PlayStation 4’s version of Beyond hits that marker by compromising on your ratio, presenting a 1920x817 resolution with a cinematic framing. While the assets are left mostly untouched and recycled from the PS3 version, in some places - such as the Embassy, for instance - a side-by-side comparison (thanks, Digital Foundry!) shows tha??t though most PS3 assets have been recycled, in some instances the graphics have been replaced or improved, with wallpaper and flooring textures in par?ticular benefiting from the refresh. 

As you might expect, however, the things that might?? have frustrated us the first time around - Aiden’s cumbersome control scheme, for instance, or the spoon-fed narrative waypoints - remain untouched.

I didn’t enjoy my time operating as Aiden in 2013, and nothing’s changed. Aiden can now (kind of) communicate with you via the speaker in your controller, but if it’s designed to heighten immersion, for me it simply achieves the opposite. And once again, the possibilities here - your natural curiosity to explore as Aiden, perhaps, or your desire to take control of ??an undesirable - are curtailed. The pacing still feels mismatched and uneven, with some chapters whizzing pass in minutes??, and others feeling like they’re been (unnecessarily) drawn out for hours ... particularly as the gameplay’s irregular prompts are sometimes painfully overt, whereas in others they’re frustratingly absent. 

Also new, besides the spiffy graphics and all, is the Telltale-esque stat?s page at the end of each chapter. Though some may flinch at the spoilerific alternative story branches that hint at opportunities you may not have known was possible, for me, it gave a tantalising glimpse at the alternatives, and offers huge temptation to jump back in and replay alternative routes… as well as ascertain what were the popular - and not so popular - decisions taken by other players facing the same dilemmas.

Whilst the things that bugged me before still annoy me, I wasn’t sorry that I replayed Beyond: Two Souls. Regardless of the execution, Beyond remains an ambitious project, and I’m all for developing playstyles that deviate from what what’s become the norm, particularly if doing so attracts hitherto “non-gamers” to our beloved pasttime. Quantic Dream’s stunning visuals and engaging narrative mean the game just falls on the right side of boring - it’s just the rehash of those QTEs and ??the curiously disjointed storytelling that frustrates, not the tale nor the presentation itself.  

If you enjoyed it on the PlayStation 3 and relish the chance to revisit Jodie's story, now boosted by enhanced visuals and the new Experiments expansion - as well as the chance to live Jodie's life chronologically - then you won't be disappointed. But if you intentionally side-stepped Beyond: Two Souls the firs??t time around, there’s probably little here that will tempt you back... particularly if you like your storytelling charged with meaningful agency.

For those who missed ou?t last generation and remain intrigued by Q??uantic Dream’s unique and ambitious game? I can’t say it isn’t pretty. It’s just a shame that that’s all it is, really.  

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Do it for Dafoe

If a "huge portion" of PlayStation 4 owners never played something as universally liked as The Last of Us, I wonder how many of them missed out on Beyond: Two Souls and Heavy Rain. "Enough," I suppose. Both games are being re??mastered for the system.

Beyond ($29.99) is up first, on November 24, with updated graphics, improved controls for action sequences, the option to play missions in chronological order from the start, and the Enhanced Experiments DLC included. There's also that "see the decisions other players made" feature that has become something of a tradition i??n modern adventure gaming. I? love that thing!

As for the Heavy Rain remaster, it's not out until March 1, 2016.

"[T]hose who purchase Beyond: Two Souls digitally will be entitled to download Heavy Rain on PS4 when it releases at a discount," says Quantic Dream. I'm more interested in Detroit, myself.

Beyond: Two Souls Coming?? to PS??4 on Nov. 24th, Heavy Rain Out Next Year [PlayStation Blog]

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Press square to JA-SON. Again

If you've been patiently making origami and waiting for Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls to make it to PlayStation 4, I have good news - they're coming "soon now"?.

Hi eve??ryone, Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls PS4 release dates will be revealed soon now. Thank you for your patience!

— QUANTIC DREAM (@QUANTIC_DREAM) September 23, 2015

The official twitter account of? developer Quantic Dream thanked fans for their patience, and said that a release date would shared shortly.

I found Beyond: Two Souls a trifle tedious, but Heavy Rain was extraordinary, regardless of what side of it's-a-game-no-it's-an-i?nteractive-movie debate you fall. If you missed it the first time around, you really m??ight want to check it out on the PS4.

When he reviewed it on release, Jim Sterling wasn't quite as engrossed as I was, saying that "ultimately, Heavy Rain is?? an experiment that both succeeded and failed, when it could easily have been a total success if the brains behind it weren't trying so hard to be smart, and cared more about providing a sensible plot as opposed to a shocking one."

"As a game, Heavy Rain is pretty good for the most part. Heavy Rain is just damn?? lucky it isn't the movie that it wishes so badly to be."

Insert your comment about OHMYGODI'MSOTIREDOFREMASTEREDGAM??ES in 3...2?...1...

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In Europe

Here's some news that snuck by last E3 week. Quantic Dream's beloved Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls are coming top PlayStation 4, "only for Europe and the PAL region," according to the PlayStation Blog. The European one.

A year ago there were hints towards a PS4 version of Beyond. This quietly materialized over E3 week in the form of upcoming individual digital releases of either game and dual pack that includes both, either in physical or digital form. In Beyond, you can "experience that story played in chronological order, watching Jodie grow fro??m a curious young girl to a powerful woman." Hm, ok.

I'd still like to check out Beyond at some point, maybe even go back to Heavy Rain.

Then again, remember in Indigo Prophecy when the dorky main character's ex-girlfriend actually comes to his home, asks him to play guitar for her while she sits, impressed, and then they fuck because he played Simon guitar so good?? Don't play out your impossible fantasies on my time, Cage.

Instead, let's get nostalgic for the headline, Beyond two sales: Beyond sold over a mi?llion copies and the underrated Dafoe flick above, The Hunter.

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More things for Aiden to touch

Two German retail sites, Alcom and World of Games, appear to have put up listings for an expanded version of Beyond: Two Souls, known tentatively as Beyond: Two Souls Director's Cut. The listings have ??since been pulled, but it is known that developer Quantic Dream has been involved with the PlayStation 4 since early in development.

Although the listings are far from confirmation, they further reinforce reports from earlier in the year when NeoGAF users found a PS4 version of the game embedded within a programmer's portfolio.

Beyond: Two Souls was released on PlayStation 3 in Octob??er of last year and went on to sell over a million copies, despite criticism for a muddled narrative and a dearth of any real meaningful choice. for one hope to see more of Jodie and Aiden's adventures and think that there's pl??enty of ground left to cover.

Beyond: Two Souls Director's Cut Rumored for PS4 [IGN]

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'Beyond sales' kind of sounds like Beyonce

Beyond: Two Souls developer Quantic Dream put up this a sort of "thank you" (Ellen) webpage to commemorate selling over one million units before Christmas of last year. Which was also Christmas of like two weeks ago, but also ?techni??cally of last year.

The studio's last venture, Heavy Rain, also crossed a million sales. In fact, it crossed three million sales last August, a few months after news it made $100 million -- more than twice its $??40 million budget.

I liked Heavy Rain and I want to play Beyond. More importantly, I like se?eing atypical games prove they can make mad money because it opens the door for more creative ventures.

The "thank you"?? site also has a word web of the most frequently used wo??rds to describe the game in reviews. I was hoping "Dafoe" would dwarf the page. Also, "visual feast" is two words. Come on, man.

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'Advanced Experiments' now available

Here we have a trailer for the latest DLC release for Beyond: Two Souls, "Advanced Experim??ents." The video sets up a boring, white-walled obstacle course with a thirty-minute time limit which Jodie and Aiden will work togeth??er to navigate. It's currently available on PSN for $4.99.

Might be fun, but it's not the kind of thing I would have expected to come as DLC for Beyond. I never got the sense from reviews that action gameplay was a strong suit, and ??that's all this appears to be. Besides, where are all the emotions? 

The post Beyond: Two Souls DLC looks like an obst??acle course appeared first on Destructoid.

Or any game like it

Before Heavy Rain’s release, Quantic Dream founder David Cage said that he didn’t want players to go through the story more than once. “It’s going to be unique to you. It’s really the story you decided to write,” he said in an interview with G4. “I think playing it several times is ?also a way t?o kill the magic of it.”

I never played Heavy Rain, because at the time I didn’t have a PlayStation 3 and when I did eventually get access to one, the game wasn’t on my radar any longer. Indigo Prophecy, however, stuck with me. Volumes have been written about the impressively idiotic final act, but I was fascinated by the game as a whole. It remains the only game I have ev??er completed within a single day (on my first playthrough, anyway).

But I decided that I wouldn’t miss Beyond: Two Souls. Good or not (and more likely the latter), I knew th?at people would be talking about its narrative for a while. Fortunately, I was able to get an early copy, so I marathoned it over the weekend to stay ahead of the curve. And as I played, making my decisions big and small, I wondered what I was missing. Then I realized that doing so would ruin what little magic exists in that first playthrough.

So for perhaps the only time ever, I’m going to echo the words of David Cage: Don’t play Beyond: Two Souls more than once. In fact, don’t play any choice-centric game more than once.

I only replayed one section of Beyond: Two Souls, and it wasn’t voluntary. I don’t know if it’s actually possible to “fail” in the game (I never did, despite being pretty terrible at some of lengthier fight scenes), but for whatever reason my copy decided to freeze at the end of the chapter called “Homeless” (seen above). During that section’s big action setpiece at the end, my fingers?? had slipped off the analog sticks during a vital m??oment and I lost control, causing unfortunate consequences for Jodie.

In the ensuing cutscene, everyone was being sad and as the camera started to lift up and survey the scene, it just froze. I wasn’t really sure what was going on -- the dialogue continued, making it seem like this was supposed to happen, but maybe I had hit a game over, “Snake, SNAKE, SNAAAAAKE” style (a connection I make because I was constantly reminded of the Metal Gear Solid series, especially in the latter half ?of th??e game). 

But I chalked it up to my accidentally putting some paper in front of my PS3’s vents, because the system was crazy hot. I let it cool overnight, and in the morning I was ready to play it again. So I did, and something interes?ting happened: I didn’t mess up. It turns out there ??was another few minutes of gameplay and an entirely different end to the scene, but then it froze again. Curious if my copy was defective, I had actually written up an email to the lovely Jim Sterling asking if he had been having that issue (not that he would have answered me, but whatever), when I thought, “What if I just need to clean the disc?”

And turns out, despite there being exactly zero visible marks on the disc, that rubbing it along my shirt made it work the third time. And in that third time, I forced myself into the same position I had been the first time around, because that was the narrative I had set for myself the first time around. It turned out that the game was supposed to continue, with the same end result being caused by a radically different event. I thought that was cool, and it showed me that small thin??gs can have big changes on a moment-to-moment basis, even though I doubt many of them are meaningful in a broader context.

But I also never wanted to experience it again. Earlier in the game, I had done things, chose responses, that I felt were proper (for example, I “shrugged” every single time I was given the option), and I was planning on going through some of these chapters again to see what I was missing. But seeing the way “Homeless” changed, I realized that doing so would break what I remember Beyond to be. What I think Beyond is.?? The game has a 2,000-page script, and I saw at most two-thirds of it and probably quite a bit less, but aside from the likelihood that the r??est of the script isn’t particularly well written, it’s that I wanted to keep my story the way I had seen it unfold.

And it’s not just Beyond. In Mass Effect 2, I never went to the Citadel. I skipped a massive chunk of content. I have no idea what happens in that section of the game, and I think that’s amazing. Hundr?eds of hours of work went ??into content that I gleefully skipped. The fact that the vast majority of players did go to the Citadel (I told a friend that I had done that and he didn’t even believe it was possible) means they had a very different experience with that game than I did.

In my Mass Effect 2 universe, nobody actually knows that Commander Shepard is still alive, and that’s the way I wanted it. I’ll never get the achievements for going both Renegade and Paragon (Renegade all the way, baby), but I have my consistent character that I kept across both games (never played ME3, for? various reasons). It’s my little version of the games that nobody else sa??w in quite the same way. 

The rise of emergent systems in games like the numbered Far Cry sequels means that people are having truly unique experiences. They tell stories of games that play out only as they saw them. That kind o??f unique storytelling is what traditional narrative games can’t really reach, but these choice-driven games give people the ability to have these one-of-a-kind experiences.

Over the course of Beyond’s ten?? hours, I made tons of choices, some of them blatant and others hidden. Sometimes it wasn’t even a choice but a mistake. Because I never quite got the hang of the weird controls, there were more than a couple of instances where I very clearly screwed up, and I knew that if I had just moved the stick properly, things would have turned out differently, though how differently I could?n't say.

On a second, third, fourth playthrough I cou??ld see many of those slight changes and get a different experience. Heck, there are at least five different endings, but?? I went with the only one that made sense to me. It’s entirely possible that if I had played through the game differently, those other options would have been more attractive to me. 

But the “What if’s are all-but-certainly more tantalizing than the reality, and the reality is that my story was just that: my story. Sure,? I was forced to follow the rules predetermined by David Cage and his crew, but just because he knew every possible dialogue choice doesn’t mean he knows how any one experience will affect the player. To claim that the game really draws “emotions” in the way Cage does would be disingenuous, but there’s something about owning a narrative that is attractive. It’s almost like developer-sanctioned fanfiction, except without the sex (maybe other choices could have led to sex, I don’t know).

What I really like is the conversation that can come from these different experiences. If I go back through the game and see it another way, I would lessen my own experience with the game, but not if I talk to someone else about what they saw. In Skyrim, the person who saw a drago?n fight a troll and a giant saw something unique (or at least something I? never saw).

In Beyond: Two Souls, I decided not to get serious revenge on the teens who locked me in the closet, but I did mess with their heads just a little bit. One is the result of interesting game systems and the other a series of player choices, but both represent one person’s experience. Some may have sent Aiden in fu?ll force against them, and others may have just walked away. It’s entirely possible some people were never locked in the closet in the first place. I don’t actually know, but if I want to find out, I want to find out from others. 

Jus?t talking can keep the illusion generally intact. If someone says to me, “I did that thing!” that I didn’t do, I’m fascinated. There’s no ??grander context for the moment, unless they decide to give me a verbal “Let’s Play,” so it stays exciting. Were I to see it myself, replaying that choice-driven game would expose the seams in its narrative. Three lines of dialogue will be the same, and then there will be several more that are unique. But what happens when the dialogue becomes familiar again? Games like that can never be completely open, so eventually the branches will converge, followed by the realization that maybe the choices really didn’t matter.

And then the magic is lost.

The post Why you shouldn’t play Beyond: Two Souls more than once appeared first on Destructoid.

Show a little soul

It's hard to divorce David Cage, the public figure, from the games Quantic Dream makes. He is, after all, a man who put himself in Indigo Prophecy's tutorial, imm??ortalized as the movie director he's always dreamed of being. The self-styled auteur fiercely believes in being the one man with the one vision, and gladly takes credit for his games' success in doing so. 

The auteur theory is all well and good, but it only really works out for a piece of art if the auteur in question is good enough to actually be an auteur. I've believed for years that Cage, while an undoubtedly talented man, is simply not a strong enough creator to be an unchallenged writer and director. If Beyond: Two Souls does anything right, it's prove that ??belief. 

It demonstrates, beyond doubt,?? that Hollywood actors, cutting edge-visual technology, and a decent budget mean nothing, if it's all being piled onto a ship with an unsuitable captain. 

Beyond: Two Souls (PS3)
Developer: Quantic Dream
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Released: October 8, 2013
MSRP: $59.99

Beyond: Two Souls, is about a girl called Jodie, played by Ellen Page, which is important to note as Jodie is also every character Ellen Page is typecast into playing. She screams, and is sarcastic, and does that half-smile thing, and that's more or less all there is to her personality. She also has more personality than almost every character combined, including the criminally misused Willem Dafoe,? crammed as he is into the role of Jodie's d??reary paranormal doctor/caretaker, Nathan Dawkins. 

Dawkins has charge of Jodie because she possesses dangerous powers -- or rather, the invisible creature inextricably linked to her does. Jodie is bound to an otherworldly being called Aiden, over which she has limited control. He is unwieldy, fiercely protective of her, and is the reason Jodie spends most of her life in a laboratory, under constant sur??veillance. 

While Beyond has a cast of archetypal and terminally uninteresting characters, it has to be said the writing is noticeably better than it was in Heavy Rain. D??ialog is slightly more believable, scenes are less awkward, and there are fewer glaring plot holes or embarrassing pseudoscience. However, the story is presented awfully, in a nonlinear fashion contrived to evoke the movies of Godard, Altman, or Tarantino.

There's nothing wrong with the use of disrupted narrative, but it's a technique that requires more care than Beyond even comes to close to providing. One moment, Jodie's a child in a secret lab, the next she's a homeless adult, then a teenager, then a child again, then a member of the CIA. The narrative breaks seem arbitrary and deliver nothing of value to the actual story. Disjointed and only vaguely connected sequences occur without adequate lead-in, and regularly deliver moments that would have had far greater impact had they been presented in a linear story, where the appropriate amount of pacing and build could be achieved. Instead, we're suppose?d to deeply care about characters who have been barely introduced, while following at least three stories, and a handful of non sequiturs, that have very little to do with each other. 

Even worse, the application of the nonlinear narrative comes off as a lazy ex?cuse to put Jodie in situations without having to adequately explain them, which gives the entire game a fractured, pointless atmosphere. Indeed, there seems no real point at all in having broken up the story, other than to mimic those films Quantic Dream perp??etually crawls in the shadow of. As such, an attempt to look clever has come across as little more than clumsy pretentiousness. 

This is to say nothing of Beyond's total lack of character development. Its frequent time hopping does little to help the fact that there's nobody to root for, and even less to remember. One character, for example, is introduced in an early scene as a cold, unlikable hardass, right before we skip to Jodie falling in love with him years later. She tells us -- through Aiden -- that he's so funny, and great to be around, but we never see any evidence of this. The best he becomes is a generic love interest with no distinguishing features. If we have to be told what a character's personality is, without the c?haracter ever exhibiting a single trait pertaining to its verbal description, the writing has failed completely. 

Admittedly, there are some decent scenes, but those are mostly thanks to tried and tested narrative tropes seen dozens of times before. The scene in which Jodie is bullied at a party before Aiden wreaks violent revenge is stylishly done, but it's nothing Carrie didn't do better. Likewise, Jodie's barely meaningful adventure in the Navajo Desert is Beyond's best sequence of events, but it leans heavily on well-worn and practically gauche Native American ster??eotypes to make it?? work. 

I've managed to go a long while before mentioning any gameplay, and one gets the feeling Quantic Dream would like it that way. Essentially following in Heavy Rain's footsteps, Beyond is another spiritual successor to Dragon's Lair, with even less agency and some awkward controls thrown in for good measure. As Jodie, interactions are restricted mostly to walking aroun??d, opening doors, engaging in restrictive conversations, and indulging in the occasional quick-time-event sequence. For much of this, the player's input is almost entirely optional. QTE action sequences can be completed without needing to even pick up the controller, as Jodie will survive all encounters if you fail every single button prompt. She'll get hurt a bit, and the story might have a slight temporary diversion, but that's about it. Even dialog, if you don't choose a response, will eventually play itself out. 

As with Heavy Rain, the potential for thrilling chase sequences and action scenes is mercilessly dashed against the rocks in favor of an experience so arrogant, it cannot bear to throw up a barrier between you and its allegedly brilliant story. Once you cotton on to the fact that your personal input is almost meaningless, and the impact of your inaction is fr?ivolous, your only real incentive for "playing" is to humor the game, and it does indeed feel like you're patronizing it when you decide to play along with the fantasy of player agency. Nowhere is this more typified than one sequence in which I could choose to speak up in order to stop something bad happening to another character ... and I didn't say a word. It didn't really matter if the bad thing happened (there was only a cosmetic change) and I simply didn't care about the bland, superficial plot vehicle whose lifeless idea of life was in my hands. 

There's no tension, no sense of investment, no pleasure to be derived from getting personally involved. Just a plodding, methodical march towards the game's warbling?? conclusion. 

At almost any time, you can switch to Aiden with a press of the Triangle button, but like with everything in this game, any sense of choice and freedom is a mere illusion. As Aiden, you may move through walls, knock objects around, and possess or choke characters, but his skills all amount to one big waste of potential. You only need to be Aiden when the game specifically tells you (or forces you) to be him, and you only interact with the tiny handful of objects available -- all helpfully labeled with bright blue dots. If, for example, Jodie is under siege by a SWAT Team, you can only possess one or two of the arbitrarily predetermined targets, as each scene has a specific way in which it wants to be played. This, of course, opens up a few plot holes, when you start wondering why Aiden only seems to possess certain characters, and why Aiden can ?only knock over a few objects, and seems to forget these useful powers when the plot decides to invent a sense of threat out of w?hole cloth. 

It's also not very enjoyable to play as Aiden, despite what promise he has. The floating controls are awkward, sluggish, and disorienting, while the way in which you interact with the wo??rld -- holding down buttons and moving the analog sticks about -- is ungainly and alienating. It shouldn't feel boring or bum?bling to be a wrathful poltergeist, but Aiden manages to be both. In fact, he may not even be the wrathful vandal he's portrayed as. After five minutes in the steering wheel, one could reasonably assume he's just drunk. 

There's really not much else to say about the way the game plays. Whatever it tries to throw at you -- whether you're avoiding beastly entities from the cringingly named Infraworld, taking cover to shoot at terrorists because of reasons, or delivering a baby in an abandoned building, you're really just performing the same somber actions, pulling analog sticks and pressing buttons when commanded like some Pavlovian experiment gone wrong. This is not a game to be played, it's an instructional video to be ?followed, in order to further unlock a story that isn't very good, a story spat at the viewer in shattered, tattered pieces. 

Visually, Two Souls is okay to look at. Yes, the uncanny valley faces are impressive on a technical level, but the frequent texture pop-in a??nd robotic bodily animations swiftly defecate on the magic. The game is prone to brief freezing, and loading times are fairly dreadful. Environments are bland, and overall the visual quality fails to stand out in this day and age. Still, if you're curious to know what Ellen Page would look like with every hairstyl??e ever, you'll find yourself adequately sated. 

At least the soundtrack is beautiful, and it does a good job of making certain scenes more compelling than they'd otherwise be, while the acting is a huge step up from Heavy Rain. Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe do fantastically, given the mediocrity they have to work with, while the supporting cast is fairly solid too. It's a shame much of the dialog still makes me wa?n?t to cover my eyes and scrunch my eyes up tight, but at least the delivery is convincing enough. 

For all the complaints that can be leveled at Beyond -- and they can be leveled in feckless abundance -- the overwhelming problem with it is that it's just plain boring. Like a sociopath, Beyond: Two Souls knows how to act like it has a heart, while providing nothing of the emotional depth required to connect with an audience. Its characters can smile, and cry, and tell us they're feeling all of these feelings, but their paper-thin presentation and the frequent narrative dead ends prevent any of their pantomime f?r??om becoming too convincing.

And that's all Beyond: Two Souls is -- a pantomime. A childish play at being a? meaningfu??l journey, a vapid illusion of passion and poignancy. Nothing but a pantomime. 

A perishingly dull pantomime. 

The post Review: Beyond: Two Souls appeared first on Destructoid.

Beyond: TWO Souls... Portal TWO... Coincidence???

The special edition of David Cage and Quantic Dream's Beyond: Two Souls comes in a nice steel book case. Also included in the package is a soundtrack and exclusive making-of videos starring Cage as well as actors Willem Dafoe and Ellen Page. I also spelled Page's name "Ellie" at first. It seems finally finishing The Last of Us has taken its toll o??n me. Or Pag??e's visage was successfully co-opted.

The special edition also comes with the an additional 30 minute sequence called "Advanced Experiments," because cash rules everything around you. In this video, you can catch the first glimps?e of it. If you plunk down the extra money on the special edition, you'll be able to "test your rapid problem-solving skills as you guide Jodie and the mysterious ent??ity Aiden through a series of tough training missions."

Are you happy with the apparent Portal nod? Confused? Surprised to be reminded Beyond is still a g??ame that is coming out? I thought the 2013 release year was over and done with.

The post Beyond: Two Souls speci??al edit?ion bonus looks like Portal appeared first on Destructoid.

Why play when you can just watch?!

Beyond: Two Souls is getting a demo on October 1, 2013. Some people can get it right now though if you know where to look. Like on GameStop's Facebook page.

For everyone else, the entire demo has been uploaded to YouTube. And you know what? That's fine by me in this ca?se. I have never been able to get into a David Cage game before. So I'd much rather watch someone else play.

The post Let’s watch the full Beyond: Two Souls gameplay demo appeared first on Destructoid.

Hey kids!

Up to this point, I've been unintentionally avoiding Beyond: Two Souls. Perhaps that'll work out for the best. Despite the fact that none of Quantic Dream's prior titles have done much of anything for me, Beyond has piqued my interest -- and not merely ??because it stars Willem Dafoe, though that sure does help. Coul??d this be the one?

I'll be waiting for reviews, personally, a?nd I know some of you are interested enough to want to go in blind. But if?? you are still undecided on the game, there's always the demo option -- one is planned for PlayStation Network on October 1, 2013. Two sections are going to be playable, including one with a young Jodie at the Department of Paranormal Activities and another where she's trying to escape from government agents, years later.

Beyond: Two Souls Demo Coming October 1st [PlayStation Blog]

The post Beyo??nd: Two Souls is getti?ng a demo in early October appeared first on Destructoid.

Two-player co-op also confirmed

David Cage's Beyond: Two Souls has been one of my most anticipated titles ever since?? my first glimpse of it during E3 2012, and now it's confirmed I'll get to share the experience with a friend. 

Revealed during gamescom, the Quantic Dream founder announced the?? game will support two-player cooperative play. Players will pass control between the game's ?two characters Jodi and Aiden with a simple press of the triangle button.

Additionally announced is the iOS and Android app titled "Beyond Touch." The free app allows for a simpler form of control that is aimed at reeling in more casual players. There are no virtual buttons and no on-sc?reen prompts and the game is automatically placed into easy mode when i??n the app is in use. 

Beyond: Two Souls launches exclusiv?ely on Pla?yStation 3 on October 8. 

Beyond: Two Souls has multiplayer, an app that turns to???uchscreens into controllers [Joystiq]

The post Get beyond touchy with the Beyond: Two Souls app appeared first on Destructoid.

Jodie in camo, in war-torn Somalia

We've had our time with upcoming PS3 title Beyond: Two Souls before, but ?only brie?fly. But for E3 we've finally got our first sizable hands-on with Quantic Dream's latest, and it surprised me in several ways. 

First surprise? Seeing Jodie (played by actress Ellen Page) in camouflage, hunkered down in what looked to be a heated situation in Somalia. We've seen h?er fighting on trains, trying out her hand at being homeless, and blowing up a city's main street -- all settings fitting in with what we know about the game's storyline. But an arid war zone? Wearing camo? With trucks armed with missiles rolling in the background? Quite a change.

Beyond: Two Souls (PS3)
Developer: Quantic Dream
Publisher: SCEA
Release: October 2013

It took me a bit to remember that part of Jodie's story is that she comes to work as a CIA?? agent. And when you consider how much of an advantage that Aiden, Jodie's invisible friend, giv?es her in an environment like this, the setting makes a bit more sense. Nothing was shown to show how she got here, and that's good as it probably would have ruined the story. But I didn't have long to think on the game's setting and situations as things became heated rather quickly.

[Spoiler alert: While I feel you'll be okay reading this preview, as it gives nearly nothing in context and is set later in the game, those looking to avoid any plot points may want to steer clear.]

At what Quantic Dream tells is about an hour into the game, the stage is set during a Somali civil war. Jodie was sent in by the CIA to use her unique powers to aid in a warlord hunt? there. The scene opens up with Jodie trying to part ways with a young local boy named Salim. She tries to reason with him, telling him that she has to work, and that he can't come with her. 

"Someday this is all going?? to be over and you can just go back to being a kid," she tells Salim.

Getting to her mission, I was supposed to guide Jodie t?o where the warlord was holed up. Not sure where to go, I walked along back streets where I eventually encountered an armed guard. I thought I might be able to sneak up behind him and take him out, but I flubbed the controls and quickly found the tables were turned, with the guard's gun pointed a??t my face. Aiden took over automatically, knocking the guard out. 

I asked if Aiden was supposed to come out and take over in this situation, but was told that I could have took him out with Jodie, though the option was always there to control Aiden and do what was done automatically for me. Surprised, I asked if Aiden? will always come out to save Jodie from my mistakes. Not always, we were told. 

But Beyond is almost always open to choice as far?? as how you proceed, Quantic Dream told us. It took me awhile to get used to the option of using A??iden at any time for a given situation, and that's probably because he's invisible. For example, I felt I was doing fine in working my way through the city to where I thought the warlord might be hidden, but when it was suggested that I just take over as Aiden and fly high above the city for a better vantage point, I was kicking myself for not thinking of that. Being invisible, he'll never come into danger. When you think about it, walking around this war zone as Jodie is a silly choice.

Later, as I drew close to where the warlord was hidden, Aiden transitioned from bei?ng a play option to becoming fully ??necessary. With Jodie safely behind cover, I had Aiden fly through the wall, across the street, and into the compound where the target was. He sat in a room, surrounded by armed men, so entering as Jodie would have been a mistake. Aiden has the ability to possess some people, but the warlord was not able to be taken over.

Instead, I flew just outside of the compound to a nearby guard and managed to possess him, though I failed to properly grab a weapon, ruining my chance for taking out the warlord. Thankfully, Beyond provides plenty of options to a given challenge. Trying again, I flew through the wall and found another soldier to possess. With him, I managed to steal a weapon from a locker and used it to gun down everyone inside. It was brut?al.

The only thing that was left to do w??as to open the door (Aiden can interact with some objects) to let Jodie in. 

When Jodie entered she saw what Aiden did and vomited. Shocked, ??she walked around the site, reflecting on what had happened and her involvement. Just then, the boy she spoke with earlier, Salim, quietly walked in behind her to see the same scene. It turns out that he was related to one of the deceased. He starts to cry over one of the bodies, and when Jodie tries to apologize the boy ?pulls a gun and fires at her. Aiden quickly forms a shieldaround her to block the bullet. She's safe, but still greatly affected by what has happened. 

Leaving the scene, tears in her eyes, she notices that gunmen from all over the city are up in arms, some out for blood. What starts as a steady walk through the streets turns increasingly tense. Con?trolling Jodie, I wanted to dart for the nearest co?ver as more angry locals flooded the streets, but she was cautiously controlling her speed. But her movement became more brisk when as the heat increased, finally leading to a dash toward a building to escape. 

Distraught from the day's events, Jodie tries to kill herself, but Aiden again jumps out of her body to protect her. Frustrated and scared, and now trapped in this building, totally surrounded, she finds an opening in the building's roof, and starts looking for a way to escape. She spots a ladder inside and uses it to climb to the roof. Unfortunately, more angry men await there. As they draw in, it looks like i?t's all over for her. 

I won't spoil the resolution for you.

Reading the last three or four paragraphs of this preview, you may have wondered how much control I was given, as these read more like movie scenes than game play. Surprisingly, just about every interactio??n has the player in full control. All of the movement in the scenes above we?re controlled by me, using the left analog stick.

With Aiden, aside from the couple of story bits w??here he jumps out to save Jodie, I was in full control of both his movement and view. Button presses, combinations, and directional movements are used for all of the object interactions. Beyond uses onscreen prompts to guide you for some of them, but for others you'r?e on your own, left to do what seems most natural with the controls. 

Those that played Quantic Dream's last game, Heavy Rain, may be concerned that this control for Beyond: Two Souls sounds more like prompting for interactive scenes. It does, but know that they've worked to make it so that just about every aspect you'd think you should be able to control, you can. You control all the movement, the camera, and just about every interaction. Despite looking like a movie, this game definitely leans more toward the action side of things than Heavy Rain ever did..

We've talked a lot about Beyond's cast, design, and direction, but it's nice to finally talk about how it plays. While this was just a short taste, it lets us know that Beyond will be more than something we just watch.

The post Finally controlling Beyond: Two Souls appeared first on Destructoid.

Skimps on Dafoe, though

I've seen a lot of shots of Quantic Dream's Beyond: Two Souls set in the same run down urban environments that characterized Heavy Rain, but? this E3 trailer focuses on Jodie Holmes' (Ellen Page) military training in the Middle East, and a possibly botched assassination attempt. Only a little D?afoe. Sorry, Podtoid fans.

Between these action-packed, brown segments shown off in the trailer and Quantic Dream's subsequent debut of PS4 title The Dark Sorcerer, it seems the studio is leaning slightly more on the side of conventionality and familiarity with their latest two titles. Maybe that will ease the seething rage of mindless David Cage haters???

The post Beyond: Two Souls goes militant in new trailer appeared first on Destructoid.

Ok, I lied

The first twelve paragraphs are about David Cage. AKA David De Gruttola. AKA Composer-turned-game designer. AKA Founder of French developer Quantic Dream, responsible for excellent implementation of David Bowie (see: Omikron) and poor imp??lementation of twist endings (see: all other games). AKA second only to Peter Molyneux in being a recognizable game designer that? internet commenters love to hate.

Tonight, David Cage has something to say about emotions, ?but doesn’t he always?

The setting, however, couldn’t be more different: Cage is on stage at the SVA Theater in New York, sharing the spotlight with other actors, film directors, and famous personalities known mostly for being famous who are all in town for the Tribeca Film Festival.

And they have  chosen to be here. At a videogame demo -- or, as the man who was standing behind me in line explained to his friend: “An interactive entertain??ment preview.” It's like CD-ROM adventure game box descriptions a?ll over again.

In listening to nearby audience members woefully explain the concept of videogames and the utter lack of recognit?ion when Cage took?? the stage, it became abundantly clear that everyone here is a starf*cker and they are just waiting until this Frenchman gets off the stage so they can undress Page and Dafoe (not in attendance, sadly) with their eyeballs and imagination.

But for now?, Cage is on stage and he’s getting ? emotional.

It's kind of uncomfortable. The Tribeca host who introduced Cage on the stage is now staring at the side of Cage’s face with dead eyes, lik?e a cat high on feed who believes the kitchen wall has something very important to say about cat life. It makes me think of that wonderful Konami E3 press event. Meanwhile, the audience is staring at their answerphones, occasionally looking up to see if that guy ... yes that guy is still talking, wel??l okay then ...

In the most long-winded way possible, Cage explains that his latest game Beyond: Two Souls is about a homeless girl on the run and a ghost buddy that helps her out. He says that but with 500 extra words about emotion, art, and thoughts on the future of videoga??mes. I'm just kind of occupied by the p?ress notes I was handed that proclaim him to be the creator of "story bending," an innovative technique that blurs the line between player and storyteller. Tribeca should have also included the rumor that Cage invented the internet.

The Cage may leave GDC, but the GDC may not leave the Cage.

Who is David Cage? I thought I saw him pretty clear in one moment. Actress Ellen Page, who plays the female lead in Beyond: Two Souls, commends Cage's directing in a really forced, Hollywood-nice way, like you d??o on a panel in front of 200+ people. Cage just stares at the ground with a goofy smile. Like a shy fat kid complemented by his piano teacher, he's so overwhelmed he can't work up the words. These are t??he moments Cage lives for. Moments of validation. He's a starf*cker, too, but of a different type. He wants to be a fox skin that David Lynch wears around his neck and occasionally pets.

People seem to really dislike Cage around here. It's rare a Cage-related story is posted without the majority of comments ruthlessly tear?ing the guy apart, staff included. I can't help but laugh at some of these comments because there is truth to them. There is also truth to something Herman Hesse said, "If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us."

Reacting to low review sco?res like falling on a sword, gamers can be overly emotional -- just about every topic online is met with a heated reacti??on. There is often a desire for validation, wanting film critics and politicians to respect and love our medium as we do. You ARE David Cage (how's that for a twist ending?)

OK, I lied again.

I'm going to talk about David Cage for five more paragraphs. But know now, starf*ckers, this is not an article about David Cage. It is about the technology, creative talent, and studio that lets Cage be Cage as he approaches a new era of MAXIMUM CAGE with Beyond: Two Souls and his upcoming PlayStation 4 title, of which we only know contains old-man tech. Hollywood olds need love too.

Despite being flown across the country, shacked up in a hotel that looks like a futuristic, glass hen house for humans with more money and escorts th??an they can shake their dicks at (Dear fellow at room 1908, I enjoyed the discussion you and your two female friends had at 2 A.M. about who has the “most perfect tits.” Glad you settled it. Sincerely.?) and invited to a game demo disguised as a film premiere, I didn’t actually talk to David Cage. Frankly, I don't think I'm missing much.

The man has said a lot. He’s a vocal and emotional speaker who wants games to progress. Whether you agree with him on what a game is or what “progress” really means is not as important as that he is such a visible figure that you can know what he stands for at all. This is a man, after all, who recreated himself virtually so he could introduce the player to his virtual game (see: 2005’s Indigo Prophecy).

He stands up for what he believes in, sometimes against gamers and sometimes against ratin?gs boards. I think this is a good thing.

So, really, this is an article about everything not David Cage that goes on at Quantic Dream. But, you probably shouldn't t??ake my word for things at this point. Similar to Cage, I too like to pause the dialog so I can seek validation for my interests and hobbies. I spent $40+ on macarons: ??please let me know if this is agreeable, dear reader.

Dat dank motion capture tech

I’ve been thinking lately, is it David Cage’s fault that Heavy Rain kind of sucks?

Do note I say “kind of,” as I enjoyed the game. The atmosphere, quick-time events that made interacting with controller into a game of Twister, and pace of the script was a bold and refreshing approach to adapting adventure games for current consoles. Mention TellTale's Walking Dead and I'll mention its sluggish pace, gameplay at odds with storytelling (slowly investigating every area of a train for a vague magical adventure game object while in dire straits = double ugh). But like most, I was dumb-founded by the performances and finale of Heavy Rain which is where the "sucks" part ??comes in after the "kind of."

A better question: Is it David Cage’s fault that Beyond: Two Souls is kind of awesome?

Like any Cage-related post on D??estructoid, there will be comments below saying Cage isn’t even capable of making a movie. Hey poo-brains: Cage has never attempted? to make a movie.

That is known. What is unknown to most is the bizarre, convoluted performance capture setup Quantic Dream used during Heavy Rain: first, voice is recorded in a sound booth and captured alongside facial animation. Then, body animation is captured while the audio recording is playing. Finally, these two different elements are spliced together. Strangest of all, each performance is done solo. These different performances are stacked together to make a series of awkward conversations on screen. As Cage observantly points out, “All subtlety is lost.”

Beyond: Two Souls may not be a next-gen title for consumers, but it may be called a next-gen title for those working on the production. The leap in capture equipment between Heavy Rain and Beyond is significant. Quantic Dream’s new tech lets Cage be an honest-to-God director instead of some sort of magician, miraculously making the most out of ama?teur French actors playing Americans with stilted dialog delivered through a complicated performance capture process.

Now, Cage gets to place up to seven actors in a room that act out scenes in a tiny 20 x 20 theater wh?ere performers must wear skin-tight black suits and white balls (90+ on face alone) all over. It’s not exactly a natural setting, but neither is sitting in a make-up trailer for t??wo hours before shooting a film.

"At first it was [distracting], you can't physically touch your face if you are crying you have to break everything up," Ellen Page said at a panel following the Beyond: Two Souls screening. "I got used to it. W??hen you shoot a movie you need to do make-up and hair every morning; this was nice because you just put on your suit and you're done. That was actually faded away pretty quickly, but of course on the first day it's unusual."

This new capture setup lets Cage, at long last, be an actual director. Free of two-part recordings and isolated performances, Cage can now direct the flow of conversation, action, and (HOLY FUCKING SHIT ?SNACKS) emotion. The results are good. The performances are natural and, at times, powerful, even when t?he words are not.

"From a tech standpoint, we now have the ab?ility to capture faithfully their performance and present it in real-time 3D," Quantic Dream co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumière told me in an interview (ostensibly, the 12 minutes that I flew out to New York for -- well, that and the macaroons at Bouchon Bakery which are delicio??us, especially the lemon). "That wasn’t the case before. To a certain extent, why ask these terribly talented people to bring their craft to videogames if we can’t do anything? Today we can."

Can? Sure. How about should?

On why Ellen Page will probably never do a game again (it's hard work!)

Like their writer, the characters of Beyond: Two Souls are direct, vocal about their feelings, and intensely emotional. Despite a lack of subtlety in writ??ing, Ellen Page and her surrounding cast make it work.

Color me surprised. When Heavy Rain debuted in 2010, the term "Uncanny Valley" graced many an editorial. The facial models of Heavy Rain were advanced for the time, but the crude emotional reactions created an unnerving effect -- by looking too human, these characters were suddenly freakishly non-human. Going into Beyond: Two Souls, I expected the effect to be tenfold since these are faces I know very well as a lover of film. Even Rockstar, a developer that played a key role in progressing videogame performances to where they are now, has turned against ce??lebrity actors since the PlayStatio??n 2 days.

"When you know the actors, it’s a little more challenging for us, the developer. I think it's still not perfect. but the more tech evolves, the more we ??are going to have means for faithfully representing the actors," Fondaumière said, "but only now have we reached a point -- I hope you seen it tonight -- we are not totally through the uncanny valley but we are close to it. We are through it 99-percent of the time. It’s a challenge."

It may read like hyperbole, but I agree. When watching the in-game performances side-by-side with the studio performances, it becomes clear how uncanny valley is a thing of the past. Part of this has to do with stylization, changing Page and W??illem Dafoe's (getting that PS4 old man wrinkle tech may be the missing 1% that Fondaumière suggests) faces just enough so that they aren't an exact represen??tation of them.

Rockstar used celebrity actors to bring character depth to its rough PS2 polygonal models, leaning on immediately recognizable voices and personalities. Samuel L. Jackson plays Samuel L. Jackson, even if the script says different. In contrast, Quantic Dream is bringing character depth to celebrity actors, in hopes of weaving a more believable narrat??ive that keeps the illusion of high stakes and consequence alive throughout the adventure.

With no camera, 360 capture, no lighting, and no marks on the floor, Beyond's cast is ab??le to enter a natural stage second only to th??eater.

"It takes you back to the purest form of acting. It was really wild. He guided us and we had a lot of fun together," actor ?Eric Winter said at the panel.

The experience is still a grueling one, Page said, due to shooting 30+ pages a day (compared to 3-to-5 on the set of upcoming indie thriller The East), memorizing a 2,000-page script, and delivering separate reactions that play on different emotions within the s??ame record??ing session.

These are issues specific to games writing that have nothing to do with tech?nology. These challenges will be here to stay. It will be ?interesting to see what performers are capable of rising to the tremendous task. Ellen Page may be one of the first.

Meet David Cage's dad

Before meeting Fondaumi&eg??rave;re, I didn't know what a co-CEO is. I'm still no?t entirely sure.

A nice way of putting it is that he runs the business while Cage runs the creative process. Another way of putting it is that he's Cage's dad. He's the one that sets Cage up on his ??playdates with Hollywood talent, finds the funding to let Cage be Cage, and pushes for better, new technology. Without h?im, Cage would still be around but he wouldn't be nearly as well known.

Also, dude's been knighted! KNIGHTED!!!

I had one question I was very anxious to ask Fondaumi&egra?ve;re: David Cage is a very visible game designer who is vocal about his feelings on design, people either hate him or love him -- are you ever con?cerned with how this affects business?

Fondaumière's response in full:

We talk a lot about it. He and I. It’s always difficult. On one hand, we both want to move the medium forward. I, on my side, step forward and try to move things. I had a talk last week about "Are games culture?" We both don’t want to be here just to make money. We make it for a living, but we love the medium and want to push it forward. But of course there is always a risk; by talking out loud, people start pointing fingers at you and disagreeing with you. Maybe that affects the rest of the business … you have to be careful sometimes. David has even said, 'I don’t want to speak out anymore,' but I keep pushing him. He says important things and he should continue to say them; sometimes? it hurts; sometimes we may lose sales because of it, but in the long run, we are pushing certain discussions forward or at least contribute to it. I think it’s important.

Fondaumière shied away from directly discussing it, but it appears that he tries to influence development in subtle ways. Lately, he has been bringing on Hollywood talent to work at Quantic Dream, guiding Cage in developing his stories. You can read this one of two ways: Cage only can write so many 2,000-page scripts on his own or Fondaumière read the reviews of Heavy Rain. It may just be a mix of both.

"Da??vid has so many ideas that Quantic Dream doesn’t have enough resources to put all of these ideas into games," Fondaumière said. "Our job is to turn these ideas into projects. So we are trying to attract talent: script writers, directors, photographers. That’s currently what we are working on. It&rsquo?;s challenging but a very interesting process."

Cage ??is now joined by two other writers in script writing Quantic Dream's PS4 game in development. The results are "very positive" Fondaumière said, but are they positive enough to sustain Quantic Dream?

No other developer puts such a focus on narrative storytelling while pursuing expensive talent and production, which makes me wonder if Quantic Dream can survive the FPS-hungry market climate. Does Beyond: Two Souls have to sell more than Heavy Rain, in orde?r for Quantic Dream to continue, I asked.

"If it’d sale the same, yes. It’d be sustainable business. The production budget of Beyond is comparable but a little higher than Heavy Rain," Fondaumière said.

Fondaumière said the project will be a success if it sells 2.5 million units, ?but he hopes it well sell more.

MAXIMUM CAGE

Evolving capture technology, Hollywood talent, an amiable?? business partner. These are the things that let David Ca?ge be David Cage.

But, the?re is one other thing that I haven't mentioned yet: YOU, the people who buy his games, discuss his GDC talks, and listen to what he says. It's validation Cage wants and it's validation you give, even by hating him. But why not validate him and his arguments, when no one else is getting on stage? No one else is going to Tribeca or insisting on spending a chunk of its production budget on Hollywood talent.

Cage ??is a contradiction of sorts. He's a pioneer but not a visionary. A director but not one always concerned with game design. He is not gaming's David Lynch, because gaming's David Lynch hasn't? arrived yet. David Cage has to come first, along with all the things that prop him up.

There is no red button we can slam that will prevent David Cage f??rom being David Cag?e. So, let's hope MAXIMUM CAGE is a good thing.

The post This is not an article about David Cage appeared first on Destructoid.

Cage refuses to direct anyone else's screenplay

It's not normal for a man to write a 2,000 page script or direct a 10+ hour film, so I can't blame David Cage if all of Beyond: Two Souls isn't golden. Realizing how this strains developer Quantic Dream's ??game director, co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumière has begun hiring screenwriters, film directors, and ??other Hollywood talent to guide Cage on his PlayStation 4 title -- a first for the developer.

"David has so many ideas that Quantic Dream doesn’??t have enough resources to put all of these ideas into games," Fondaumière said. "He has grand ideas and concepts. Our job is to turn these ideas into projects. So we are trying to?? attract talent."

This process has already shown "very positive signs" through Quantic Dream's untitled PlayStation 4 game which is being written by a team of three people, including Cage. However, Cage will continue to base his games on his story ideas and will have final say on project. Cage and Quantic Dream have no interest in adapti?ng someone else's work, at this time.

"Three people is not a lot when you are writing a script between 1,500 and 3,000 pages long," Fondaumière said. "For now, Beyond is entirely written by David but on our next project we’ll have a team around him that is already giving very positive signs."

The post David Cage joi??ned by film writers and directors on PS4 appeared first on Destructoid.

Company began work on PS4 over two years ago

When I asked Quantic Dream co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumière if its upcoming, untitled PlayStation 4 game would be based on Beyond: Two Souls' engine, I got a response I wasn't expecting. The developer began development on PS4 over two years ago -- among the first developers to have dev kits -- which influenced the technology that would go into building Beyond's engine.

In other words, Quantic Dream are working backwards, scaling next-gen tech down to PS3 which would explain how Beyond looks so damn good.

"By exploring the PlayStation 4, we got new ideas and worked very hard to implement them into Beyond??&rsq??uo;s engine,"  Fondaumière said. "Nevertheless, our PS4 title will run on a new engine."

Fondaumière didn't want to go further into detail on the PS4 project, but he did share some interesting ?details on h??ow production will vastly change on next-gen projects. You can read more about that, here, tomorrow.

The post Quantic Dream’s PS4 engine predates Beyond: Two Souls appeared first on Destructoid.

Let's talk about emotions and stuff

Say what you want about David Cage, but I dare you to watch the above trailer and not be impressed. I feel you are going to prove me wrong, but join me, however briefly, with enthusiasm for Beyond: Two Soul's immense trailer wh??ich debuted at Tribeca la??st night.

The trailer shows Jodie Holmes (played by Ellen Page) throughout the different stages of her life. Different heights, clothes, locations, personalities, occupations, ages, ??and haircuts are shown, giving our first glimpse at how Quantic Dream is making good on a story that is supposed to follow Jodie for 15 years. I have my doubts Cage will make a cohesive tapestry that ties all these different stages together, but it looks fascinating when condensed to a ~3 minute trailer.

For a deeper look at the game, the 35?? minute gameplay demo de?buted at Tribeca should give a better impression. There are HEAVY SPOILERS in the demo, so if you don't want the early parts of the game ruined, you best skip it.

If you do watch, you'll see just how far Cage has come as a director, presenting scenes from  interesting angles and getting great performances out of his cast. You also may see some questionable writing choices. Keep your eyes pealed?? for the cleanest birth ever and a man reactin??g to Jodie landing from a three story jump by saying "I don't know how you did that, but it was incredible!"

It certainly is emotional.

The post Beyond: Two Souls ??Tr??ibeca trailer + 35 minutes of footage appeared first on Destructoid.

David Cage's ideal Hollywood cast revealed

David Cage has said in the past that he writes characters with actors in mind for roles. With better tech and a bigger budget, Cage finally got the cast he wanted with Beyond: Two Souls which stars Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe.  So, I wondered what actors Cage would have cast for Heavy Rain, if Quantic Dream's current motion capture tech were avail?able at the time.

According to co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumière, Cage wanted John Goodman to star as the detective Scott Shelby and Clive Owen as Ethan Mars, who is searching f??or his kidnapped son. Looking back, that casting makes a lot of sense -- a lot more than the ending, anyway.

"It’s kind of irrelevant, now, though," Fondaumière said, when I pried for more casting choices, "but I think we have the right actors for Heavy Rain because at that moment we still needed the perfect techno?logy."&nb?sp;

As for the uncanny valley, Fondaumière is not concerned with how preconception of celebrities may break immersion, saying Quantic Dream is "99-percent through the valley". You can read more about that in my upcoming Beyond: Two Souls feature.

The post Heavy Rain was written for John G??oodman and Clive Owe?n appeared first on Destructoid.

Live from Tribeca Film Festival

Just because I'm in New York this weekend covering Beyond: Two Soul's presence at the Tribeca Film Festival, doesn'??t mean you have to. Have to be in New York that is, since the hour-long clip and trailer will be live streamed (and then reposted to numerous illegitimate YouTube channels, undoubtedly). You can find the stream below, so bookmark this page. The panel that will follow won't be streamed, but you'll be able to find it on P??layStation Blog this Saturday.

Nevertheless, I feel an intense need to self promote and insist that you standby for my coverage of an event that already transpired. Don't cry for me, readers, as I'm having plenty of fun in New York with its wonderful?? Spring weather, quality lattes, and fatty Italian dinners. Attending the event in a crowded room stuffed full of sweaty game journalists may not be ideal, but how else am I going to get within poking distance of Dtoid's patron saint (and slender beefcake) Willem Dafoe?

Stay tuned to Destructoid for coverage out of Tribeca -- not to mention Flixist for film reviews -- and tune into the live stream if you fancy, you fancy read??er you.

Live Video streaming by Ustream

Beyond: Two Souls one-hou?r scene to be shown at Tribeca Film Fe?stival [VG24/7]

The post Watch hour-long Beyond scene and trailer on ??stream appeared first on Destructoid.

"Bootleg"

As you may have heard, Beyond: Two Souls is an official selection for the T?ribeca Film Festival. Sony has sent along a fake bootleg to go ??along with that massive fake script. 

After watching a bit of some fake (but well done) off-screen footage, you'll see the ?camera pan down to show that a PS3 controller is being used to guide the action. Clever. 

We'll be there this week to check out the real ?deal. Stay tuned.

The post Here’s a ‘bootleg’ trailer for Beyond: Two Souls appeared first on Destructoid.