Otherwise known as: Ellen Page: The Movie: The Game.
Intro:
Well, I lost interest in the game after only getting a few parts in, but out of commitment to this blog and the gamers reading it, I decided to push forward.
After downing a huge bottle of scotch*, I finally mustered up the courage to continue with the walkthrough. For you guys, and for you guys alone!
*Maybe a slight exaggeration. Okay, a complete lie. I drank water. That's all!
Basic Plot:
Heck if I know!
Just kidding. Beyond: Two Souls follows Jodie Holmes across 15 years of her life, and revolves her relationship with an entity named "Aiden", who has been linked to her since birth.
Release Date: October 2013.
Developer: Quantic Dream.
Publisher: Sony.
Platforms: PlayStation 3. (Exclusive)
Genre: Interactive Film. (The best way to describe it.)
Reviewed By: Kyle van Rensburg.
Areas of Concern:
Violence:
Mild Moderate Heavy Very Heavy Extreme Offensive
General Violence:
--We see several environments stained with blood, and the aftermath of violence, with corpses and blood pools being shown.
--There are a few sequences where people are shot, with a small cloud of blood spraying out.
--You can use a supernatural entity to take control of people: You can choke them, make them shoot other people and then shoot themselves. No blood is depicted (Save one sequence, see Storyline Violence below).
--Hand-to-hand combat is depicted, with punches, kicks, and stomps being shown, with bruising and blood depicted.
Storyline Violence:
--A man's eye is cut out; we hear him scream, a squish and then a crunch. This is obscured by the back of another character.
-A man stabs a woman through the hand with a screwdriver; she screams in pain and a bit of blood is shown.
--A man's throat is slit, blood leaking out, his pants are set on fire, and a woman slams him on the head with a heavy object, a crack being heard and a red mark shown.
--In one scene, a man is possessed and shoots another man in the chest, blood spurting, before turning the gun on himself; we only see blood splattering all over a nearby dartboard.
-A soldier guns down a room full of people, with blood spraying out and staining the walls in large amounts.
--A man commits suicide: We see his head jerk back, and some blood on it afterwards.
--There are a few sequences where car accidents occur, and environments being torn apart, explosions and wreckage depicted.
--We see flashes of people killed by being thrown against objects, with some blood, and one man's neck is broken by the impact, a crack being heard. This happens very quickly.
Sex/Nudity:
Mild Moderate Heavy Very Heavy Extreme Offensive
--We see a man and a woman in bed after sex. She is shown in her underwear for a brief while.
--A woman is propositioned for oral sex; you can refuse or accept. If you accept, she kneels before him, but turns back at the last moment.
--Two men attempt to take advantage of a teenage girl, but they are fended off.
--A woman takes a shower, with objects strategically covering any nudity. She puts on her underwear afterwards, which we see for a while before she gets fully dressed.
--At a party, a teen boy moves his hands towards the posterior of a teenage girl, who can accept the gesture or brush him away.
--A girl is given a thong as a gift and remarks about her future lover's life being more "interesting".
Language:
Mild Moderate Heavy Very Heavy Extreme Offensive
Semi-Frequent Uses of F**k, S**t, Sl*t, B**ch, B**t**d, A*s, C**p, H**l, and D**n.
--God and Jesus' names are used in vain.
Spiritual Content:
Mild Moderate Heavy Very Heavy Extreme Offensive
--A supernatural entity by the name of Aiden can be controlled by the player: He can "possess" people, control their actions, and make the player have "flashbacks" by touching objects or people.
--A woman is shown communicating with the dead, souls of people who have not yet "moved on".
"And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:" Hebrews 9:27
--(Spoilers) In one scene, we see a monstrous floating skull, some ghostly men, who then give chase to a woman. Later on, we learn that the floating skull was a spirit named (something) who wants blood, and he was protected by five guardians. We later see the five guardians "praying" in a circle, with a portal opening up and a spirit coming through.
In order to stop the spirit, a woman uses a ritual and an incantation to open the portal and drive the spirit away.
The preceding takes place over the span of a single "chapter", so its up to you to decide whether or not this is a game killer.
-We also see some Native American tribal objects, like staffs, dream-catchers and the like.
--The central theme of the game revolves around what happens after death. In the end, it is clearly stated that in the game, there is no heaven, hell, God or the devil, just a place where you continue to exist after death.
(More on this in the conclusion.)
--List of symbols:
-Heart.
-Pentagram.
-Ankh.
-Dragon.
Drugs/Alcohol/Smoking:
Mild Moderate Heavy Very Heavy Extreme Offensive
--A sequence depicts underage drinking and smoking. (Like people should be able to smoke at any age, but I digress....) A later scene depicts drinking in a bar.
-A man is implied to be an alcoholic; he is shown drinking.
--A man is implied to aggressive when he hasn't had a "fix".
Scary Stuff:
--When people are possessed by a supernatural force, their eyes turn white and blank.
--One section has your character traveling to an underground facility where a supernatural force has gone wild: we see a few creepy things. (Which I won't spoil.)
--Another section contains some surreal sequences and a few sudden jump scares.
Morality:
Abysmal Bad So-so Okay Good Very Good
Largely dependent on the player, but Jodie is shown to make selfless decisions throughout the game, even if she can indulge in less than moral activities.
Thoughts & Impressions:
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ---Oh sorry! Fell asleep. Man, I tell you! Stories with hugely inconsistent events really make you lose your attention fast. Thank goodness that Beyond: Two Souls doesn't succumb to this problem.
Oh wait.
While Beyond: Two Souls is a sum of several compelling parts, the end result feels like someone took the rotting carcase of a dog, sewed on some legs, and said: "Fetch, Rover!"
Wow, I didn't know I could make jokes like that. May need to watch myself, I hear video games cause violence.....
Jokes aside, let me speak about what makes Beyond problematic:
First of all, the game is an interactive movie. I know the preceding sentence is a contradiction, and that is deliberate. Quantic Dream sought to make a masterpiece, and fell far short due to the same thing Heavy Rain is argued to suffer from: An Identity Disorder.
But let me assure you, Heavy Rain is a far better piece of storytelling than Beyond. In fact, Heavy Rain looks like a masterpiece in comparison.
The only really good sequence in the game is the section "Homeless". This sequence is a huge standout because of its memorable characters, emotion, and all-round simplicity, relegating the game's hugely unfocused storyline in order to tell a down to earth, human story.
And then it ends, and the rest of the game keeps happening, arguably never managing to live up to this sequence in any way, shape, or form.
That's where the real tragedy comes in: This could have been such a great story, if they had a solid direction and weren't trying so hard to create the greatest story ever told.
Well, if you don't have a problem with the decidedly unbiblical afterlife and crack at the Christian version of it, then you should be okay with the game.
Oh, and if you can get past that incantation scene, and the sexual references, and the language, and the violence, and the teenage drinking, and the.....
Alright, I'll stop now.
I think this would be the proper place to springboard a discussion of the Christian afterlife, and give you a basic overview of it:
There is Heaven and Hell. Most people know this, because Hell is where all the bad people go and Heaven is where all the good people go, right?
Wrong. Heaven is where people redeemed exclusively through Christ's blood go, following their receiving of his grace through faith. (Belief in Him, from your heart.)
Hell is where the people go who have sinned, and refused his forgiveness. Sinners = Everybody. Every single soul alive have committed several sins in their lifetimes, starting from a young age.
Am I suggesting that God is ungracious, and casts unsaved infants and children into Hell? No, in fact, I personally believe those who could never make a choice are held in God's good grace and saved. Here's an article on the subject.
All in all, up to the mature gamer. I honestly don't feel the need to give this a Not Recommended, so MA it is then.
Oh wait.
***
While Beyond: Two Souls is a sum of several compelling parts, the end result feels like someone took the rotting carcase of a dog, sewed on some legs, and said: "Fetch, Rover!"
Wow, I didn't know I could make jokes like that. May need to watch myself, I hear video games cause violence.....
Jokes aside, let me speak about what makes Beyond problematic:
First of all, the game is an interactive movie. I know the preceding sentence is a contradiction, and that is deliberate. Quantic Dream sought to make a masterpiece, and fell far short due to the same thing Heavy Rain is argued to suffer from: An Identity Disorder.
But let me assure you, Heavy Rain is a far better piece of storytelling than Beyond. In fact, Heavy Rain looks like a masterpiece in comparison.
The only really good sequence in the game is the section "Homeless". This sequence is a huge standout because of its memorable characters, emotion, and all-round simplicity, relegating the game's hugely unfocused storyline in order to tell a down to earth, human story.
And then it ends, and the rest of the game keeps happening, arguably never managing to live up to this sequence in any way, shape, or form.
That's where the real tragedy comes in: This could have been such a great story, if they had a solid direction and weren't trying so hard to create the greatest story ever told.
Well, if you don't have a problem with the decidedly unbiblical afterlife and crack at the Christian version of it, then you should be okay with the game.
Oh, and if you can get past that incantation scene, and the sexual references, and the language, and the violence, and the teenage drinking, and the.....
Alright, I'll stop now.
I think this would be the proper place to springboard a discussion of the Christian afterlife, and give you a basic overview of it:
There is Heaven and Hell. Most people know this, because Hell is where all the bad people go and Heaven is where all the good people go, right?
Wrong. Heaven is where people redeemed exclusively through Christ's blood go, following their receiving of his grace through faith. (Belief in Him, from your heart.)
Hell is where the people go who have sinned, and refused his forgiveness. Sinners = Everybody. Every single soul alive have committed several sins in their lifetimes, starting from a young age.
Am I suggesting that God is ungracious, and casts unsaved infants and children into Hell? No, in fact, I personally believe those who could never make a choice are held in God's good grace and saved. Here's an article on the subject.
All in all, up to the mature gamer. I honestly don't feel the need to give this a Not Recommended, so MA it is then.
Verdict: 16+
For Spiritual Content and Strong Language.
Outro:
Until next time!
Writer Bio:
Kyle van Rensburg is the Editor-in-Chief of Kyle's Christian Video Game Reviews. (KVR Gaming) He likes cookies.
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