I am not even going to call this a game because it is flat out not a game. I was able to beat this movie incredibly early on and I am incredibly disappointing with the complete lack of any semblance of actual new game-play. So why pay 60 dollars for a movie with horrendous game-play when you can simply watch the entire thing on youtube for free?

It's a terrible, TERRIBLE game. Controls are even worse than in Heavy Rain. You have *no idea* what you're supposed to do half the time. You have to jump over obstacles the camera doesn't show; punch characters in a doorway you assume you're supposed to scramble past; push the right-stick towards the enemy to push when it looks like Jodie is about to duck...and then there's "Aiden".

First, what's with all these game characters named Aiden lately? There are fewer than 1,584 people in the U.S. with the first name Aiden. 0.0005% of the US population. I swear I didn't even know there was such a name until Heavy Rain, Just like I didn't know children to Chicago natives had accents.

Aiden is a supernatural entity you play as from the first-person to get Jodie out of jams. She'll frequently cry, "Help me, Aiden!" and you'll be facing some awkward direction and the screen will be blurry. Now you have to float Aiden around the area with all the grace of a flying refrigerator.
It's almost impossible to figure out what you can interact with because you have to be an inch from it to tell most of the time. To do anything, you hold R1, and move both control sticks. But you never know which direction! Sometimes you have to pull them apart, charge, and release to "zap" objects, pinch together to choke, continuously pull apart to possess enemies, rotate them...you never know what you're supposed to do.

Finally, the oldest problem in modern games, terrible writing. This is a European fan-film remake of E.T. with all the cliche's of a Hollywood chase scene, complete with no less than 5 state troopers chasing you on top of a passenger train. Why did 5 out-of-shape rent-a-cops climb on top of a train at once? And why do all of "Bakerstown"'s finest sound like Batman street thugs? Why is the SWAT team-member flailing his arms around near the explosion when he's not even on fire??? I was frequently expecting some guy to drag a fruit cart in my path so I could crash through it. Heavy Rain had a chicken coup in Walmart, after all.

Bottom line, this is a really horribly designed game, even if the main characters look very realistic (too bad they aren't memmorable--what a waste of Willem Dafoe). Don't buy it, or Sony might threaten us with more.… Expand

Really awful.

I'll try to review it objectively considering its meant to be 'an experiment', with no gameplay/interesting mechanics to speak of.

But the story was drab, graphically you would have expected more at this late stage of hardware optimisation.

Very underwhelming.

Beyond: Two Souls is a failure on many different levels. As a movie, which David Cage clearly wanted to advertise this game as, it's plot is all over the place, it's character development almost nonexistant, and it's ending absolutely ludicrous. Several glitches during my playtime caused quite a few bugs that would have broken my immersion several times, if the wooden acting from Page and Defoe hadn't already done it for me.

As a video game, I don't think I even need to explain here. Quick Time Events do not make for compelling gameplay. The Last of Us, another recent story-based game, still had a great deal of gameplay that engaged the user way more than "press X to not die" ever will. The environments are bland, and the only good character models are the ones for the main characters on screen. "Dreamcast people" come to mind frequently.

And although I'm not one to talk, if you take a look at the 10/10 reviews that have popped up for this game, you'll notice that very few of them have reviewed a single other game on here. Food for thought.… Expand

Terribly short. You can tell since it released today and yet so many people are already giving it 10/10s. Not worth $60, especially considering how heavily it relies on narrative and graphics to make up for the complete lack of gameplay. If you strip away all the surface elements, it's easy to tell that the last thing on Quantic Dream's mind was to make a game and they would rather be making movies (although there's probably a good reason why they're stuck making 'games' and not movies).

Beyond: Two Souls is a poor attempt at mimicking the success of Telltale Game's 'The Walking Dead,' which not only released at half the price of Quantic Dream's story, but it also allowed players to buy the story in smaller chunks at even cheaper prices in case they weren't sure they were going to like it. $60 for something that plays exactly the same is almost criminal.… Expand

I'm not happy with this game, it promised so much, the demo was awesome and then, when i play, all i see is a movie wannabe game, the gameplay is so poor that in the end i was only playing for the story.
I kinda regret buying it, if it was cheaper maybe it would worth it, but with 59,99 dollars, you can do better.

This is not a game, as absolutely none of your actions actually influence anything. You can fail anything and the game just progresses as normal. As far as a movie goes it's very poor.

Disgusting.

This game.has lowered the bar for game narrative.If Beyond: Two Souls is truly the pinnacle of videogame narrative like PS3 fanboys claim) then I fear our standards are horrifically low. Sending out the message to publishers that this is what we consider an artistic triumph is terrible. Games can do and have done better than this, but we've now set the bar incredibly low. The high praise for Heavy Rain has effectively sent the message that game writers don't have to try and create a tight, cohesive story. All they need to do is clumsily copy a bunch of classic movies with less than half the care and attention to detail in order to trick people into thinking their game is mature.… Expand

Whilst a very visually attractive game, David Cage's Beyond: Two Souls proves to be quite soulless, with a confusing, cliched story and unappealing characters. Give this one a miss.

Whatever happened to video games being like video games? I tried the demo and it was the most unfun POS ever with some of the worst controls I have ever experienced. Beyond: Two Souls does not deserve more than Beyond: Two Sales.

I will stick with real video games and not this casual junk that wants to be a movie. Keep your movies out of my video games.

In my opinion, the most overrated game I've ever seen. Another fuzzy movie from Quantic Dreams: only one scene of real action games, controls I can not even tell who is oriented on this game

What a shame Willem Dafoe's great performance is wasted on this trash. Gameplay is nearly non existant and even if it were marketed as an interactive movie it's still bad. David Cage proves once again he's nothing but a talentless hack.

I'm generously giving this "game" a 1. The graphics are pretty good, not the best I've ever seen, not the worst. The music and sound are pretty top notch, all things considered. The story I can see as a love it or hate it type thing. I thought it was interesting, but not overly so. The gameplay is non-existent.

Listen, when I don't even have to tap a button, I don't have to input any command at all, and the story just plays itself out as if I wasn't even there. Then it's not a game friends. It's a movie. Now if Beyond: Two Souls want's to be a movie that's fine, I'll buy the 20 dollar blu-ray. Instead of the 60 dollar whatever this is supposed to be.

Just to illustrate how disappointed I am, I've got about 90 games in my collection, this will be the first game I trade-in, which is saying something, considering I have two copies of White Knight Chronicles 2 for absolutely no reason.… Expand

The game plays itself; you don't have control of outcomes, and you can never fail. The story is shoddy and a lot of times laughable. I had to stop playing half way because it wasn't fun anymore, so I returned it. For a $60 game I would expect to actually have a GAME, yet this felt like it would have worked just as well as a movie while saving $48. I do not recommend, this coming from someone that somewhat enjoyed Heavy Rain. If you're curious of the story, just watch Youtube videos. You're bound to get the same experience.… Expand

Beyond two souls is a beautiful game and sadly that's the only good thing you can say about this "game".
When i sat down with beyond two souls in my hand i did not expect ending up so disappointed as i did this is nothing but a movie since the choices you make does not matter at all and gameplay wise it's dreadful!
If this was a 15$ game i would have been happy but for 60$ AAA game i expected more then 9 hours of cutscene for a story that is dull and has been done in many movies before!… Expand

1. This is NOT a game. This is an interactive movie.
2. TERRIBLE Controls. Far from intuitive.
3. Nice graphics. Characters are lifelike.
4. Strange story. Starts off confusing and is not that engaging.

I would not recommend a purchase. This is a rental at best. I was deeply disappointed.

Big step back from HR, less characters, less narrative crossroads. The plot is a meat loaf with boring moments, stupid and trivial. QD did not understand the true potential of 'interactive drama. Interactive drama should not become trivial linear film, but interactive movie sandbox. the player must be in control of the script, not a stupid spectator. Instead of hiring actors of hollywood, would be better to take classes in game design… Expand

Abysmal experience. Uneven graphics quality ranging from photo-realistic to very primitive are distracting and this is the best part of the game. Controls are even worse than in previous games, QTE during action scenes is now promtless and often not obvious, during casual interaction it's hard to aim at the required object and ghost mechanics are just unresponsive. And still this is not the worst part. Story and writing are the worst. Game comprised of mixed memories from different parts of Jodie's life. The fact that they are mixed brings nothing to the game experience. Last third of the game is going chronologically anyway. There are numerous plotholes in the script, Jodie's powers don't add up in different episodes and made of different genre cliches, her motivations are totally unclear throughout the game no matter what decisions you make all of them seem out of place and only there to serve the nonsensical plot. Avoid this game!… Expand

For all of David Cage's attempts to make games into movies, why can he not write, and why are the controls so goddamn obnoxious and horrible?

This game has lovely visuals and pretty good acting performances, but GODDAMN the controls are absolutely horrendous in ways they shouldn't be. Just moving your character feels like the most disgusting thing ever due to how poor the controls are.

I really wanted to like this game, but couldn't. I wanted to play a game not a movie. I didn't like the controls, the gameplay, this game bored me so much I couldn't even follow the story I was falling asleep, and I didn't like how one minute you're a kid and then the next you're a teenager with no explanation for it. I also thought I was going to like the entity, but I didn't like it either. I just expected a whole lot more out of this game. I was told the person who made this made Heavy Rain and I heard that game was good, but since I didn't like this one I most likely won't like that one. This is just my opinion on this there are a lot of mixed reviews about it. If you want to know how it is you have to give it a try yourself. This is definitely no 10/10.… Expand

The marketing around this "beyond a game" is far more efficient than the program itself wich is close to a serie B movie with cheap actors, cheap effects and cheap story.

When playing Beyond, I couldn't help but recall an interview I read with Amy Hennig in which she explained that the writing for the Uncharted games started with first developing their exciting, standout events, and then contriving links to tie them all together. The funny thing about Beyond, is that it kind of does the same thing, except A), the events aren't always exciting or memorable, and B), the writers didn't bother to create any links to tie the story together. Instead, Beyond is made up of a bunch of tiny scenes that merey fade in, fade out, and move on to the next. These scenes can last anywhere between 5 and 30 minutes.

During these scenes, there's a very thinly-veiled notion that you're directing the outcome of the story, much like in Telltale's The Walking Dead; however, no matter what you do, everything turns out exactly the same in the end. A perfect example of this occurs very early on in the game where you're given the opportunity to wreak havoc in an office building--at first, you’re prompted by the game to ruffle some papers and knock over some blocks, which scares someone in the room. At that point, you’re given the option to continue messing with stuff in the room, for the sole purpose of freaking this person out even more. I opted not to, because, well, it would have been mean to do so. So I just sat there, and for the next minute or so, the music continued to swell and the panicking individual continued to panic. Finally, the scene ended when some people burst into the room to relieve the main character, who was... sobbing?! Why? She ruffled some papers, and knocked over some blocks. Clearly the writers assumed that all players would go to town on everything in the room, and did not bother writing an alternative; EVERYTHING in the game is predetermined.

Worse, even the best scenes are rarely original. It’s mostly tried-and-true movie tropes designed to evoke emotional responses from the audience. The problem is that that they’e so disconnected from each other that it amounts to nothing.

In the end, Beyond is a collection of low-hanging fruit tropes, cut up nice and neat into tiny, bite-sized vignettes.… Expand

As a huge fan of David Cage's, I was incredibly disappointing. I'd much rather watch a movie-version of this attempt at a Quentin Tarantino storytelling. You feel passive, as your decisions don't matter, and you're invincible. You can't die. You can get stabbed, beat to hell, and knocked out, but surprise--Aidan saves the day! The ending doesn't give you any feeling of completion, and the decisions you make (do I want to make Asian beef or soup?) have no pull to the story at all. The combat is the worse the gaming industry has ever seen, and the controls are weak. I was a huge fan of Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain.. Beyond: Two Souls was the biggest disappointment of this generation.… Expand

Very weak title. For a game there is basically no gameplay. For a movie, it is too slow and story not interesting. For a interactiv movie, there is not much of interactivity. (this is caused by the story structure, where you actually play the future parts before you can play the parts before them, that could affect them without linear structure the interactivity is really not working). And as a tech-demo, there are texture pop-ups and framedrops including some short (0,5 1sec) freezes caused by the background loadings.
I really liked the Heavy Rain. But the Beyond has basically all the bad aspect of the Heavy Rain. But unfortunately it is missing to parts that were great in Heavy Rain (interesting story and interactivity that could affect story few scenes later.)… Expand

Beautiful graphics but just a terrible derivative story, long winded and contrite at times. The sequeuences through out the game are just repetitive and almost forced most of the time. Fragmented and lost in a sea of cliches and predictable storylines it tries to be something more than what it could have been....Very dissapointed as I loved Heavy Rain...

Played a few hours with the missus last night. She had great fun picking apart the horrible writing scene by scene. There is nothing fresh, it’s all lifted from horror/paranormal movies. It’s really just Heavy Rain with a faster pace, and ALL the dialogue plot holes (ever). Ellen Page hams it up and a lot of lines just aren’t delivered well. Whole thing plays like a tutorial, so clearly Qurly Quantic Dream have learned nothing gameplay wise. That’s always been an issue with their games most interactions are devoid of context so there really isn’t gameplay or challenge. The controller icon is forever there to tell you what to do because you’re not going to know! The Last of Us showed the future, not this interactive movie tripe. It achieved all the “emotion” and was still a highly engaging game. With that, imagine the possibilities if Telltale had this budget. David Cage needs to play The Walking Dead and understand that it’s got the right amount of interactivity for this kind of thing down.

Oh, and visually it isn't a patch on TLOU or GTA5.… Expand

disjointed mess without any game play at all. It doesn't even qualify to be called an adventure game. That is actually coming from someone who liked Indigo Prophecy and thought Heavy Rain was ok.

Clunky character movement, forced decisions, awkward character interaction, and an ending so bad I literally sat my controller down and laughed. This isn't the masterpiece that Heavy Rain was. Not even close. This game started out great and showed a lot of promise, but the story really plummets after the Navajo section. So many moments in the story feel like they were just thrown on to add time to your playthrough, and the constant traveling back and forth through the main character's chlidhood and adulthood makes it really hard to make sincere choices when given the option. Not only that, but you see just how little control you actually have. This is by far one of the worst games i've ever played. It reminds me of when I played Indigo Prophecy and had to watch the great story turn into an awkward Dragon Ball Z LARP session.… Expand

A nice movie, a really bad game, I mean, one of the worst ever. Because Beyond: Two Souls isn't a game, you just press buttons and see the story happen. In "storytelling" aspect, the game is a 9/10, but Beyond it's a GAME, not a movie, I don't want to watch a game, I want to play it, and well, David Cage really need to change for the Movie Industry...

This is not a game it's a movie! would be easier to put actual videos, and video through the lock and you choose the action! and another 10 are neither times you control the character.

bought a game or a movie?

This is not a game at all. The controls, like one reviewer said, are rubbish. You really do not have control over anything. This really brings the definition of "linear" to a whole new level. Story is bad. Playing this was both frustrating and boring.

I really really wanted to like this game, but I was very disappointed with how poorly this games story was handled and how weak the gameplay was.
The way the story was broken up into different pieces and mixed up made everything so confusing for me to follow and the gameplay was just not good, I made so many mistakes with the slow mo segments with Jodie because I could not read her movements half the time.
Most of the other characters were weak and I had less options to that of Heavy Rain.
One of the most negative things about the game for me was that the game just wouldn't work anymore, I stopped playing last night and got up this to morning to play and the game just would not load the level I left off at, I restarted the game and still would not work. The game was broken for me.
The only positive things about this game for me was the performance of Ellen Page and of course the great visuals of the game.
I'm sad to say this is likely my final PS3 Exclusive game I'll play before I get a PS4 and I have already returned it for a full refund.
I hate to say this but Beyond Two Souls is on my Most Disappointing Games of 2013 list.… Expand

Visually this is a massive step forward. But the story (which seems to be it's main part) falls flat, the characters are shallow and there virtually is no gameplay. I definitely can't recommend this "game". It feels like the creative leads behind this really want to work in films, but somehow chose the wrong medium to bring their vision across. I got bored and irriated enough to not even finish half the game.… Expand

Another overrated overhyped game created to screw gamers out of their hard earned money...Its not even a game but instead a movie with button presses to kill the time. Games like this one deserve to be in the $20 bin at a bodega collecting dust. Run away from this abomination! But Im sure casual Wii sports game lovers will enjoy playing this abomination. But to a hardcore gamer..buy GTA 5 instead

In trying to redefine what a videogaming experience can be, Beyond stumbles where Heavy Rain before it, excelled. Take for instance the homeless chapter. In the sequence, you walk down a short street where the following happens. You enter a restaurant where you're told to beat it and eff off, you jimmy a newspaper machine for a few coins, get propositioned and escape from an alleyway, then come across another homeless person with a guitar, where you play a lovely tune for some money, which you end up beating up some young adults for after its taken. What a random, jarring series of events. Is that supposed to reflect the randomness of life? And the fight mechanics can be hard to control because of camera angles. But what does it matter, since you can't die? So matter how well or badly you react, there's no reason to do better. The motion capture and acting of Ellen Page is very well done, and it helps us get over the more "non-interactive" moments. But as far as a gaming experience, I'll take Heavy Rain over this.… Expand

More movie like game Heavy Rain certainly had not only good sides but it was a lot better as this game. What bothers me is that it must specifically I am only in a movie, and the only player to push off and a few buttons. Even without this end the actions always good. The game offers a lot to see but it still is for me a game and the way it should be played. Conclusion: Too much film and very little gameplay elements.… Expand