Remember that time when books, movies and games had a linear narrative? Where writers paid heed to their English teachers' advice that stories should have a start - where the scene is set and a the characters are introduced; a middle, where the plot and the characters develop, and an ending, (or if they were highbrow stories, a denouement), where matters are resolved, and the guy in the white hat rides off into the sunset. Such story telling served the human race well for thousands of years.
E3 2013
So, for a while, we were treated to a few flashbacks, but tastefully done, and absolutely vital to the plot. And that was it! Stories still started at or near the beginning and finished at or near the end.
Then Lost introduced the idea that you could plug lots of plot holes, cover up bad writing and create the impression of drama and tension by omitting loads of the story, and then retrofitting it later. You could even make yourself seem like a clever "everything is connected in ways we could never imagine" writer by just slapping a bit of inconsequential detail in down the line.
It jumps around the chronological place with absolute abandon. It's a simple story really: a girl (Jodie) has a link to a powerful parapsychological/metaphysical entity called Aiden, but pronounced Iden. She inevitably gets absorbed into some shady quasi-governmental agency. Later she joins the CIA. Then she has the "I'm a monster" moment, and quits the CIA in a fit of pique and a moment of conscience.
So, how to make it seem new and interesting? Easy, let's mix it up a bit, jump abruptly from Jodie's troubled childhood to her happy days at CIA boot camp and then to now, where everyone who comes near her wants a piece of her, and she just wants to be left alone, then back to her childhood, most of which she seems to have spent terrorising neighbourhood kids.
Even as an interactive experience Beyond is not without its shortcomings. It is not a free roaming experience. You are pretty tightly tramlined, and often the control of the camera is wrested from you and you cannot even look at parts of the environment. You can interact with very few items in the game world, and those with which you can are heavily cued by means of a white dot on them.
Action sequences are equally heavy-handed: the action goes into slow-motion, and you have to use the right stick to "control" Jodie's movements by pressing in one of the four ordinal directions.
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Comments
joseph blower 12 Oct 2013 09:11
1/1
Your mileage may vary, but for me, the game is transcendent.
It transcends both video games and movies to become something greater than either medium would ever be by themselves. I'm an avid gamer (I have 400+ Steam games, 400+ iOS games, and 100+ console games). Yet--to speak for myself--*I* found this game far more moving, thought-provoking, meaningful, and entertaining than many other games (including Super Mario Galaxy 1-2, Grand Theft Auto 4-5, The Last of Us, and others).
I can only compare it to Heavy Rain, The Walking Dead, or the Metal Gear Solid series: deep rich stories that have themes and messages that convey something of lasting meaning; something beyond the mindless (but fun) shooting and platforming of other titles.
I will remember this game for years to come. There are few works of fiction of any medium for which I can say the same.
If you like a rich deep story line and don't care about a lack of "agency" (it's always illusory in video games, anyway--there are always incredibly restrictive rules on game play), then this is *the* game of the seventh generation. The comparably minor errors in execution and direction can be ignored, when viewed in light of the whole.
Indeed, the question of whether this qualifies as a game is, like Dear Ester, a largely irrelevant and pedantic: It entertains. It provokes thought. It is emotionally moving. And it illustrates that games--like cinema or literature--can be taken seriously as a medium to both entertain and enlighten.
If judged solely as a film, or only as a game, I can understand the bad scores, but when you combine them, I think the effect is unique and something we need to see more of. It seems to me that most reviewers of this game have profoundly and tragically missed the point.
It transcends both video games and movies to become something greater than either medium would ever be by themselves. I'm an avid gamer (I have 400+ Steam games, 400+ iOS games, and 100+ console games). Yet--to speak for myself--*I* found this game far more moving, thought-provoking, meaningful, and entertaining than many other games (including Super Mario Galaxy 1-2, Grand Theft Auto 4-5, The Last of Us, and others).
I can only compare it to Heavy Rain, The Walking Dead, or the Metal Gear Solid series: deep rich stories that have themes and messages that convey something of lasting meaning; something beyond the mindless (but fun) shooting and platforming of other titles.
I will remember this game for years to come. There are few works of fiction of any medium for which I can say the same.
If you like a rich deep story line and don't care about a lack of "agency" (it's always illusory in video games, anyway--there are always incredibly restrictive rules on game play), then this is *the* game of the seventh generation. The comparably minor errors in execution and direction can be ignored, when viewed in light of the whole.
Indeed, the question of whether this qualifies as a game is, like Dear Ester, a largely irrelevant and pedantic: It entertains. It provokes thought. It is emotionally moving. And it illustrates that games--like cinema or literature--can be taken seriously as a medium to both entertain and enlighten.
If judged solely as a film, or only as a game, I can understand the bad scores, but when you combine them, I think the effect is unique and something we need to see more of. It seems to me that most reviewers of this game have profoundly and tragically missed the point.