Depression Quest – Quick Review

This rather solemn sounding game attempts to bring players into the world of somebody living with depression and which does so, but not in the way it’s intended. I would struggle to call this a game and would instead agree with the ‘interactive fiction’ part of their description as the game consists almost entirely of text. The premise of the game is that you play as somebody with depression and must struggle through those everyday realities of life that tend to feel like momentous tasks for those suffering from depression such as going to work, managing your relationships, accepting the reality of being alive, deciding on potential treatment and handling the depression itself. Unfortunately the overall gameplay experience is painfully dominated by its origin as a set of interactive webpages that link to one another via hyperlinks when you make a choice and, though I appreciate the painfully personal nature of this game, it is unfortunately just too dull to call enjoyable.

The game boasts over 40,000 words of interactive fiction as though this is a positive aspect but if I were to play a game about living through depression I would prefer something that drew me in through artistic means rather than having to climb a seemingly unending mountain of paragraphs and written dialogue. The actual quality of the writing is very good, a little bland but it's mostly descriptive rather than creative and tends to set the scene nicely. What the game primarily suffers from however is way in which the player interacts with the story by making decisions. Decisions appear at the bottom of the screen and, as time goes on and your character’s depression worsens or improves, some of these options may be greyed out as you lack motivation or are in other ways simply not able to be picked. What this is supposed to simulate is the feeling that your life will never get any better and to emulate how much of a struggle it is to cope with the debilitating condition but what it actually rendered was a game where, even if you were supposedly getting better, your decisions and choices at improving your life went unrecognized. Rarely you would be told that you were getting better or your mood was briefly lifted but the writing never reflected this and the frustration of being unable to pursue treatments like therapy or medication later on down the line make your optimistic choices feel fairly pointless. Even though I tended to pick things in an attempt to make my guy feel better I found myself clicking through pages of dialogue with only one option to choose from; the depressing one. Unsurprisingly I ended up getting a rather negative ending and I felt like I'd been backed into a corner; good imagery for feel life but not a great feature of a 'choose your own path' interactive fiction game.

As I just said, the choices do eventually have an effect in the way of alternative endings. Usually this feature would have me all excited and intrigue to play through them all but something about this game just left me too fatigued to even try. Maybe it was the depression. Maybe it was the fact that after an hour that felt like three of carefully selected choices I was still left with a conclusion that felt watery, unresolved and unsatisfying. It seemed that no matter what I chose I was always going to end up in some undesirable rut that wouldn’t change anything anyway so what was the point of trying again. I realize the irony that this is exactly what depression feels like so on a positive note the game stirs up in you a very accurate portrayal of depression, the fact that this is a positive note does nothing to recommend this game to others. From a gamers perspective, unless you are either too happy to function and need bringing down or want to try and experience the unending torment of somebody living with depression then I wouldn't recommend you play this game. From a personal level however I would suggest you play a little bit of it so you at least take part in the awareness raising that the developer is attempting to perform.

The Good:

• Well written
• Insightful and educational 
• Application of choices enhances connection to character 
• Brilliant portrayal of the illness 
• Donation of charity and awareness raising is always a good thing
• The five alternative endings allows for some re-playability

The Bad:

• Generally, rather boring
• Lack of visuals makes it feel like a book, not a game 
• The cross from webpage to Steam should have included significant gameplay changes 
• The music is repetitive, gets a little glitchy if you’re depressed but that’s it 
• An hour of play felt like an eternity
• Seems to have become popular on the back of controversy
• Surprisingly lacking in emotion

The Score: 5/10 
 
Final thoughts: “It’s clear this game is for a good cause, it promotes awareness and donates to charity, but that still doesn’t make the game fun or interesting. This is not really a game and it shouldn’t really be on Steam.

You can play Depression Quest for free here via the developers website.

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Only If - Black Pawn Walkthrough

'Only If' is a free game on Steam that has two paths of storyline through one very surreal game. The beginning of the game is the same for each path but changes depending on whether you pick a white pawn or a black pawn from a chess set early on in the game. This walkthrough covers the beginning of the game and the Black Pawn path, if you want to read about the White Pawn path then check out the walkthrough here. I've used a few images to help explain things and to read them I suggest you click to enlarge the image, otherwise you'll have to do some major squinting. I hope you enjoy this... unusual game.

Intro

After waking up, go out the door.
Walk up to the blue glowing orb.
Run forward, you'll notice the blue light shows up edges of walls, run around them.

Study:

After going through the door, listen to the radio and do as he says.
Go look in the mirror in the small area through the archway.
Remove the mirror with E.
Find the key in the time limit, it's by the window on the lower shelf of the cabinet.

Use the key to open the door where the mirror just was.
Choose your chess board piece.  
Pick up the four still life paintings and put them all in the fireplace.
Pull the fireplace's level to burn them.
Now go through the door after picking up the key.

Black pawn level names

1. Windmill
2. House
3. Basement
4. Basementpart2

Windmill:

As you regain control, turn around and examine the chess board.
Manically tap the spacebar until you break the surface of the water
After the dialogue, tap E when you are prompted to
Once you have crawled to the clearing, keep following the stone path along until the screen fades
Now you’re standing, follow the path to the top left hand clearing.
When you see the blackness, quickly turn around and follow the newly opened pathway.
Don’t go near the blackness and press E when prompted to
From here just keep following the path along to the best of your ability to tap E when needed until entering the next area.

House:

Leave the room and make a U-Turn into another room with a jug on a table and a message near it
Drink the water then backtrack and turn right, entering the newly opened door.
Here there are several exits but you should first descend the stairs twice to enter a room with iron gratings on the floor.
From here, go left and head over to the light. Pick up the safe picks.
Go back and then through the other door to where a lever is.
Activate it multiple times for an achievement then leave.
Ascend two flights of stairs into a room with a record player.
Stop the music and take the piece of paper.
Carefully descend down the stairs but make sure you run forward, not to the right.

Immediately upon entering the room check to the right for a flight of stairs partially hidden behind a room divider.
Here, you should be safe from your pursuers. 
Jump over the two trunks to the left and look to your immediate left for a waste paper basket.
Search inside it and pick up the pink gem inside, by holding the right mouse button you can now zoom in.
Turn, and locate a pair of wardrobes that lean together to form a V shape.
Head over to this and crouch through the gap. 
Walk around the room dividers and through the open door, following the passage.
Ignore the gated doorway and head down the next corridor until you come across a room with a safe in it.
Middle click to bring up the piece of paper and right click to zoom in on the numbers.
You need to adjust the dial to the configuration on the paper. 

Start by turning the dial CW to 20, left click to confirm.
Now turn it CW 60, left click to confirm again.
Finally turn the dial CCW to 0 and left click.

Once the safe is open, backtrack to the gate and go through it.
Once in the hallway start sprinting as you'll be chased again.
Run through the corridor, avoiding the wooden pillars, until you go through into the next area. 

Basement:

Once the chase is over, go through the hole beneath you.
Walk through the hallway, ignoring the room on the left with the lever in it, and head into the room at the end of the hall.
After being shown how to throw boxes, remove all the boxes from the doorway ahead of you.
In the next room you'll see a short door on the left, stack boxes so you can climb over this into the next room to gain a flashlight.

Turn around then squeeze through the gaps in the boxes until you come across a blue gem on top of the boxes in the corner.

Once you've got the gem, backtrack to where you came in and climb back over the door.
Enter the room on your immediate left where there's a gate and lever. 
Locate the cupboard that's sitting in the smaller room to the side, you'll need to use it in a moment.
Head back to the lever and use it, the music will change as Vinnie and co. show up so quickly run back to that cupboard and hide in it. 
Listen to the ensuing conversation and once they've left the music has stopped, exit the cupboard.
On the table in front of you there's a lever that Vinnie left behind, pick it up.
Go back to the gate that you opened a moment ago and head on up the stairs, turning at the top and going up the next flight of stairs.
Once on the top floor you'll notice a gate that needs to be opened with the lever you have, put the lever in the slot and open the gate.
In the next room you'll find two locked gates on opposite sides of the room. 
Pull the lever on the right side then go back down the stairs to the lit gateway.

There's a lever on the opposite side of this gate from the one you pulled to open it, you'll need to do this very quickly so it may take a couple of attempts. Face up the stairs, with your back to the lever, you'll still be able to pull it. Pull it to open the left gate up the stairs then sprint as fast as you can, back up the stairs, and through the left gate. You may need to jump to get over the gate as it slowly lifts out of the floorboards.

In this new room you need to find a handle for the lever, go into the small room with the large cogs in it.
Pull the lever in this room to find yourself back somewhere familiar.
Return to where the two gates are, don't worry you don't have to go through the left gate again, and now you'll see that the gate on the right has opened and is lit up.
Enter this room and pick up the pink gem.
Now that you have both gems you need to backtrack all the way down to the starting hallway where you chose to ignore the room on the left (now right) and decided to go straight ahead instead. That's the room on the 2nd line of this section.
Pull the lever in this room and turn around to notice that the doorway has closed and a wooden panel with cogs has taken its place.
Put your gems into the mechanism and turn around again.
Pick up the purple gem, pull the lever and leave the room.
Turn left into the doorway and take note of the lit up door that's actually a giant cog.
Pull the lever beside this door once, then once again after it smashed the box.
Crawl under the cog into the next section.

Basementpart2:

Here you'll notice a pronged lever on top of a note in the left alcove of the room.
Pick it up then activate the other lever to open up the panel.
You'll need to go back to the top floor with the huge cogs in it and go through the timed gate again.
Once in the console room again, put the lever in the broken mechanism directly to your left.

Check out the screenshot for where you're headed, it's the gate around the corner at the end of the room.
If you're not quick enough you may die and lose your flashlight, so be careful.
Pull the lever 5 times and run through the gate and follow the cog along.
The cog will move past a hole in the tunnel, crouch down and go through this hole.
There are three doors here, one is a gate up a set of stairs, there's a panel at the base of the stairs with a cog in it. 
Put the purple gem in the cog and run through the gate.
Keep running through all the open doors, the nausea will make this quite difficult.

After the events you'll be treated to a pretty irritated Vinnie, once you've exchanged pleasantries head on back into the parlor and choose the White Pawn path, presuming you haven't already. Check out the White Pawn path guide here and a workaround if you experience the 'Black Pawn path' repeating bug.

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Only If - White Pawn Walkthrough

'Only If' is a free game on Steam that has two paths of storyline through one very surreal game. The beginning of the game is the same for each path but changes depending on whether you pick a white pawn or a black pawn from a chess set early on in the game. This walkthrough covers the beginning of the game and the White Pawn path, if you want to read about the Black Pawn path then check out the walkthrough here. I've used a few images to help explain things and to read them I suggest you click to enlarge the image, otherwise you'll have to do some major squinting. I hope you enjoy this... unusual game.

Intro

After waking up, go out the door.
Walk up to the blue glowing orb.
Run forward, you'll notice the blue light shows up edges of walls, run around them.

Study:

After going through the door, listen to the radio and do as he says.
Go look in the mirror in the small area through the archway.
Remove the mirror with E.
Find the key in the time limit, it's by the window on the lower shelf of the cabinet.

Use the key to open the door where the mirror just was.
Choose your chess board piece.  
Pick up the four still life paintings and put them all in the fireplace.
Pull the fireplace's level to burn them.
Now go through the door after picking up the key.

White Pawn Walkthrough

To access a level from the main menu you have to type in the level name as a form of saving and loading. Below are the level names for all stages of the white pawn playthrough. If your game has bugged after playing the Black Pawn version, which is common, type in 'whitepawn' to play the white pawn path from the very beginning.

White pawn level names:

1. Whitepawn
2. Topsyturvy
3. Park
4. Blind
5. Immensity
6. Ending
7. Whatithinkofyou

Whitepawn:

 
Walk over to the sofa and turn on the radio.
Note the painting in the small room to the right.
When Vinnie starts to count down from 5, type in ‘honey’ before he finishes.
Go through the white door behind you.

Topsyturvy:

 
In the next room, listen to the dialogue.
Around the outside of the room, note the paintings with words on, you may have to check a few times before they change to words.
In the center of the room on the table, liquid will appear in the yellow bowl. Drink it.
Go to the outside of the room and stay by the walls.
After the dialogue, go into the darkness.

Park: 

  

 
Walk around the park until you find a black clock on a bench, situated down a path opposite the circle of red and pink flowers.
Type ‘yes’ whenever you’re asked a question.
When asked to find a blue flower, go back to the circle of red and pink flowers flowers where there’s three single blue flowers in the middle. Enter the ring of flowers.
Type ‘here’ when asked a question.
Type ‘admired’ or ‘cast’ and the area will change depending on what you pick.

You now need to find a total of 9 bins in the area, usually they are situated between benches but one is found on the edge of the map near a wall and a couple are on the corners of paths. The one against the wall is located in front of the brick maze, behind a large hill. To look in the bins press E when standing directly face on to them.

When you have found all of the bins it will zoom in on a picture of a sun hanging from a tree branch.
Locate this picture and stand beneath it, press E to activate it.
Look to the ground to locate the stepping stones. 
Follow the stones along carefully before coming to the entrance of the maze.
Enter the maze and look in the bin that's just around the corner.
Sit in the chair for a moment and appreciate nature.
Get up and try and find your way out of the maze.
When you get to a bin, look inside of it.
When there’s nowhere left to go, walk through the wall.
Crouch under the next wall up ahead then enter the darkness.

Blind:

 
Listen to Vinnie in the darkness.
Run forward through the blue light until you reach the object at the end.
Listen to Vinnie some more then turn around and go to the door directly ahead of you. It's quite hard to spot.
Open this white door and pick up the light inside.
Go back out the door and use the light, follow the direction of the post it note on the door frame
Open this next door then carefully ascend the white spiral staircase.
At the top, jump across the paintings and books to get to the rug and furniture
Pick up the light from here as well then leave this ‘room’.
Find the note on the floor in one of the open door frames. 

Facing the note so that it reads the right way up, run forward and count to 6, not too fast. Turn left. If there’s no obvious door, try again but count slower.
Open the new door and crouch down to go into the fireplace.
Follow the set path and ignore the door for now.
When you find the table, read the notes and pick up the white pawns and the key.
Take the white pawns back to the fireplace and use the lever.
Crouch, and quietly advance to the door, unlocking it.
Keep crouched down and follow the set path until you reach the desk, stand up and grab the coin.
Run back to the slot machine and use it to get Anthony’s voice back.
Your screen will fade so just listen to the dialogue before the next area comes up.

Immensity:

The basic premise here is that you need to jump; between the platforms and shoot the green vases but the jumping must be done in a specific way. For every jump, you should sprint by holding ‘shift’ and jump by holding down the spacebar. The longer you hold the spacebar the greater your jump will be so make sure you’re holding it for as long as possible. 

 
Jump from pillar to pillar, shooting the green pots as you come across them, for every pot you shoot a glowing blue aura will be left behind and you should pick this up. For each of these you collect you’ll be able to jump a bit farther and a bit higher so make sure to search the area thoroughly and collect all of the green pots. There are approximately fourteen vases that you need to grab before reaching the top pillar and heading into the shower of pink crystals.

After the scene, shoot the large green vase and absorb the aura it drops.
Don't attempt to make the huge jump ahead of you, instead look down and to your left.
Drop down onto this lower ledge and skirt around the edge of it.
The vases are now a lot larger and should be very apparent, there’s one ahead of you on the higher up ledge.
Once you have collected all of the huge green pots carefully jump across the large grey pillars in the middle of the section that lead up to the next shower of crystals.

Ending:

 
Listen to the radio
Open the door and leave the room.
Use the mirror

Whatithinkofyou:

After the dialogue you’ll drop into a map full of green vases and four huge grandfather clocks at the four cardinal points of the area.
Walk all the way forward and search the tiny bin at the foot of the grandfather clock.
Pick up the key that appears.
Turn around and run directly forward until you reach a knocked over vase.
Shoot it point blank then go through the door.
Watch the ending scene and dialogue.

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Letter Quest: Grimm’s Journey - Quick Review (Free iOS, Android, Windows/Mac/Linux game)

It’s been a long time since I genuinely enjoyed playing a word game as they tend to make me think of something from the GCSE bitesize website I used to have to suffer through at school. At long last however, a game that requires me to string letters together to form words has broken me out of this mental block and it took barely any time at all for me to be fully engaged in this cute, well-crafted and charming game.

Developer: Bacon Bandit Games
Genre: Word game
Release date: Feburary 5th 2014
Platforms: iOS and Android
Age rating: Rated 9+ for the following: Mild horror themes, mild cartoon/fantasy violence.

'Letter Quest: Grimm’s Journey' is a fresh and vibrant game with plenty of adventure game features such as quests, turn based combat and a stack load of upgrades, potions and items to help you advance your way through its numerous stages. To play a word game that’s not just about the spelling but about the overall gaming experience is such a relief as it’s very easy for a game to get wrapped up in its educational value and forget that games are supposed to be fun and engaging. As you progress through the game you must spell out words, the letters you pick and the length of the word all have a direct impact on the amount of damage you’ll do to monsters so the better the word, the higher the damage. It’s very easy to get caught up at the start of the game in bashing out some simple words but the difficulty level is quickly ramped up and you must adjust to this by exercising those brain muscles and coming up with better, more complex words. In this sense the game maintains its stance as a game about learning since it encourages you to polish your English and expand your vocabulary but, thankfully, this has no negative impact on how enjoyable the game is. 

My only current irk with the game is that many words are unrecognized and, whilst these are being patched over, this could prove irritating to players. The reason for this mostly seems to be that this is a game from North America and many of the words not included are British but, to be fair, there are still over 190,000 words in the game and the developers are working to update the dictionary. Something to look forward in this game is not just these guaranteed dictionary updates but the likelihood of additional levels and features so even when you’ve completed the game there’s still reason to keep checking back. Currently though the amount of content available is very impressive and, though there is some 'pay to win' features you don't have to buy any of them and everything can be obtained legitimately. Besides, it's a free game so you can forgive them for attempting to get even a little bit of their investment back. As you move through the levels you'll notice a large array of enemies and backgrounds which greatly enhances the overall experience as one too many mobile games tend to have repeating, scrolling background and listless, cloned creatures so it's refreshing to see someone put some hard work into the atmosphere and content of their game.

The room for expansion in this game is fairly large as even though the game currently remains simple but not simplistic it would be still be nice to see a few extra mechanics to make combat a little more varied. Overall, this is a reasonably challenging game that’s extremely fun and very professional looking. You wouldn’t believe this was an indie free game as it is incredibly polished with crystal clear graphics and fun, upbeat music. There’s no timer on battles so there’s very little pressure to defeat the monsters quickly making this a casual game that is as fast paced as you want it to be so and its easy to use controls, simple game logic and its overall charming nature makes 'Letter Quest: Grimm’s Journey' very accessible for not just grownups but kids too. I highly recommend this game for anyone to play.

The Good: 

• Looks fantastic, vibrant and professional
• Makes spelling fun! No, really.
• Good assortment of enemies, all of whom are well animated
• Detailed levels in different locations
• Use of quests, storyline and items gives the game a nice RPG feel
• Quite challenging, use of items essential to not die
• Achievements for added playability
• Very accessible, easy to get into
• Lots of stages and I liked the inclusion of a world map
  

The Bad: 

• Could use different attacks to make combat more fun
• Needs a bit of bug fixing here and there

The Score: 9/10

Final thoughts: "This has changed my opinion of word games, this is a really fun game. ...I can't believe they're not charging people for this."

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Beyond: Two Souls - Full Review (PlayStation 3 game)

If you’re looking for something that’s intense, cinematic and extremely immersive then 'Beyond: Two Souls' may be exactly what you are looking for. More like an interactive film than a game, 'Beyond: Two Souls' follows the life, jumping through random points in time, of a young woman called Jodie Holmes who has been connected to an invisible, mysterious entity since birth. This unknown entity is called Aiden and, in single player you control both characters whilst, in co-op one player plays Aiden and one plays Jodie. 

Developer: Quantic Dream 
Genre: Interactive drama, action adventure 
Release date: 8th October 2013 (EU: 11th October 2013, JP: 17th October 2013) 
Platforms: PlayStation 3 
ESRB: M - Mature

This beautifully unique game strongly emphasises player interaction and, in this sense, is considered to be an interactive drama game with some action elements. Whilst I usually hate quick time events in this game it works perfectly and, in a style similar to Heavy Rain, you’ll find yourself performing actions for everything you come across. Through the use of motion capture actress Ellen Page and actor Willem Dafoe star as Jodie Holmes and Nathan Dawkins respectively and, alongside their flawless voice acting, you’ll be hard pressed to find a game that’s more realistic than Beyond: Two Souls is. This is a beautifully crafted, extremely emotional and fantastically animated game that changes the face of gaming. 

Gameplay and story

The game revolves around a woman called Jodie who is somehow physically connected to an invisible entity dubbed Aiden. The story flicks about between different times in Jodie’s life ranging from when she was a child to the shocking events we see in the prologue with the premise being that Jodie’s forgotten how she’s come to where she is. Whilst the story is primarily focused on Jodie there will be times when you control Aiden and see things through his ghostly perspective. The ending of the game varies on your decisions and throughout the ‘chapters’ that you play through there will be some room for manoeuvre and make your own decisions but, generally, the overall storyline is a fixed series of events.

The game is primarily designed to be some kind of interactive film and it is, in this sense, extremely cinematic. There’s basically no HUD aside from a white dot showing what can be interacted with and no map to guide you places. The camera moves very organically and tends to focus on what Jodie is looking at whether that’s somewhere she’s been ordered to go or something that’s just caught her attention. It won’t take you long to adjust to the mannerisms and personality of this game and you’ll almost immediately be sucked into the episodic telling of Jodie’s life. The great thing about dipping and diving between different times in Jodie’s life is the great variation in gameplay that this provides. Protagonists are usually presented ‘as is’ with the occasional reference to earlier events that helped shape them but with Jodie you live so much of her life from the simple times of playing in her bedroom as a young child, through troubled teenage years, to the moment she learned she was to leave everything she knew and join the C.I.A. You follow her through her initial training and, when real life interrupts this and Jodie’s forced to apply these newly acquired skills in desperate, life changing situations, you truly appreciate the depth and breadth of her character. If Jodie was constantly on the run and beating people up it would quickly become a boring, 2D interpretation of life as this is not how people live. Instead, by living through the very normal, domestic aspects of her life you see everything put into perspective. It’s not just watching a troubling childhood it’s living through that and then, when Jodie unleashes her revenge, it’s more than just petty violence but bitterness, hurt and frustration all balled together into an intense and dangerous explosion of emotion. 

But it’s not just Jodie who tugs you headlong into the immersive nature of the game; Aiden, too, is a fascinating subject though I found his connection with Jodie to be initially a little disturbing. After all, you know nothing about him and for all you know he’s utterly malevolent. However, as you view the tentative interactions between a little girl and this mysterious spirit as he pushes her on the swing, defends her when she’s wronged and protects her from harm you understand just how much they need each other. What’s great about Aiden is even though you never see him and only occasionally see the world through his eyes he still has a very distinctive personality. From the beginning its made clear how quickly things can go wrong due to the sheer power Aiden has but, unusually so, when you yourself are in control of Aiden you feel the exact same way. Aiden’s power and tendency to take things too far is quickly reflected in your own gameplay and sometimes you find yourself doing things that, usually, you’d never do. It’s very much a case of you can break windows, scare people half to death, set a building on fire, tear the world apart so you end up doing so because, God dammit, why shouldn’t you? 

I think what surprised me about this game was how absolutely terrifying it could make itself as initially the game came across as creepy, a little eerie but otherwise nothing particularly noteworthy, I was wrong about that. The intensity of encounters is very quickly elevated later on and there are some moments of absolute, genuine terror that I was simply not expecting. In particular, the reliance on the player to survive encounters by performing quick time events means that it’s your responsibility to get Jodie to safety and, when required to jump, duck or smash through something there’s almost zero on-screen help and instead you must accurately read what she intends to do by following the movement of her body with your controller. When you’re faced with an extremely pressured situation this can quickly deteriorate into a frenzied attempt to survive but, as you can imagine, shoving your controller every which way is one sure fire way of getting yourself killed. It’s not all fast paced action though as I alluded to earlier but that doesn’t mean you’re not involved in things. Almost everything Jodie does is guided by you from cutting up her dinner during meals, tidying her apartment before a date, training with the CIA to hitchhiking on the side of a road. When Jodie’s working hard, you’re working hard and the ties that this creates between protagonist and player is not just an added layer of immersion but an invaluable approach to ensuring you’re emotionally invested in the storyline and characters. 

As games go I tend to prefer ones which are open world and, despite this game not being this way it still manages to convince you that you could go anywhere at a moment’s notice. There’s almost always a set path or a few paths that you have to follow but these take place in large, sprawling environments that should not be explored anyway such as a desert landscape or a laboratory. Doors would be, quite naturally, locked in a laboratory where conditions are strictly monitored so it’s unlikely that a little girl would be allowed to go off wandering around as she pleased when she’s being escorted somewhere. So she can only go through one door, so what? That’s where she’s going anyway. What’s interesting is that it’s simply not in Jodie’s personality to run off in any random direction anyway because she’s a very straight down the middle, straight to the point sort of character. When she’s got a job to do by God, she’ll go and do that job and follow it through until the end. In this sense, even though the game’s path is constantly linear that doesn’t ruin the story in any way as even through you’re following this track there’s a fair bit of wiggle room where you can mooch off a little, change the story here and there and choose how you ultimately reach the end goal. Whilst the game didn’t have as much ‘change the story’ elements as I would have liked there’s options and different paths you can take; you can escape from certain scenarios in different ways, take things to far with Aiden or maybe leash him in a bit more, things like that. Either way all of the choices you make will be within the boundaries of what Jodie may or may not do and there are no outlandish choices that would break her character. For a game like this it’s important to remember that you’re not your own character such as in the Dragon Age series or Skyrim and you’re more like… Corvo from Dishonoured, there’s some breathing room in how you do stuff, but you still have to do things his way.

Graphics, animations and audio 
 
Nothing negative could be said about the graphics and animation of this game, they are utterly flawless and astoundingly realistic. 'Beyond: Two Souls' is more film-like than any other game I’ve ever played and this makes for a totally original experience. A complete lack of HUD adds to the immersion value and the only time you’ll encounter game like elements are when you’re prompted to make a decision in conversation or perform a quick time event. Everything looks stunningly realistic whether that’s water captured on skin or rust etched onto metal, there’s not one aspect of the game that’s not polished to perfection. The landscapes are vast and detailed as you explore a beautiful assortment of locations that range from the super modern such as shiny laboratories or 21st century offices to the totally rustic, somewhat dilapidated Native American farmlands and homeless squatting grounds. This is a game where you will genuinely struggle to find something that’s not flawlessly detailed and utterly realistic. 

The interesting application of CGI and motion capture for the faces and movements of characters is very effective. Each individual wrinkle, mole, hair, scar and pore is clearly visible adding to a huge range of emotions to be portrayed on a wide variety of individuals. No two people are the same, each NPC is their own person and rather than coming face to face with hundreds of similar looking people this game has opted for a few dozen of totally unique individuals. 

The animations are something to truly behold and you can instantly tell that this is something the developers should be extremely satisfied with. All of the animations are very organic and natural feeling, for example when carrying a bale of hay Jodie occasionally adjusted it but not in your usual sense; each adjustment was different, realistic, evolving. Tiny, subtle movements ripple throughout every interaction and you are constantly barraged with her conflicting emotions, her moments of feeling self-conscious, her pain or anger and by the time you’ve sunk into the game you realize that this is truly the most human of all game protagonists. It really is incredible to experience. This massive variety of animations whether that’s walking or idle ones and, having experienced a lot of impressive animations in my gaming time, I was taken aback by the sheer detail to the point where I literally made a new category to talk about this in this review. 

There’s not much that can be said about the audio of this game as, quite simply, it is flawless. The voice acting is perfect, emotional and extremely high quality. Everything, whether it’s gentle breathing or full on screaming is etched with emotion allowing you to truly understand the thoughts, feeling and experiences of the characters. The music isn’t particularly noticeable as its very subtle and only tends to come into its own when there’s a great deal of action on scream, at which point it rises in tempo and intensity to reflect the direction of events. All in all, there’s not a single fault with the aesthetical aspects of Beyond: Two Souls.

Overall

Quantic Dream have been in and out of my consoles for some time; I first played their game ‘Fahrenheit’ and for some unknown reason could never get into it, despite appreciating how original it was. I’d toyed with the idea of ‘Heavy Rain’ but again it passed me by and I still haven’t got very far into it. ‘Beyond: Two Souls’ changed my opinion of this genre of games entirely and I found it to be deeply emotional yet incredibly intense experience that merged full throttle action sequences with slower, more tentative gameplay. There are quite a few endings to this game depending on choices made in later sequences which is a fantastic way of rounding off a game that boasts how much the player affects the storyline. Nothing bad can be said about the way it looks, sounds and generally portrays itself as everything is a flawless representation of life however, there’s room for improvement. Critically I would say that there is not a huge number of alternatives when faced with encounters and that sometimes, ok, once, the game didn’t take into account how I’d responded to a scene. Despite this you will find yourself playing a slightly altered version of the game compared to your friends and, taking into account how fantastic the game otherwise is, I think that’s a pretty reasonable expectation.

The Good: 

• Looks flawless, very detailed, beautiful lighting
• Sounds fantastic, voice acting is superb
• Alternate endings for replayability
• Controlling Aiden is super fun
• Great variation in gameplay
• Something for everybody 
• Interesting storyline keeps you on your toes
• Immersive, passionate, emotional

The Bad: 

• More impact on storyline by doing things in different ways would be good
• The fact it's more like an interactive film than a game may put some off
• Bit of a slow starter

The Score: 9/10 

Final thoughts: "I hope there's a second one released for the PlayStation 4 but, how the hell would they intergrate all the possible endings? Maybe they'd do it in the same world but not following Jodie... Hmm..."

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The Stanley Parable - Achievement Guide

Whilst the achievements to The Stanley Parable are mostly just poking fun at traditional gaming with its original brand of satire there's still those of us who can't resist unlocking them anyway. A lot of these achievements are not quite what they seem and some may come across as pointless, because they are. Regardless, here's how to unlock all of the achievements in this game, including the 'unachieveable' one which has us all resorting to being dirty rotten cheaters and editing the config file. Oh the shame. On a related note, for more Stanley stuff you can check out my Easter Egg and Endings guide here.

	Name	Description
	Achievement	This is an achievement
	Beat the Game	Complete the Stanley Parable
	You can't jump	No seriously, we disabled it.
	Welcome back!	Quit the game and then start it again
	Click on door 430 5 times	Click on door 430 5 times
	8888888888888888	88888888888888888888888888
	Go outside	Don't play the game for 5 years
	Speed Run	Complete the Stanley Parable in under 4 minutes and 22 seconds (not including loading times)
	Commitment	Play the game for the entire duration of a Tuesday.
	Unachieveable	It is impossible to get this achievement.

Unlocking the achievements:

Achievement:

Go into the Extras menu and enable achievements.

Beat the game:

Follow the story as the narrator describes it and complete the Freedom ending.

You can't jump:

Attempt to jump by pressing the spacebar several times.

Welcome back!
 
As described, quit the game then re-enter it.

Click on door 430 5 times:

Locate door 430, it's in the main office just outside Stanley's door, and click it. Follow the instructions of the narrator who'll guide you through the achievement.

8888888888888:

Go upstairs to the Boss's office and input the code 8888 into the keypad at the back of the room twice.

Go outside:

Don't play The Stanley Parable for 5 years or, if you haven't got 5 years to spare, set your computer clock forward 5 years with the game closed. Open the game to grab the achievement, then set your clock back to its actual date.
 
Speed run: You need to complete the game in under 4 minutes 22 seconds, minus loading times. You need to reach the Freedom Ending by following the narrator's story. This is best done afer you have completed the game several times as, by this point, the narrator will automatically open the door in the Boss's office and you don't have to use the keypad. By reseting the game several timse there is also a chance of obtaining a very short corridor leading straight to the choice between the two doors which cuts out a lot of running around at the start of the game.

Commitment:

Play the game for the entire duration of a Tuesday. This can also be achieved by fiddling with your computer clock. Open up the game, set your clock to the start of a Tuesday then forward it to the very end of a Tuesday, just before midnight and let it tick over into 'Wednesday'.

Unachieveable:

This is technically achieveable by some unknown combination of quicksaving and quickloading, or its just random, the developers made it purposefully difficult to obtain. Due to the dishonest nature of the internet you can unlock this by following these instructions:

• Make sure the game is closed down.
• Edit the config file which is located in your Steam folder. For example: C:\Steam\SteamApps\common\The Stanley Parable\thestanleyparable\cfg\config.cfg. You should open it with any text editor like Notepad.
• Add this additional line to the file in a new row: bind “x” “~;_u”
• Save the notepad file then right-click it and open properties.
• Check the attribute “Read-only” and save this change.
• Open up The Stanley Parable.
• Press the “x” key which we bound earlier.
• Wait for a moment then the achievement should unlock

Well that's about it, happy gaming, fellow completionists! Be sure to check out the rest of my crap if you enjoyed this guide.

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The Stanley Parable - Guide and Flowchart to all Endings and Easter Eggs (SPOILERS)

The Stanley Parable is a fantastic game that is well worth your time but it can be a little confusing as it seems like almost everything you do will set you on an entirely new path. There's a whopping 20 or so endings plus a few 'sort of' endings and these can be pretty hard to find as the paths are rarely made obvious. 

Sometimes drastic measures are enforced to curb that exact problem.

Here I've drawn up a flowchart showing the steps that need to be taken to reach all of the available endings in the game and, further below, a detailed walkthrough on how to get there. I've tried to keep things spoiler free so I won't be detailing anything that's said or shown to you except when absolutely necessary to guide you forwards. You can enlarge the flowchart for closer examination as the text is, well, tiny like this. 

Beware: SPOILERS AHEAD

Guide to all Stanley Parable endings:

Freedom ending:

Follow the narration normally, doing everything the narrator tells you to. When you reach the device at the end, turn it off. This is basically the ‘vanilla’ ending.

Explosion ending:

Follow the narration normally, doing everything the narrator tells you to until you get to the end, this time you should turn the device off. Despite what some say, there is no way out of the explosion at the end and pressing the surrounding buttons and switches does nothing

Coward ending:

At the very start of the game don’t leave Stanley’s office and just stay inside, closing the door on yourself. 

Whiteboard ending:

Whilst the whiteboard ending is not technically an ending since you can continue the game after encountering it, the developers seem to regard it as one anyway. After starting the game several times over you’ll sometimes find yourself starting in an entirely different office which is made up of blue walls. This is in itself an easter egg but if you go through door 426 you’ll be presented with a whiteboard with the words ‘welcome to the whiteboard ending!’ written across it.

Broom Closet Ending:

Everybody's favourite ending is achieved by entering the broom closet prior to heading up the stairs to the Boss's office. Once inside, listen to the narrator, he'll get progressively more irritated as you remain there. Once the 'second player' has taken over you should exit the cupboard, listen to the narration, then go back inside again. When the narrator is through talking to you you can either continue on your way or be alone with your closet forever. The way to do this is to go through the door to the blue stairs but, as the door begins to close, quickly back into the corridor again so you're locked in. Enter your broom closet, and enjoy it. The only way to get out of this is to manually restart the game.

Museum ending:

Follow the narrator all the way until the end but before you go into the facility follow the sign that says ‘escape’, ignore what the narrator says and follow the dark passageway until the very end. After some scenes, you’ll unlock the museum ending.

Escape pod ending:

Follow the narrator until you get to your boss's office but don't go inside just yet. Very quickly you should enter the office but then back out again, effectively trapping the narrator in the room but leaving you outside of it. Turn, and you'll notice that the doors to the way back are now open. Walk all the way back to Stanley's office and you'll see that a previously shut door beside the office is now standing open. Enter it, and climb the stairs to the escape pod.

Madness ending:

When you first come across a choice between the two doors pick the left door. Follow the corridors as normal until you reach the sets of blue stairs that lead up to your boss’s office. Instead of going up, go down the stairs into the garage.

Confusion ending:

When given a choice between the two doors pick the right door. Follow along and go through the door on the left, following what the narrator says. You’ll find yourself in a maintenance room with an elevator to the left side, use the elevator and follow everything from the narrator from that point onwards. This is the ending with the Adventure Line.

Apartment ending:

Go through the right door when given the choice, ignore the narrator entirely and keep going forward, ignoring the door on the left. Follow along and finally you’ll come to a room with a lift above a large storage facility. Ride the lift along to the other side and then, when presented with the telephone, answer it.

Cold feet ending:

Go through the right door when given the choice, ignore the narrator entirely and keep going forward, ignoring the door on the left. Follow along and finally you’ll come to a room with a lift above a large storage facility. Stand on the lift but very quickly get off the lift after it starts moving but before you’re taken with it. Listen to the narrator as the lift leaves without you then jump off to the ground below.

Powerful ending:

This ending is done exactly in the same way as the cold feet ending except, when in the warehouse, jump off of the lift after stepping out onto it. 

Real Person 'Good' ending:

Go through the right door when given the choice and keep going forward. Keep advancing onwards and finally you’ll come to a room with a lift above a large storage facility. Ride the lift along to the other side and then, when presented with the telephone, pull the plug from the wall. Go along with the narrator and when faced with the choice of doors from the beginning pick the left door.

Real Person 'Bad' ending:

This is exactly the same as the real person 'good' ending except when faced with the choice of doors at the very end after unplugging the ringing phone you should pick the right door, not the left.

Window endings:

There are two endings here, described uncreatively as 'Song' and 'Voice Over' in the chart above. To begin with you need to leavE Stanley's Office into the main office, if you've loaded up the blue one you should reload as you need the default office. Locate the desk to employee 434 which is on the far left side of the office. Wiggle your way up onto the desk by getting onto the chair, crouching your way through the board where the numbers are. You'll clip right through onto the desk opposite and now be in a prime position to walk up to the white windowframe and then straight out of it. Below, you'll be faced with two options 'yes' and 'no' after some dialogue. Pick either, then return for the second one if you'd like.

Space ending:
 
Make your way to the storage facility room by picking the right door and continuing straight on, ignoring the narrator. When you get to the lift you should hop on it and wait until the lift is hovering over the walkway beneath you. By timing it right you can jump off and land on this catwalk, do so and follow it round and through the open door. Follow the path until you are presented with a red door and a blue door, pick the red door. Follow the instruction of the narrator to be treated to a rather spectacular display that I won't spoil by putting in a screenshot. When you've had enough, backtrack into the room and climb to the very top of the stairs. Once at the top, throw yourself off, rinse and repeat this until you restart the game.

Art ending:

Similar to the space ending, make your way to the catwalk in the storage facility and jump down onto it. This time, pick the blue door. The narrator will try and encourage you to pick the red door but keep on picking the blue until, finally, the game progresses. When the narrator presents you with a third door, go through it, and follow his instructions. Eventually you'll be presented with a game where the objective is to not let the baby die. This will take four hours of non-stop continuos pressing of the button, there is no getting around this and forwarding your clock will not help. Since it's extremely unlikely you'll actually do this, here's a video on what happens when you press a button for 4 solid hours. Don't worry. It's not four hours long. 

Games ending:

Navigate over to the 'baby game' section and this time, fail the game to be presented with an alternative ending that provides a nice bit of nostalgia for gamers.

Heaven ending: 

In order to obtain this ending you must play through the game several times and find computer screens with 'Awaiting Input' written on it and a purple rectangle. You'll only ever find one screen per playthrough and, after you've inputted onto it, the rectangles will increase to show how many times you've inputted. The screen locations are at desks: 419, 423, the Boss's assistant's desk and finally Stanley's desk. 

Easter Eggs:

Randomly changing office:

Sometimes when restarting the game the floor of the office will be absolutely smothered in paper. This occurs randomly. You may also restart the game to find that a phone is ringing on another employee's desk, by answering the phone you'll exchange words with a woman from 'Future Happiness Industries' who will also give you a four digit code concerning how many boxes are being delivered to the building. Type this code into the key-pad in the Boss's Office upstairs and restart the game to find the office now cluttered with many, many cardboard boxes. I guess the delivery guys were pretty prompt. 

By not answering the phone you'll instead receive a voice message that's from somebody entirely different who talks about the dangers of voice messages.

Mystery employee:

Another employee can sometimes be spotted lurking through a window, this uses the same model as Stanley does. Unfortunantly he doesn't do anything.

Barking click:

Upon receving the Whiteboard ending you can input the command 'bark' into the console (see about the cheats below) which changes the sound of the left mouse click to one of a barking dog.

Socially awkward elevator ride:

Opposite the boss's office, through the double doors, there is a chance to experience an endless elevator ride that goes nowhere. By standing in there music will play and you can sometimes near the narrator coughing awkwardly as though standing next to you. 

Friend betrayal:

In the Games ending you can throw the companion cube through the test door which will result in some narration and you'll have to restart the game again. 

Not you too:

By playing about in the broom closet too often you'll find that, upon restarting the game, the closet will be completely boarded up to keep you and the closet apart. 

Faster progress:

After several playthroughs the narrator will become bored of the general storyline and, upon reaching the boss's office, he'll just open it up for you without you needing to input the password. 

Sometimes you'll restart the game and, rather than the usual office, there will just be a very short corridor leading to the first choice between doors. This is very useful for when attempting the speed run of the game to unlock the achievement. 

Facepunch Easter Egg:

Type in 'facepunch' at any point in the game to unlock a new texture pack. This is a reference to the forum run by Gary from the game Gary's Mod.

Serious ending (cheat enabling):

There is one final 'ending' that I classed as an Easter Egg for the chart simply because it requires you to do a little fiddling about with the game's settings. To access the serious ending you need to do the following: outside of the game, right-click the Stanley Parable shortcut and select properties. Type in "-dev -console" under Set Launch Options then close that and start a new game. Press "~" to open up the console window then type in "sv_cheats 1" at any point during gameplay. This will unlock the serious ending.

Secret Disco:

Go into the Mind Control Facility, where all the screens are but before the elevator up to the room with the power button. Head over to the elevator and press the button, after a while the gate behind you will open and you'll be able to go back across the walkways to the first switch. Go back and press the lightbulb button to unlock this surprise Easter Egg.

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