Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) - Review (PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC game)

This is perhaps the first encounter I ever had with an interactive drama game and, quite honestly, I never would have thought it a genre that would become popular. 'Fahrenheit' was released in 2005 by Quantic Dream and was really a sort of early experimental game that would set the stage for their later games of 'Heavy Rain' and 'Beyond: Two Souls'. For its time, 'Fahrenheit' looks amazing and upon returning to it, understanding a lot more about the genre now that 10 years had passed, I found the experience to be significantly more enjoyable. 

Developer: Quantic Dream
Genre: Interactive drama
Release date: 2nd October 2005
Platforms: PlayStation 2 and Xbox
ESRB: T – Teen

‘Fahrenheit’ starts in a dingy men’s bathroom at the back of an equally grim American diner. An ordinary man murders another patron for seemingly no reason but everything isn’t what it seems as the murderer, Lucas Kane, wasn’t in control of himself when he committed this brutal killing. In fact, he barely has any memory of the incident and now he stands there, staring down at the bloodied bathroom floor, the body of his victim still lying there when, just a few feet away a policeman turns up. Lucas has limited time to dispose of the evidence, clean the place up, hide the body and escape the diner unnoticed whilst, all the while, the policeman draws closer and closer to the scene of the crime. This is where you’re dropped in and as the screen splits into two, simultaneously showing what you, as Lucas, is up to it tracks the cop’s conversation and movements in the next room. This is a game that throws you in the deep end and I experienced true panic as I matched the button combinations to mop the bloodied floor, pounding away at the triggers to drag the heavy corpse into a toilet stall and feeling stupid but desperate for dumping the knife in the bin by the sinks before hightailing it out of there. Walking past that policeman, casual as can be, and out into the wintery street was a true adrenaline rush and every moment was fraught with the terror of being discovered and the confusion of what the hell just happened. If anything, ‘Fahrenheit’ really does make you feel as helpless and confused as Lucas does within its opening moments and this deep character connection is only intensified as the game goes on. 

Now, this game is an interactive drama so there’s a great deal of cinematic style in there that makes you feel as though you’re part of a film such as those black bars at the top of the bottom, faux widescreen style. Quite often the screen will also show you two different perspectives when things are happening simultaneously. In times like this you can frequently choose who to take control of as the game consists of four main characters. We’ve already met one; Lucas, but his brother who happens to also be a priest, Markus is also playable. Then we’ve got the other side of the coin, a detective called Carla and an NYPD agent called Tyler who are both trying to figure out why ordinary people are killing total strangers all the way across New York. It’s a murder mystery with a difference for these detectives as the only similarity between all of the murders is that they all share the same ritual patterns. Yes, there’s some kind of witchcraft at work here, but in modern day New York that’s basically madness. The constant switching up of perspective is far from confusing and I actually found it really refreshing to switch between the official side of things and then the everyday madness that is now Lucas’ life whether that’s trying to cover his own tail by laundering his bloody sheets or cowering in his office cubicle as disturbing visions plague his every waking moment. 

 
The game holds a real mystery even though satanic ritual stuff is hardly new ground but, quite honestly, ‘Fahrenheit’ manages to get such a hold on you that you don’t mind a few clichés here and there. The narrative is interesting and the storytelling rather superb and, with alternate endings, there’s a nice amount of re-playability as you explore how things could have turned out had you acted otherwise. An interesting feature of the game is that Lucas Kane has a mental health meter which deteriorates as bad things happen to him and which can be improved by looking after him. Now this isn’t the Sims but you will experience a Game Over if the meter is empty as Lucas will, depending on the scene you’re in, commit suicide or experience a mental breakdown. It’s an odd thing to do but simple things like having Lucas eat, urinate, receive good news or made a positive discovery that aids him in some way all add on points in making the poor guy feel better. Counteracting against your efforts at keeping him mentally healthy are generally just the in-game events such as the opening scene which, unsurprisingly, cause Lucas a fair bit of stress. 

Everything is interactive as I mentioned before, if you’re familiar with Quantic Dreams more modern games you’ll know exactly where I’m coming from. Conversations are led by you in that you pick dialogue options and action sequences require a fair bit of button pressing at the right time where, if you mess something up, you can often die instantly. I had real trouble during a chase scene through the office with Lucas and it did take me several attempts to get it right due to my apparent inability to put the analogue stick in the right direction when commanded to. It wasn’t too frustrating however as the checkpointing system is done really well and you rarely have to go back over new ground. What struck me as another unique feature, ‘Fahrenheit’ seems to be full of them really, is that conversations have a ‘suspicion’ meter when you’re controlling Lucas in conversations. An example of this is that, directly after the murder, a policeman comes and knocks on Lucas’ door and asks to look around his flat. If you hadn’t done things like cleaned up the bloodied bedsheets and your blood stained clothes then the suspicion meter will instantly rise but it’s not just obvious indications of murder like that that you need to watch out for. If Lucas fails to give convincing answers to probing questions then the NPC will become more and more suspicious of Lucas. To make matters worse you need to answer questions in an allocated time slot, failure to do so either ends the conversation abruptly or leads to Lucas answering in a sort of ‘default’ manner.

The plot of the game is described by the developers as ‘elastic’ in that it follows an overarching plotline but will stretch to accommodate player decisions. What I particularly love is the way in which your decisions and actions as Lucas effects the information the other characters you play have to go on. At the beginning of the game if you fail to clean everything up in the bathroom then Carla and Tyler have much more information to go on and, later on in the game, Lucas’ identity will be discovered much more easily by the police. This quite subtle evolution in which the way you play the game effects the way the story progresses is really quite enjoyable and, alongside those alternate endings I mentioned, means you can run through the game a few times to explore the differences you can inflict upon the world. Of course, the plotline is the same and does not really deviate from itself but the game isn’t exactly lengthy and there’s enough there to warrant a second playthrough.

Graphically the game isn’t exactly stunning, especially not in late 2014 what with the release of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and all of the sexy games that we’re so used to now but, it’s not bad looking either. Weather is quite a big focus in the game, as you’ll discover if you play it, and the entire time you’ll be experiencing a sort of eternal winter’s scene in New York which looks really quite lovely and is fairly well done. Characters are all very unique with defined personalities and facial features that aren’t exactly smooth but which are surprisingly individualised and you’ll be coming across quite a range of NPCs to converse with. The music composed for the game is actually from a film composer, Angelo Badalamenti and the expertise shows as the background music is particularly atmospheric and very subtle. Its general purpose is to provide an emotional backdrop to the scenes in the game and it does this well, never feeling like a generic haze of instruments and instead coming across as a part of the story rather than something overlaid with it. 

At times I found ‘Fahrenheit’ to be a little slow paced and sometimes I struggled with the times where fast reflexes were required but, aside from this, the experience was thoroughly enjoyable. When I first played it upon its release I found it far too intimidating to even get very far in it as the pressure it puts you under is instant and incessant. There came a point where I was less worried about Lucas having a mental breakdown and was more worried for my own sanity as, upon realizing I hadn’t tidied up after the murder before answering the policeman who was essentially trying to hammer the door down with his knuckles, I was verging on a panic attack. You only make the mistake once though and, upon retrying the level, I learnt to be cautious about the way I went about playing the game. Turns out there are no second chances when you’re playing as a murderer.

The Good:

• Fascinating premise, brilliant opening scenes 
• The ability to change between characters offers up new perspectives on the same story 
• Well written narrative and excellent storytelling  
• Although I’ve seen the occult re-written in lots of different ways, this one was still new to me 
• Quite beyond its time in terms of atmosphere and game mechanics 
• Lovely music, not bad looking 
• Decent characterizations and you do tend to emphasize with Lucas 
• Interesting gameplay features like mental health meter and suspicion meter 
• Feels like a film with faux widescreen shots, chapters and split perspectives

The Bad:

• Some lip syncing problems and graphical constraints due to the age of it 
• A little slow paced at times may turn some people off  
• Stressful quick time events can lead to frequent retries  
• Tyler is a pretty lacklustre character who doesn’t really have enough impact 
• A sort of ‘Simon says’ button mashing system is confusing and flawed

The Score: 8/10

Final thoughts: “Quantic Dream’s first real mark on the gaming industry as they pioneered into the interactive drama genre was a complete success. I found the game rather stressful because I can’t handle pressure when on a time limit but once I got into the swing of it I really enjoyed myself.”

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Year Walk - Review (iOS and PC/Mac game)

'Year Walk' is a game set to divide opinion due to its slow pace and quiet, ambient atmosphere. The game revolves around an ancient Swedish ritual called Årsgång that required its partakers, called yearwalkers, to undergo a series of challenges that would allegedly result in visions of the future. These visions however may come at a grave cost as there is no guarantee the year walker will survive this ancient practice. As a lover of folklore the premise of the game was far too good to pass up and now, with the winter month fully descended upon us, I felt now was the best time to try it out. I wasn’t to be disappointed.

Developer: Simogo 
Genre: Puzzle, interactive fiction 
Release date: 21st February 2013 (iOS) 6th March 2014 (PC), 3rd April 2014 (Mac)
Platforms: iOS, PC and Mac
ESRB: Unrated (Horror imagery)

‘Year Walk’ is very much one of those ‘interactive fiction’ type games where it feels as though you’re playing through some kind of novella rather than an actual game and its strongest features are by far its chilling atmosphere, obscure storyline and sublime aptitude at weaving together horror, fantasy and folklore. You play as a mysterious person who has chosen to partake in the ‘year walking’ ritual in an attempt to predict your future and this starts out with saying alone in the dark, whilst fasting, during New Year’s Eve. When the clock strikes into the New Year you leave your solitary confinement and walk around the forest that surrounds the cabin, meeting strange and frightening creatures that offer up challenges in the way of puzzles for you to solve. 

 
What I particularly liked about the game was how it drew you in with just enough mystery to peak your interest but then made it quite difficult for me to find out what was going on. Initially the game is quite frustrating as it feels as though you’re just walking around in circles and getting nowhere. Everywhere I turned I found myself locked out of somewhere with no obvious way of getting in and it took a while for me to realize that I really needed to pay attention to the smallest of details in order to navigate not only the twisting and turning woodland but the game itself. A pen and some paper turns out to be absolutely essential for this game as jotting down everything from landmarks, patterns, symbols and even your path through the forest as its very easy to get turned around and find yourself lost, despite the presence of certain key landmarks. What really struck me however was the actual appearance of the game as there’s just something about its very simplistic artistic style that reminded me of a hand crafted Christmas card where everything is rather whimsical and ethereal. Spindly, silver skinned trees stand boldly against a velvety backdrop, the snow crunches beneath your feet as you are inexplicably drawn deeper and deeper into the dark, mysterious world. ‘Year Walk’ has such a fantasy feel about it that it feels as though you are exploring a gentle winters scene in some pure and innocent fairytale but the creepy imagery and frightening jump scares drop you back into reality with a bump. The constant clashing of splendor and viciousness keeps you on your toes and is very effective at maintaining the emotion that comes with an ever changing, ever evolving reality where nothing is as it seems. 

This is one of those games that sticks in your mind long after you’ve finished playing it, haunting you as though there’s something else in the snow blanketed world that needs to be revisited. Its haunting storyline, horrific scares and utterly immersive atmosphere all amount to an extremely unique experience that, for the modest price tag, is worth diving into. I should mention at this point that you may sink rather than swim in this grim tale as it’s a puzzle game with a whole new level of difficulty. In fact, I found some moments of the game utterly unbearable not because of its poor quality but of how frustrating and obscure I found the puzzles to be and there was plenty of time spent struggling on through things I found could have been made a little clearer. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love a challenge and I admit that games have become significantly easier in recent years but when you spend a good ten minutes on one puzzle a little resentment does start to build. It’s not until I was fully absorbed in the ‘puzzle game’ mind frame where I started to take note of every tiny detail and utilizing my ‘companion app’ guide to learn more about the folklore that I really started to make headway. 
 

The companion app is an unusual addition but, after initially dismissing it as an added extra for those who enjoy reading in games, I realised it had a noticeable effect on the game itself. At first it appears as though the companion app is simply detailing the ritual of year walking in full detail, providing additional information on the symbols and characters you come across, but towards the end you find that you may enter a passcode into the journal. It’s not until you have ‘completed’ the game and come back to that journal that you find the game is far from over as the full story is revealed to you through additional gameplay and scenes. 

Something I found slightly problematic about Year Walk was the controls as it was originally made for touchscreens. Several puzzles require you to move your mouse in the same way you would a finger which, for me, felt really strange and I was glad there were no reaction based puzzles as this would have been pretty hard to re-enact with a mouse. Whilst the controls are nicely interactive for touchscreens, for instance using your thumb print to activate certain stones, there were times when the game was unclear about what kind of user input was required, leaving me to paw helplessly at the screen until something worked. Translated onto a PC what this tended to result in were plenty of puzzles that you didn’t know how to even begin tackling them due to the zero amount of guidance from the game.

‘Year Walk’ is sadly a very short game that, provided you knew all the answers to the puzzles already, would take a pretty meager 30 minutes to complete. The only thing that really extends the length of the game is the difficulty of the puzzles and I would have loved additional gameplay and more storyline as the game is such a unique experience it seems a pity not to extend it with additional content. That said, the pacing of the game is fantastic and nothing is rushed and, whilst the slow nature of the game may annoy some, I enjoyed the softly softly approach to exposing the mysteries that this game held. The emphasis on audio appealed to me, from the audio based puzzles to the enchanting music but this may necessarily prove to be problematic for those with hearing difficulties. The game has no spoken dialogue, everything is text based, but the requirement to hear for the audio based puzzle may stop many people from progressing in the game and it’s a shame there’s no alternative. Minor niggles aside, ‘Year Walk’ is all in all a pleasantly surprising game that is very sleek and very intelligent in its design and the way in which everything plays out and slots together. I adored this means of learning about Swedish folklore and I enjoyed the complexity of the story that, when you get around to completing it the first time, only gets better and better. I can imagine this game is not for everybody due to its slow pace, emphasis on atmosphere and frequently frustrating moments but for me it was a delight to play and I highly recommend it.

The Good:

• Very stylish game
• A constant uneasy atmosphere that something's wrong
• Beautifully artistic
• Genuinely creepy with plenty of scares
• Inclusion of the companion app is a nice touch
• A unique way of learning about folklore
• Intelligent, well pieced together, good pacing
• A story that keeps you guessing, even after it ends
• The kind of game that stays with you after you've finished it

The Bad:

• Audio puzzles
• Zero guidance when solving puzzles results in a lot of guesswork 
• The controls for solving puzzles are frustrating 
• Rather short in length 
• Slow pace may annoy some

The Score: 9/10

Final thoughts: “I’m so glad I finally got around to playing this in time for Christmas, it’s an absolutely stunning game with so much creativity and thought poured into it. It was such a twist to find out its horror elements but the creepy imagery worked really well with the dreamy nature of the game.”

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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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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 - Quick Review ( + Intro video) (PC game)

The Stanley Parable is a fantastic, intelligent and highly amusing indie game that puts you in the role of a man whose entire life is about to be turned on its head, and at the same time, it won't be.

Developer: Davey Wreden (mod), Galactic Cafe (Davey Wreden and William Pugh) (remake)
Genre: Adventure
Release date: October 17th 2013
Platform:Windows and OS X
ESRB: Not rated

It’s very difficult to write a review about the Stanley Parable because so much of what makes it brilliant as its ability to surprise you with its multiple routes and endings. With this in mind, I’m going to keep this review very short so as not to spoil it but believe me when I tell you that you have to play this game, no really, you have to.

The Stanley Parable is an updated version of a Half-Life 2 mod and has been made into a standalone game with a new, HD look. The game plays almost entirely in first person perspective and is beautifully crafted with tight, smooth graphics and one of the best narrator’s I’ve had the pleasure to listen to in a long time. The story follows a man named Stanley who’s entire existence involves pushing buttons on a keyboard as he receives orders on his monitor, the orders dictate to him how long to press the button for, which button to press and so on. One day, when he’s sitting at his desk at work, he realizes that no orders have come through on his monitor all day and, now that he thinks about it, the room outside his office door is completely silent. You will take control of Stanley and follow the story, or not follow the story, or if the mood takes you, try and find your own story in this explorative game of choices, or not choices, or half choices. There's bucket loads of replayability and it is guaranteed to keep you entertained for hours because, all in all, it’s simply a fantastic game. The story is introspective and entertaining and focuses strongly on the way a game is narrated with plenty of wit and humour. You’ll constantly be questioning yourself and the nature of what you’re going through but every step is both innovative and memorable. Truly, this is a game worth playing over and over again just to see what else you can find and what else you can do. When you think the game is over, it's not, there's still more to be found and more rules to bend, break or follow. Oh and if you want to watch the intro of the game to get you started, check this video out:

Find out what all the hype it about by grabbing it here whilst it’s still on sale on Steam. 

The Good:

• It's amazing.
• It's hilarious.
• It has the best narrator ever.
• The graphics are perfect
• So many options.
• Stop reading these, go play it now.

The Bad:

• I want more of it and there is no more. 
• I cannot write a proper review because it would spoil it.

The Score: 9/10

Last Thoughts: "I'm suprised at how genuinely hilarious this was, I found myself doing pointless things just to see the reaction of the game."

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