Today, I'd like to take a moment to talk a bit about the upcoming PS3 game Beyond: Two Souls, which is the spiritual successor to Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain. In Beyond, players experience the story of a girl name Jodie and her struggle with life and the paranormal. Like Heavy Rain, Beyond looks to be a very story-centered game, but is there such a thing as too much story in gaming?
Now, I'll be the first to admit that I loved Heavy Rain. It was an engaging plot presented in a new way, although something always bugged me about it. There was almost no gameplay; the game was predominantly composed of cutscenes. The gameplay that was present was just quick-time events, which are hardly considered fun by current standards.
That's a key difference between Heavy Rain and the rest of gaming: it aimed itself at being emotionally touching, not fun. It actually used game mechanics to enforce that. If anybody remembers the finger scene, you know what I'm talking about. I think Beyond will have the same goal. It certainly has a similar, if not identical, control scheme.
After viewing a whopping 35 minutes of Beyond's gameplay (which you can check out at the bottom of this post), I think I can safely say that players will spend most of the game with their fingers off the buttons. I know gamers often make the joke, "it's more like a movie than a game," but I think Heavy Rain and Beyond are legitimately more like movies than games. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just different than the rest of the gaming world. Personally, I think it just needs a new genre. May I suggest "interactive films."
The good folks at Quantic Dream actually seem to share this viewpoint. Beyond was recently shown at the Tribeca Film Festival, despite the fact that it's not technically a film. It does make sense, however, as Beyond is also the first game to feature two oscar-nominated actors, Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe. Both their names are featured on the game's box art as well.
Because there is so much advanced motion capture in Beyond, watching Jodie in-game is akin to watching Page on film in costume. In fact, at this point, that's exactly what's happening. Page is merely acting while wearing a CGI costume.
Quantic Dream also sent out blank copies of the game's script to several media outlets, in order to show just how long the game is. The first page of that packet, which was the only one with text on it, compared Beyond to "the average film." It stated, "The average film script is 100 pages. At 2,000 pages, this is not your average film script."
When it comes to film scripts, the rule of thumb is that one page is equal to one minute on-screen. By that rule, 2,000 pages is equal to about 33 hours. It's worth noting here that the time players spend controlling Jodie is likely not included in the script. That means the game has around 33 hours of straight cutscenes. You can read more about the script here.
Again, don't misunderstand me. I don't think that making games that are more film-like is a bad thing. Quite the opposite, in fact. This is gaming growing beyond (no pun intended) its traditional borders and expanding as a medium. Gaming and gamification have a lot of untapped potential, and I'm glad to see some of it getting used.
As promised, check out the video below to view some of Beyond's gameplay.
Beyond: Two Souls is scheduled for release on October 8, 2013.
Now, I'll be the first to admit that I loved Heavy Rain. It was an engaging plot presented in a new way, although something always bugged me about it. There was almost no gameplay; the game was predominantly composed of cutscenes. The gameplay that was present was just quick-time events, which are hardly considered fun by current standards.
That's a key difference between Heavy Rain and the rest of gaming: it aimed itself at being emotionally touching, not fun. It actually used game mechanics to enforce that. If anybody remembers the finger scene, you know what I'm talking about. I think Beyond will have the same goal. It certainly has a similar, if not identical, control scheme.
After viewing a whopping 35 minutes of Beyond's gameplay (which you can check out at the bottom of this post), I think I can safely say that players will spend most of the game with their fingers off the buttons. I know gamers often make the joke, "it's more like a movie than a game," but I think Heavy Rain and Beyond are legitimately more like movies than games. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just different than the rest of the gaming world. Personally, I think it just needs a new genre. May I suggest "interactive films."
The good folks at Quantic Dream actually seem to share this viewpoint. Beyond was recently shown at the Tribeca Film Festival, despite the fact that it's not technically a film. It does make sense, however, as Beyond is also the first game to feature two oscar-nominated actors, Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe. Both their names are featured on the game's box art as well.
Because there is so much advanced motion capture in Beyond, watching Jodie in-game is akin to watching Page on film in costume. In fact, at this point, that's exactly what's happening. Page is merely acting while wearing a CGI costume.
Quantic Dream also sent out blank copies of the game's script to several media outlets, in order to show just how long the game is. The first page of that packet, which was the only one with text on it, compared Beyond to "the average film." It stated, "The average film script is 100 pages. At 2,000 pages, this is not your average film script."
When it comes to film scripts, the rule of thumb is that one page is equal to one minute on-screen. By that rule, 2,000 pages is equal to about 33 hours. It's worth noting here that the time players spend controlling Jodie is likely not included in the script. That means the game has around 33 hours of straight cutscenes. You can read more about the script here.
Again, don't misunderstand me. I don't think that making games that are more film-like is a bad thing. Quite the opposite, in fact. This is gaming growing beyond (no pun intended) its traditional borders and expanding as a medium. Gaming and gamification have a lot of untapped potential, and I'm glad to see some of it getting used.
As promised, check out the video below to view some of Beyond's gameplay.
Beyond: Two Souls is scheduled for release on October 8, 2013.
No comments:
Post a Comment