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In February, video game auteur David Cage told his industry to grow up, to produce games for adults — games that have something to say. "By the time you turn off your console, the game will leave an imprint. You will think about what you’ve seen. That’s what every creative medium should achieve."
Cage’s creative medium, however, doesn’t fit the trappings of a traditional video game. Available for PlayStation 3 today, Beyond: Two Souls is his latest, greatest attempt to build an interactive movie. Like his previous works Heavy Rain and Indigo Prophecy, it’s not about shooting through waves of bad guys, jumping from platform to platform, or exploring an open world. It’s more of a Choose Your Own Adventure book writ large. Most of the time, you simply point your character in a direction, pick one of the options given to you, and sometimes help your character act out actions by pressing buttons in time with onscreen prompts. Your reward is to see how the plot cinematically unfolds.
It sounds boring at first. But by pushing aside the traditional tropes and mechanics of traditional video games, Beyond rises above them, creating something more akin to the emotional voyeurism of a great novel. It puts compelling characters and story front and center, and touches on complex adult themes like suicide, homelessness, and rape. And like many a good movie, Beyond has star talent to thank. Ellen Page is Jodie Holmes, a young woman tethered to a mysterious entity which possesses paranormal powers, and Willem Dafoe plays Nathan Dawkins, the government researcher who has been studying and taking care of Jodie since she was a little girl.
The incredible conceit of Beyond: Two Souls is that you influence the course of Jodie’s entire life. You spend the vast majority of the game in flashbacks that span 15 years of her life, from ages 8 to 23. You’re trying to figure out who Jodie is, how she wound up running from the law, and why she’s tethered to Aiden, a supernatural entity. You visit these flashbacks out of order, piecing together her memories, but also shaping them with the choices you make. The nonlinear narrative is confusing at first, switching between Jodie as an adult and as a young girl, but it pays off by keeping the story moving at a brisk pace — focusing on one theme, one mystery at a time, while subtly sneaking in bits and pieces of later revelations. This is the true game: not mastering the mechanics of how to steer Jodie and Aiden around, but figuring out which choices will get the game to give up its secrets, and piecing together the fragmented story in your head.
Sometimes, gameplay is as simple as an action sequence where you help Jodie get from point A to B, mimicking her onscreen actions to help her fight or run. Often, you’ll control Aiden, a ghostly apparition connected to Jodie who can fly through walls, move obstacles out of the way, commune with the dead, and generally wreak all kinds of havoc by telekinetically messing with objects in the environment. It’s all simple enough that you can play the entire game using your smartphone or tablet as the controller, just tapping and swiping. Together you’ll run through burning buildings, kill bad guys, and possibly save the world, accompanied by an action movie’s worth of big-budget special effects and an epic score.
At its richest, however, Beyond is far more subtle and mundane than that. It’s walking into a dark, scary garage to get some cooking oil for your mother, confronting Jodie’s childhood fear. It’s watching the posters on Jodie’s bedroom walls change as she matures into an adult, and witnessing her heartbreak as she leaves that bedroom once and (possibly) for all. It’s deciding to kiss the boy, to ask the impertinent question, to sneak that cookie from the cookie jar because Aiden can reach the top of the fridge. Some of these choices are binary and some multiple choice, part of sequences set in stone, while other experiences are totally optional. One of my favorite moments in the entire game is having eight-year-old Jodie pick up the telephone and carry on an "adult" conversation with herself. "Kids are so difficult when they can’t go outside," she remarks, until Aiden fills the line with static and she gets fed up. He just wants to play, but she’s tired of his meddling. Realizing the bittersweet nature of Jodie and Aiden’s existence from little moments like these make for some of the game’s greatest thrills.
Posted on: 09 Oct 2013 07:05 am |
