Game released: October 8, 2013
I was really anticipating this one last year. The
developer, Quantic Dream, and the game’s director and writer, David Cage, were
stating the game would have a story that would contain mature themes of death,
depression, and an idea of what lies beyond when we die, with choices that
would be “organic”, and emotional weight to back it all up. I wanted this game
to deliver on these aspects.
Instead, what I got was
a game that HAD plenty of potential, but had left me partly disappointed.
The story follows Jodie
Holmes (Ellen Page), as we go through, unchronologically, 15+ years of her
life. She is taken into care by Nathan Dawkins (Willem Dafoe), who serves as
her foster father, as well as uses her for experiments as part of the CIA’s
paranormal department. Eventually, she ends up on the run from said CIA as an
adult, and the rest of the game fills in the blanks between the two events.
Throughout, she becomes involved as an agent with the CIA’s overseas
operations, befriends a group of bums, a Native American family with a secret,
and even attempt to stop a government experiment gone horribly wrong. Connected
to her for all this, is a strange entity named Aiden, who helps her from
physical, and at times, paranormal threats.
In Cage’s mind, it
could’ve worked on paper. But… some of it just DOESN’T. The game’s main
relationship- Jodie and Aiden, has plenty of good power, and its focuses on life,
death, and beyond are interesting. However, these are drowned by either poor
pacing, or flat-out moments of ridiculousness, which all happen particularly in
the first and third acts. Some sequences felt either too short, and could’ve
used more development, or went to another that didn’t feel important. The first
act mostly suffers from this poor pace, mostly for tutorial purposes, with one
segment feeling irrelevant, and some that could’ve had more time to develop the
story.
The second act on the
other hand, didn’t seem to suffer as much as the others. It gave plenty of time
to develop enough to care about, and some actual emotional value, particularly around
the bum sequence. That is until the third act started screwing that up again,
hurting any value it had with me, and gave me no reason to care for some of the
characters. It felt like grinding at points, making me wonder why some of it
was necessary, as it didn’t seem to add anything. The ending (or the one I got
out of the supposed 23) did start to do a good job wrapping things up, and gave
a good twist…until the last 30 seconds when stupidity came reeling back in.
With gameplay, Jodie
and Aiden both use basic controls, although Aiden’s is more complex. Jodie
mostly the analogue sticks for movement and to interact with objects, with an
occasional button press, or to move the controller in a specific way. (A plus
on my part, since not many game use SIXAXIS nowadays.) In combat segments, the
action slows down, and you move the right stick to where she needs to attack/dodge.
With these segments, they did get intense at times, and you can go back to
master these moments replaying them, but it’s not really necessary, since it
doesn’t matter. The game gives little to no penalty for moving it incorrectly.
(But more on that later)
In most of the game, if
you press the triangle button, you can switch to Aiden, who can use the
analogue sticks to roam around the environment around Jodie, but can’t go too
far, due to his connection to Jodie. He can interact with specific objects and
people with a mix of the shoulder buttons and sticks, and can do an ability
based on the subject’s aura surrounding it to help Jodie. A few of these
include moving objects, possessing others, or choking a person out. (Insert
Star Wars force choke joke here) He can also find hidden nodes to unlock
content for the game, mostly concept art, as well as Quantic Dream’s PS3 and
PS4 tech demo videos, which are a cool bonus. (If you like goodies, I guess.) I
found Aiden strangely fun at a couple points, laughing like a psychotic jackass
messing around with things and people, especially in one scene when I shoved
cars, exploded a gas station, and even threw down a HELICOPTER at cops trying
to get to Jodie.
There are also
decisions throughout the game, either through certain dialogue options or
specific actions, which is supposed to change the story in an “organic” way.
Um…yeah, not much. The
game’s choices feel strangely more linear, either holding your hand through the
game, with little to no side effect at ALL. There were times; I thought I could
change into Aiden to do something that could’ve changed, but to no avail.
Heading back to combat, even if you make one or two mistakes that DO effect
what happens to you, it’s only a short extension to where you have to go, or a
deus ex machina occurs when someone stops the attacker. (Aiden or somebody
else). Basically, a slap on the wrist. And even if you make a decision, it’s
barely mentioned again! There were one or two parts in the first two acts that reminded
me of something I did, or gave a small impact to the plot. And then the third
act started to make them more impactful (only the choices I made for that act
alone though), which is the only thing I have to credit the third act for
alone.
Beyond HAD real
potential. Something I can say was overall “good” were that the graphics looked
amazing, despite one occurrence of pop-in, and there were plenty of parts in
this game that actually did some good for it, and really worked. However, there
were plenty of parts that didn’t, becoming a shell of a game that could’ve had
the means to be a great game, but otherwise leaving some people, including me,
disappointed.
Verdict: 6/10
