The Sony event that took place on Thursday was not just PlayStation 4 related, on display were playable versions of Batman Arkham Origins and Beyond Two Souls. One of them was a pleasant surprise whilst the other is probably the most broken game I’ve played since Superman 64. Trust me I would never make that comparison just to get attention, I truly do mean it.
As mentioned before Sony had some awesome orange juice at the event so not only will be a previewing these two games, I’ll also be seeing how they fair up against the orange juice. One of them comes up short whilst the other doesn’t even stand a chance against out of date orange box.
Before we get to the bashing, let’s start off with a positive with the most enjoyable game at the event.
Batman Arkham Origins
I went into Batman Arkham Origins with the same fears as everyone else did, it’s a Batman Arkham game developed by someone else other than Rocksteady studios. Not only that but the game is a prequel which everyone kind of hates, the Joker is back YET AGAIN and without Mark Hamill too I might add, Kevin Conroy also isn’t voicing Batman and the list just goes on. This game has suck written all over it and yet, I thoroughly enjoyed playing as THE BATMAN.
Batman Arkham Origins is built on the same engine as the previous Arkham games meaning the team already has a strong base to build from. Arkham Origins plays very similarly to Arkham City so if you enjoyed that game, you’ll be at home here. Some of the differences beyond it’s origins story lie within the gameplay which hasn’t been so much changed but rather remixed around.
The coolest feature of the demo was detective mode, I’m talking about the one where the camera goes into first person and Batman scans the environment for clues. This time round you’ll be able to rewind an event to see just what happened. The more information you gather, the further back Batman will be able to rewind in order to trace the source of the “problem”. In the demo I had a helicopter seemingly crash into the ground, further investigation revealed that the helicopter had actually clipped the side of a building. Even further rewinding the scene revealed that someone had actually shot down the helicopter and so forth. Rather than just read about what happened, you can actually relive it in real time using L2 & R2 to rewind or fast forward, it’s a very cool touch.
Also “new” to the game is a gadget that allows you to highlight two objects and slam them together, I was having a great time having guards and barrels get to know each other. You can also tag two guards and watch them slam into each other which I found to be infinitely entertaining. There’s also some new crazy martial arts focused enemies that can certainly hang with Batman unlike the usual brainless guards. These enemies are fast, will hit back in a speedy manner and often require multiple counters before Batman can start to dish out the damage.
Overall Batman Arkham Origins feels like Batman Arkham City 2.1 and I actually mean that in a good way. I can’t help but sake the feeling that this is designed to hold you over until the next “real” Batman game from Rocksteady arrives but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be a worthwhile endeavour for fans of the series.
Be honest, will it suck? Doesn’t look like it despite my initial concerns but I doubt it’s going to push the series forward in any meaningful way. Despite this I still added it to my Amazon wishlist after playing it and look forward to it’s release.
Was it better than the orange juice? No
Beyond Two Souls
Beyond Two Souls was actually the first game I played at the Sony event, despite it’s problems I did enjoy Quantic Dreams’ previous games in Heavy Rain and to a lessor extent, Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy. Well at least until all that stupid matrix rubbish kicked in and the game skipped like a month’s worth of story but let’s not worry about that, let’s focus on Beyond Two Souls and why I hate it, or perhaps why it hates me?
Let’s just get straight to the point here, Beyond Two Souls is designed by a team that clearly hates gaming and everything about it. I’m not a fan of QTE’s but this game just takes the absolute piss by delivering the most confusing control scheme I’ve seen in a long time, it makes Heavy Rain feel Bayonetta. The controls are so bad that I’m actually struggling to find ways to put it into words, how am I supposed to write about something I don’t understand?
The left analog stick controls Ellie, ermm Ellen Page, I mean JODIE HOLMES and it feels somewhat clunky but it kind of works so we’ll let it slide. The triangle button allows you to take control of the supernatural entity that is Aiden, you’ll fly around in first person and strangle enemies or even possess them. Taking control of the enemies is obviously the most fun because you can use them to turn against each other which is always enjoyable to see play out. It’s a nice feeling knowing you’re wrecking havoc from afar, it’s a bit like some kind of god mode and that right there ends my fun with Beyond Two Souls.
Taking cover in the desert area available in the demo was a mess, you won’t dynamically take cover as seen in Tomb Raider or The Last of Us but instead mashing X near a wall eventually finds the perfect sweet spot that the developers have deemed as “interactive”. Jumping from cover to cover is also a mess as you need to look around the corner which is clumsy enough as it is and then look around for the magical X button prompt, once I found it Jodie made a run for it only to turn around and take cover in her original spot because the path I chose wasn’t the right one. You know, because f**k you and your exploration, you WILL play this game as David Cage intended.
Remember when I said this game had OTE’s, well that was only partly true. David Cage and his infinite wisdom decided to ditch OTE’s for the action scenes. They’re not actually gone, the game still expects you to perform an action but the actual button prompt isn’t on screen. The game instead slows down and depending the scene, you’re supposed to guess what you’re supposed to do based on body language. So Jodie is fighting an enemy, he attempts to stab me so I naturally dodge but Jodie takes damage anyway, turns out the game wanted me to push INTO him so she would perform a counter. HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHETHER JODIE IS PLANNING TO GO OFFENSIVE OR DEFENSIVE?
Even worse is that it seems there isn’t much in the way of failure, I screwed up tons of times during the fight scenes and nothing really came of it. I didn’t feel like my actions had any meaning to them, does Beyond Two Souls even give a s**t whether I play or watch it? I honestly don’t have a clue what this game is expecting of me at any given time, Beyond Two Souls just seems to get pissed off with me whenever I do something that isn’t perfectly in line what with what it wants.
The desert area that I played in the demo was “Somalia” and whilst I can’t comment on the rest of the game, the Somalia portion as a whole was definitely awful and not fun at all. Visually it looked bad too with bad aliasing throughout, laughable poor texture quality in certain spots and texture pop in that would make even the Unreal engine blush. It’s strange because the trailers I’ve seen online look good but based on the set-up Sony had at the event, it looked rough.
Overall I hate this “game” and this is coming from someone who enjoyed Heavy Rain. David Cage is a strange individual in that he seems to think that the things that make gaming what it is somehow impact his ability to tell a story. He tries to make things more “cinematic” by always having some kind of “unique” control scheme and all it does is confuse the s**t out of everyone. For what it worth it does seem like Beyond Two Souls will have an interesting story, unfortunately in order to see it you’ll have to attempt to “play” it.
If no one else is willing to call out Cage on this then I will…
STOP RUINING POTENTIALLY COOL GAMES WITH RUBBISH CONTROL SCHEMES!
Be honest, will it suck? It already does, Beyond Two Souls is the most confusing scene selection DVD menu I’ve ever encountered.
Was it better than the orange juice? No
What about Superman 64? I guess.
