Can this interactive PS3 thriller deliver a great experience?

Sep 25, 2013 08:59 GMT  ·  By

Beyond: Two Souls is the next game from developer Quantic Dream, which delighted PlayStation 3 users with Heavy Rain several years ago and proved that video games could deliver an interactive experience that's much more akin to movies and other types of entertainment.

With Beyond: Two Souls, the studio went even further into film territory and employed two famous Hollywood actors, Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe, to bring to life a new type of interactive thriller.

The new title is set to debut next month and next week a special demo will be released for those eager to see how the experience handles.

The demo is now available early thanks to a promotion from GameStop, so we looked at the free trial of Beyond: Two Souls on the PS3.

The demo has two parts – The Experiment and Hunted – both showing the protagonist, Jodie Holmes, who's played by Ellen Page, interacting with other people during certain stages of her life.

In The Experiment, she's just a young girl who's still exploring her unique gift, that of communicating and controlling a spiritual entity named Aiden, who can interact with objects and even possess other people.

While at first controlling Aiden is a bit weird as you basically float through walls or people, you slowly start noticing the power of the spiritual entity and see a few hints at how dangerous it can be.

The next part of the demo, Hunted, shows Jodie traveling on a train, trying to keep a low profile. That quickly fails, as the police board the train and start searching for her. You then have a sequence in which Jodie runs from the police.

This is where the game's interactive aspect comes into full view, as while you'll mostly follow button prompts similar to Heavy Rain, during action sequences you'll need to match the direction of Jodie's attacks.

Sadly, these moments are rather short and Jodie's movements, coupled with the camera angle, make it a bit hard to actually match the direction of the punch or kick, leading to failures that have an impact on how the scene continues.

While I'm sure that, with time, players will start to learn the motion matching, it's probably one of the only downsides to the game, which is looking very impressive on the PS3.

Beyond: Two Souls is out on October 8, in North America, and October 11, in Europe. Until then, check out the gameplay video above.