Beyond: Two Souls

Great game but the mouse and keyboard controls are nearly unplayable. Get a controller before you attempt to play it.

I burned the house because she said rock music sucks
I am Quantic Dream fan since Fahrenheit, after I played it I fell in love with narrative games and couldn't wait for more similar games. Heavy Rain came out after some time and again I enjoyed it very much but it had flaws. And then Beyond Two Souls have been released. Wow I loved everything about this game, it's hard to find to say anything bad about it.
Beyond Two Souls tells a story of Jodie and her entity Aiden. Don't expect realism here, it's kinda similar to Life is Strange 2 in some way or Fahrenheit. A girl with supernatural power. Aiden is always with her, he doesn't leave her, he protects her and even lets her see souls and past events. In her childhood Jodie was taken by the scientists to do tests and experiments and her life has been a real roller coaster. No need to talk about the story much because of spoilers on every step so you need to experience it yourself.
The game has two known faces – Ellen Paige as Jodie and Willem Dafoe as doctor Dawkins. So you can expect a much higher quality than previous games.
Gameplay is as usual in that kind of game. You control the character, in this case Jodie and Aiden, interact with various items, people etc., talk with people and explore a bit. When controling Aiden you either help Jodie by protecting her or clearing the path or you wreak havoc and sometimes even annoy Jodie. Gameplay is nothing revolutionary but it's executed perfectly.
The pacing is great, some chapters are calm where you do some everyday stuff, some are full action and some tell a nice little sub-story.
This game really shines like no other when it comes to environments. There are so many of them and every area is highly detailed. The smallest details are there. Forests, facilities, snow, desert, home, it has everything. Some chapters are short, some could last an hour. Even if the chapter takes 15 minutes to complete you get to explore the whole area. I can't believe these developers spent time on modeling everything knowing that the player will spend 15 minutes in that area and many probably won't even explore everything. That's what I call dedication.
There's a lot to see and experience, laugh, revenge, death, love and so on. You get to see the whole life of Jodie since when she was just few years old. Her childhood, her teenage years, her first love. The game will take you through all the most important phases of her weird life. And at every stage of her life she's modeled differently, different clothes, different hairstyle, sure these are small detail but they're so nice to have. You'll see how hard it is for her to be different, how hard the life could be, how ugly the war is and much more.
Characters you see the most are obviously Jodie and Dawkins but you meet new people who appear in some chapters and experience their little stories sometimes forgetting that you're playing Beyond Two Souls.
I must say some scenes feel very similar to Life is Strange 2. I don't know if it's a coincidence or DontNod took some inspiration from this game. Play both and you'll certainly notice three chapters are very similar.
A huge improvement compared to Heavy Rain is camera. It's not completely fixed anymore. Sometimes you can move camera almost freely, sometimes only look to one side or another a bit. This makes moving easier and you stuck in a loop of going forward/backwards less often. It still might happen but nothing too bad. Many areas are much bigger too, some even creating an illusion of small open world.
Another changed aspect are the controls. While many actions require you to press buttons like in other QD games, action scenes take slightly different approach. Some people might not understand how controls work in action scenes because sometimes it's counter intuitive. I've seen some confusion in comments etc. but it's pretty simple. Just pay some attention in training chapter! It's there for a reason. You don't get button prompts, instead time slows down and you need to flick the right stick in the right direction. It doesn't literally tell you which way, you need to watch Jodie and flick it at the right time to the side Jodie, her arms or legs are moving. Pretty simple when you understand it and I love it. Of course it could be challenging but that's where the fun is. Nothing is perfect, even best UFC fighters get punched in the face, so here it's the same.
If you don't like that you can choose easy mode where qte's and action scenes are easier.
There's also coop mode and remix mode. I suggest avoiding remix mode where chapters go in chronological order and play the game in original mode.
Now onto the technical side. This is a technical marvel considering it ran on PS3. I know this version is improved but still, this game looks good even by today's standards, not even talking about animations. Character models are so good that it looks better than majority of current gen games. Graphics are greatly improved compared to Heavy Rain. Graphics are better in every way. Much improved hair, environments have much more detail, even better animations and much better facial animations. When characters are talking or doing something it feels so natural, almost as if you're watching a movie.
Weirdly it has native ultrawide support. Don't know if it's intentional or not but it's weird because Detroit doesn't have it.
The game is unfortunately locked to 60fps. It's fine, but unlocked framerate would be appreciated.
They even added such a minor steam feature like when you play the game your friends can see in which chapter you are.
Game runs on 60fps steadily for me on 3700x, 2070s, 32gb at 3440x1440.
Sound design is done perfectly too. Voice acting is like day and night compared to previous games. Voice acting means a lot in this kind of game so I really appreciate that developers decided to go this more expensive and more complicated path. Thank you.
Soundtrack? Again it's great. It's a blockbuster movie quality soundtrack. Music lets you feel more connected to what is happening on screen and lets you immerse into Jodie's world even more.
This game is a masterpiece in my opinion. Must play for every fan of the genre. Sure it's not realistic, it's like a Holywood blockbuster. It has improved a lot since the last game and in some areas even surpasses Detroit. Great variety in chapters, environments, characters, good main story and on top you get some good little stories of different people or families. Great graphics and sound, filled with action scenes and of course you never get tired of seeing that cute face of Ellen Paige.
EDIT: Yes i know it's Elliot now. That doesn't change anything.
Pros
Great story
Good sub-stories
Outstanding graphics
Good pacing&gameplay
Action scenes are extremely fun
Very good voice acting
Good soundtrack
Enormous variety in environments
Cons
Locked to 60fps
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Best Ellen Page simulator on Steam.
Edit: Update, this is a Non Binary Elliot Page simulator now.

I waited 7 years to play this game and it was worth it.
The game has a lot of excellent writing but also some less excellent parts that are plain silly, but the concept of the game as a whole really pulls through nicely.
The game offers a lot of well acted characters and multiple choice based scenarios for replayability.
If you haven`t already played this on PS3/PS4, you should pick it up on Steam. The PC port is really good.

Ahh memories, I finished this game back in 2014 on PS3, it was love at first sight and now playing it again after 6 years, I remembered my days while playing this game but there's no way for me to remember those memories alone it's like those memories buried in this game and after finishing Beyond: Two Souls again the amount of nostalgia I felt was immeasurable.
Thank you for bringing this game to Steam <3

Short Review:
Controlls from Hell
Gameplay from Earth
Story from Heaven
Some more Details:
- I played with M+K and the controls felt very clunky. (almost so bad as Dark Souls Prepare to
Die Edition without mods)
- Not a real Free Camera + the Camera sucks from time to time.
- Some weird Slow motion fights.
- Quicktime events. (You get used to them, but in Combination with bad controlls and the
fights ... meh)
+ Face Animations almost have Cinema Quality.
+ Dialog options + Endings (worth a replay at least a 2nd time if not a 3rd time)
+ Many Locations
+ Async Couch Coop possible (not tried that so far)
+ Awesome Story with some Twists, Heartful moments and Brainfu++s
I give it a 8/10
If there is a mod out there with free Camera movement and maybe some improved Controlls,
then i would give it a 10/10

It's a Movie with very little player involvement.
Good story, Good acting.
There's nothing bad about Beyond: Two Souls,
The story is decent enough.It's just not the " " " game-play " " " I expected.
Whoa bug, did that really need three sets of quotes.
------------
The game-play consits of moving your mouse left, right, or up for a cinematic action, and the W key. Nothing else is needed.
An example would be moving your mouse left to roll over in your bed, move it up to get up out of the bed, afterwards you're welcomed with a cutscene.
The cutscene quick-actions can get quite confusing to say the least, whether this be combat or within a cutscene in which you need to dodge environmental objects - The kind you'd find in Tomb Raider.
You've been taught through the tutorials that there's two different ways of fighting but only one works dependant on the situation.
You swipe left, or you swipe right.
If an enemy called Bob approaches you with a Knife, swipe TOWARDS Bob!
Oh? You were stabbed?
I guess you were meant to swipe away from Bob to dodge.
Bobs mate George is now approaching with a Knife, this time you swipe AWAY from George!
Oh? You were stabbed again?
I guess this time you were meant to swipe towards him to disarm.
(???????????????????????)
Most times you can't look around your surroundings because the camera is forcibily preventing it for the fact that areas are linear and you're forced to look forward, so the only relevant keys needed is W.
To make the Movie feel more like a Game, they've created a mockup gameplay feature in the form of "Choices"
Your choices MATTER, in a sense.
By choosing the wrong Choice, scenes are straight up 100% skipped and deleted from your playthrough and you are taken to the next chapter without knowing any differently, you've missed upwards of 20 minutes of content.
You are self removing scenes from this Movie for no valid reason other than to have a feeling that there was a choice.
I really wonder how quick you'd complete this game if you chose all the boring scenes you're not supposed to choose but are given the choice anyway..
*Go to the Party, Dance, Play Pool, Play a Song on the Karaoke.
*or literally the opposite of above and just sit there like a stoned Duck