The Journey, Beyond Two Souls

How you like that mash-up?

I recently completed Beyond: Two Souls. Last month, I also beat the game Journey. I wanted to do separate reviews, but the themes in these game couldn't be more fitting.

Journey was developed by the same team that created flOw and Flower. The game starts out with what appears to be a shooting star (or a meteor) racing across the sky. The scene pans across the screen overlooking a desert landscape. It cuts to a red-overall, shrouded character, the unnamed protagonist you play, with a red scarf with gold-embroidered designs. There is no dialog in the game. All you have are subtle onscreen prompts on how to control your character.

You encounter these cloth-like materials all over the environment. They seem to be made from the same material as your character's cloak. You can "call" these things with your character's quipping noise that sounds like random staccato-ed cello notes. They gather around your character and allow it to move faster and hover about for a few seconds depending on how long your scarf has gotten.

SHAAAAAUUUN!!! (A Heavy Rain Review)

Quantic Dream released two games prior to Heavy Rain. Their first title was an action-adventure game called Omikron: The Nomad Soul. Little did they know that the gameplay mechanics they explored for their second game, Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy), would be a commercial success. Dubbed "Interactive Drama" by game designer David Cage, Quantic Dream updated the winning formula for the company's third game and first outing for the PS3.

Heavy Rain is probably one of the most ambitious games to be released that blur the lines on what defines any medium as a game or an art. The game has a huge emphasis on story. It's not like the developers made the game and wrapped a pretty little story around it. The story itself is what drives the game.

"How far would you go to save someone you love?"