Beyond Two Soul sells ONE MILLION wordwide

@StrongBlackVine: ah.. Thanks... A pretty sizeable win then.

It would be nice if he could use that money to hire someone who actually knows how to write.

I still haven't even open mine, I don't why I bought it I guess it because, it was half price during Black Friday,.

Just another Day in System Whores.

Is Beyond a game ? Hardly !

Is it movie ? Definately not !

Its Interactive Drama/fiction.

Should you play it ? Yes !

Should you buy it ? Sure, why wouldnt you !

Also one thing to remember, its a story, it shouldn't complicated or difficult to experience a story nor should it punish you for doing something wrong, hence why you can't fail the QTE's, I mean can you fail Watching a movie or reading a book ?! (Its a shitty defense and I don't like it either but its also the truth).

Its not a Game so don't apply gamer logic to it.

Just another Day in System Whores.

Is Beyond a game ? Hardly !

Is it movie ? Definately not !

Its Interactive Drama/fiction.

Should you play it ? Yes !

Should you buy it ? Sure, why wouldnt you !

Also one thing to remember, its a story, it shouldn't complicated or difficult to experience a story nor should it punish you for doing something wrong, hence why you can't fail the QTE's, I mean can you fail Watching a movie or reading a book ?! (Its a shitty defense and I don't like it either but its also the truth).

Its not a Game so don't apply gamer logic to it.

I don't give two shits about GTAV or any Rockstar game for that matter and PS3 has no exclusive GAME apart from Demon's Souls and that's that. I already accepted the fact that a lot of brain dead people that likes shit movies. They are so brain dead that they shell out $60 for the experiences they can get free on youtube.

Game looks dumb.

One million people have watched the biggest budget movie in the world. Congratz.

I got my copy for $25 on Black Friday.

Konami has 4x more money and they still have not fired Kojima and his Co-writers yet.

@ @soulitane

Its easy to write for non-interactive cutscenes. Hence why Quantic Dream's has terrible stories.

Cool, I said it would be nice, I didn't say it would happen.

and I'm not going to excuse them because their stories are interactive. If your game is solely based around the story, I'm going to be critical of it.

@ soulitane

Ofcourse you will.

Thats the easy way out actually addressing the real issue. And I expected no less. ;)

is one million really that many?

FFS Its currently 70 on meracritic

why do sony fanboys have to hype every shitty exclusive they have

Noone else will hype it so I guess they have to force the issue!

Huh? You mean because it's hard for him to write a story due to it being interactive and having choice? That doesn't excuse issues in his writing that have nothing to do with interactivity. He's not a very good writer, there's no way around that, he has holes in his stories that should have been addressed. I just finished Heavy Rain and there were quite a few problems with it.

You can ignore all of that all you want, fact of the matter is, if you're going to be making a game based solely on the story, the story should be up to snuff regardless of if it's interactive or not. Would you care to enlighten me as to why I should not be critical about the story?

Original post was about console AAA exclusives.

Changing the post's goal?

@ soulitane

Choice was never a theme in Beyond. It was mostly linear.

Cage makes concessions to write the player into to the story. Its less of what you'l be seeing and more of what you'l be doing in the story. Make no mistake, thats not as easy as it sounds. Cage took a crack at writing non-interactive stuff and that worked out fine (Kara and The Dark Sorcerer). Perhaps you the one who ignoring how different interactive dramas can. Just about any story as interactive as Beyonds will be filled with problems, hence why games just opt for the already established method of cutscenes, movies are just easier I guess. I acknowledge the differences, you don't, and you accuse me of being ignorant...... Whats the real reason you're bashing Cage for ?

Reading comprehension is essential, I never once said you're ignorant. None of that makes up for poor twists (Fahrenheit) and glaring plot holes (Heavy Rain). You're pretty much making excuses for someone you don't know because you enjoy his games and are looking passed the flaws. I enjoyed my play through of Heavy Rain, but to appreciate the story you need to not think and just accept all that happens in it without any doubt. Once you start to think about the story it all falls apart, you see holes left right and center and to me, if you have so many plot holes, you're not a good writer. I don't care if what he does is different to other mediums or even games, if I see a poorly written story, I'll call it just that, Heavy Rain is very poorly written.

Your examples of him writing non-interactive stuff is him doing short tech demos, that's not exactly a very good comparison to a full length story.

I'm not understanding your last question, if you don't see why I'm bashing at this point then I can't really help you, I have been very clear about my criticism.

You have still yet to give me a good reason to not criticize his writing apart from what he does is supposedly difficult. If it's so difficult, then people should criticize and then maybe he'll learn from his mistakes and become a better writer because of it, instead of people blindly praising his writing because it is different.

@ soulitane

I never look past the flaws, Heavy Rain is poorly written definately ! Beyond aswell. I'm just putting things into perspective. Is Cage really a bad writer ? What wouldve happened if a "good writer" were to take on a project like Heavy Rain ? Be honest, you think anybody will be able to knock that out the park ? Very unlikely, infact they are more likely to do worse since they don't even attempt to write interactive dramas. So to be fair, Cage is not a bad writer, he's a bad interactive drama writer (not all writing is the same, right ?) so his "actual" writing capability can't necessarily be judged by something thats still in its early stage of developent that man other so called "good writers" haven't even tried (lets Hideo Kojima try better) . Also length does not necessarily determine how good of a writer someone is, I think you're just being selective, interactive or passive makes no difference to you but how long a story is does ? See, thats the type of thing I find suspicious towards the way you talk about Cage.

And another thing "I don't care" isn't really much of an argument. Thats just you being ignorant. Oh wouldn't it be nice to live in a universe where not caring equated to good reasoning.

I'd say thats enough reason to consider that interactive dramas are harder to write for. Not that you would know, you don't care... Remember ?

Again, that's just you being an apologist. Your excuses don't make up for the fact that he overlooks many things with his writing, example:

That example has nothing to do with his interactive story telling, that stuff is just basic stuff that should have been touched upon in any form of story. His writing capabilities can be judged by the work he does. He gets paid to write these stories, so his abilities should be judged by them especially as that is what he writes mainly.

Length is important, as a lot of his main faults is he throws too many plot points in and doesn't tie them up (which really has nothing to do with an "interactive drama"). So in a short story he's not able to bring in many plot points and thus it doesn't show the glaring flaws in his writing.

I bought up my arguments, which you've ignored and pretty much said that it's all to do with an interactive drama but have yet to tell me how it being an interactive drama excuses it from having glaring plot holes which are a sin in any kind of writing. That's the reasoning I've bought, your reasoning is you being an apologist as you have yet to come up with something that proves he's a good writer. Your argument could be made for anything, people think Stephanie Meyers is a bad writer (I'm not making judgement here, just an example), your argument could be applied to her too, that even though she can't write books, she could possibly write movies like a Goddess.

To answer your question, yes I do think others could do better. Other authors would have seen the flaws in the story such as already mentioned and tried to explain them or just patch up some of the plot points that were either left open or just not explained. If I can see them and I'm not a very good writer, then David Cage should have seen them (especially as it is his job to see them) and should have either changed the story accordingly or at least tried to mitigate the flaws.

Now I can see your response already, he writes interactive dramas so we shan't judge him based on his work, we should judge him on abilities he may or may not possess. Did I sum it up nicely?

I'm not apologising for Cage by your logic it seems that the only way a writer can be good is to play it safe and never try something new. And as I said before, Kara and The Dark Sorcerer were written just fine, good even. Hell I can be a damn good writer just by playing it safe, just look at the way I wrote the word: "Testicle" look at how much of a genius I am ! Lol !

Anyway I can't click open the spoilers for some reason, I'm aware of Cages crappy writting so just give me a title and I'l know what you're talking about.

Also I never said writing an interactive drama excuses plot holes, my argument was interavtive drama is not yet a way of determining someone's writing capability as its still in its infancy and requires more thought and effort than a passive story does. Infact the differences between writing a short and full length are nothing compared to the differences between writing for a movie and writing for a game (I consider non-interactive cutscenes to be writing for a movie with in a game). its like me asking a world renowned vetenarian to do surgery on a human and be good at it, its whole a differen't animal (pun intended).

David Cage did see the plotholes, now if he were writing for a movie then he could just patch it up easy peasy. If writing for game he needs to fix it without ruining the interactivity in the process, not to mention such a process requires multiple people to fix it, its a game, you need writers, animators, programmers and artists just to fix one tiny plot whole, I bet you think thats the same as Stephany Meyer simply rewriting an inconsistancy in one of her books. In a book you don't have to cordinate with 50 other people, in movie you probably do, in a game you have to do more. Now tell me how any writer no matter how good, would have done better than Cage in Heavy Rain or Beyond if they've never written an iteractive piece of fiction before. Whether you care or not thats logic.

Oh and before you start again let me emphasize my point, Quantic Dream's Games (all of them) have absolutely shitty writing. Not because Cage is a bad writer as evident by his non-interactive work, but cause writing interactively is no walk in the park and is not even remotely similar to writing for something passive like a movie. Theres no reason to believe being a good writer in one medium will over flow and make you good in others (same goes for bad writers). My point is simple, classic apples and oranges. An apple is not a bad fruit because it doesn't taste or look like an orange. Thats just hatin'. So once again, why do you have it in for David Cage ? His interactive work sucks, but then whos doesn't and how does that bring you to a conclusion about his non interactive writing ?

and again, your argument has nothing to excuse his plot holes. The plot holes should be patched up well before it gets to the animation side of the game, as he will most likely have to write the story before the project goes into full swing. Without ruining the story, the plot hole I was talking about was a major plot point early in the Heavy Rain, which is then later forgotten at the end.

You'd have a point with the interactivity, if the whole story was interactive. In Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit at least, most of the story is the player just sitting there with the occasional QTE and walking segment, the plot holes could have quite easily been patched up with more dialogue in certain areas of the game. So I'm not understanding how interactivity can get in the way of him tying up his plot, it simply adds a few more layers and the occasional choice. In Heavy Rain, the most interaction you have is to do with choices and you get to walk around during some scenes, so that's not getting in the way of his writing.

You say "with my logic" as if you're actually understanding with what I'm saying, but with that whole paragraph it's quite apparent that you haven't comprehended a single thing I've been saying. I'm not saying that people need to play it safe, I'm saying that in order to be seen a good writer, your work should show it and quite frankly his games just don't show any good writing. You're saying because it's an interactive drama so it should be bad because it's a new thing, but in reality it's a point and click adventure without puzzles and completely focusing on the story. Being an "interactive drama" doesn't excuse bad writing especially since a competent writer would be able to fill in these plot holes. You can blame them on interactivity all you want, but I can't see that as an excuse. The game's stories are for the most part told through dialogue, that dialogue can quite easily been used to tie up all the plot holes with doing nothing to interfere with the interactivity as most of them just come down to him simply forgetting about the plot point after it served it's initial purpose.

David Cage has had three attempts at writing an "interactive drama", and the same bad writing is shown through in all of them (although I haven't played Beyond yet). By this point, if he were learning from his mistakes, you'd imagine he'd be getting better, but from some accounts he's getting worse with Beyond or just not improving in the slightest.

I'm also quite curious as to how you think it's different to write something like this, compared to say something like The Walking Dead. Both are story based and involve choices which effect the outcome of the story. Heavy Rain is more interactive in the cutscenes with QTE's but both games come down to the same premise. So please enlighten me as to the difficulties of it.

I WAS'NT EXCUSING, DENYING OR APOLOGISING FOR CAGES BAD WRITING IN HEAVY RAIN ! Go get that tattooed on your forehead because I'm sick of reminding you. In fact I agreed with you, it was crap story, crap writing and so on.

Understood ? Good !

Now.... Also interactivity comes in different flavours. A quick time even't is a button prompt with a time limit and is usually mandatory, hence the description quick time, however Fahrenheit and Heavy Rain feature many scenarios where the game is simply didn't rush the player, the actual quicktime events aren't all that many, Heavy Rain had like 4 for each character. As for why they are using QTE's in the 1st place, well thats neither Cage's nor The Games' fault. Thats just a result conventions limiting progress, The conventional controller was designed for conventional games, shooters, racing, fighting, action, platforming, etc. Problem is when making a game that doesn't feature any of these as the main playstyle then the controls won't be intuitive (Including The Walking). Other games don't have this problem because they counter the problem by forcing the story to redirect itself to support the gameplay. Its why it works well in games like The Last Of Us, every scenario will lead to a gun fight or scavenging, and while this in some way means the story is infact an interactive, its also cowardly. The ridiculousness of this design will rear its ugly in fighting games, where no matter what happens, confict is resolved by fighting, even by a character who clearly has a gun that he should be using (Guile). Well one could argue that if the platform doesn't support unconventional stories then they shouldn't be making games like Heavy Rain which features an unconventional narrative that a conventional platform won't support. To which I say enjoy playing the same crap forever because controls barely evolve across gens, Just look at the PS4 controller and tell me otherwise.

Did I defend this practice ? Sure, why not.

Did I apologise for it or make it seem like its wasn't badly executed ? Nope. And most importantly I think you're generalising what constitutes writing, you're implying Cage's crap writing for Fahrenheit, Heavy Rain and Beyond will transcend across all other different methods of writing and on top of the you're also insinuating that someone whos good at other forms of writing will transcend well into an interactive medium. Okay fine, but even by that logic you've still only proven Cage is a bad interactive drama writer, not a bad writer in general after all, his work on Kara was a display over good writing. You ignorance towards specificity is why a question your oppinion of Cage's overall writing capability. So Cage is bad at writing interactive dramas and good at writing short films.

You chose the one inline with your oppinion on David Cage being a bad writer and completely ignored the other on the grounds of Length, yet didn't offer this courtesy to Heavy Rain on the grounds of interactivity influencing the difficulty of writing the narrative, which has alot more factors to consider than length does. Mind you its not easy to transform a robot into a person as well as Cage did in Kara in less than 20 minutes, making it longer wouldve actually made it easier. Its not a one size fits all affair the difficulty of the task does affect ones perception about well one is good at executing it. However theres not a single scenario where making a story interactive will make it easier than it would be if one didn't have to worry about player input. Cage taking on difficult project and ruining it maybe evidence of bad writing but mind you other so called good writers maintain there sterling reputation by not even bothering to try is not evidence that they are better than Cage. You think thats what seperates good writers from bad ones ?

Oh and PS. The Walking Dead is no ray of sunshine either.

One big long post and you weren't capable of answering my question of what makes writing an "interactive drama" so difficult. I've given examples which have nothing to do with interactivity as to why his writing is bad, you've continued apologizing for him (yes, you can say you're not but at the moment that's all you seem to be doing).

I'm curious as to how being an "interactive drama" made the twist in Fahrenheit so bad or how it made Beyond completely Cliche (from what I've heard)? You've not given me a good reason as to why these flaws persist only because of the type of story he's chosen to tell.

You keep bringing up that Cage is doing something that other writers aren't and that's a reason we can't judge his work. Also your argument with Kara is flawed, it's like saying M Night is a good writer because the twist in the Sixth Sense was pretty good, sure he made one great movie, but the rest are flawed. I also gave my reasoning why length comes into play with David Cage's writing, he tries to add in too many plot points and then fails to bring them together, something that as far as I see has nothing to do with interactivity.

So this time, instead of writing an essay, sit down and tell me why those things are caused by interactivity and aren't just an example of his bad writing.

You mean like launching a console that only increased it's power while not adding anything else other than online fees? That kind of safe route?

I haven't played this yet either i don't know something about it didn't look interesting to me as Heavy Rain now that game was amazing.

@ soulitane

Its Axiomatic. Writing an interactive is more difficult because its interactive. Simple.

I didn't apologise for him. Thats just over simplifying a clearly complex scenario, you seem to have knack for it. Have you thought about going pro ? Take you're simplicity to the big leagues where white people can't dance and women can't drive ? Must be nice being inside your head....... so much room.

I never said you can't judge Cage's work because its interactive, I said you can't compare interactive work with passive work (few other do interactive work so theres no one to compare him with). Two differen't animals. Hell you can't even compare the Twillight movies with the Twilight books, doesn't matter if its about the samething, it was written differently and is executed differently. And my argument for Kara is just fine. Kara underwent complete (rapid yet seemless) character developement in less than twenty minutes, something even movies stuggle with across multiple sequals. Good writing ! Now add player input, anything at all, even a simple "press x to feel" drastically changes the level of talent required to still make this demo fly.

And talk about not answering questions (or in your case answering them poorly) you still haven't explained how failing at interactive dramas means you fail writing all other forms of writing as if its all the same, as if hiring J.K. Rowling, whos a damn good BOOK WRITER (see What I did there ?), to write the screen play for a music video..... In greek. Its all the same to you. Writing is writing right ? WRONG !

Yeah I still didn't answer your question, and yet only moron would think writing player input into a story is not more challenging than just writing the story to be experienced passively. I'm asking you straight up front, is it harder or not ? I think it is. But before I say why I wana know what you think 1st, then we can BOTH back up our claims with some reasoning, well ? (you know damn well you can't prove interactive dramas aren't harder to write for, Which is why I'm antipating you to evade the question).

@ vincent380

Beyond plot is very linear and no near as flexible as Heavy Rain. If you loved Heavy Rain specifically for those reasons only then I don't reccomend Beyond Two Souls, its strenghts lie else where.