If you had played Heavy Rain before, you probably would have high expectations for Beyond Two Souls, a game produced by the very same studio Quantic Dream. After being released in February 2010, Heavy Rain was well received and has sold over two million copies worldwide. This time round, however, we ask…..

Does Beyond Two Souls go beyond our expectations?

I played the game twice and referenced the experience against the one I felt when playing Heavy Rain three years back, and I have to say that the feeling was….disappointing.

 David Cage, the creative director and CEO of Quantic Dream listed storytelling, emotion and innovation for the studio’s goals. But just as too many cooks spoil the broth, there is too much ambition in the storytelling this time round. Playing Beyond Two Souls packs too many genres into the plot, from family drama, to espionage thriller, to horror, to action, to sci-fiction, to political conspiracy, to high school drama and everything in between. It leaves me feeling puzzled and confused in the plot line, which is made worse by the non-linear narrative (it is told in chapters in an non-chronological order). Told in the same way like the movie 500 Days of Summer, the story unfortunately tries to get you to cry before you even invested your soul (pun intended) into the game itself, leaving you muddied and confused. In contrast, Heavy Rain is very focused in developing its psychological crime thriller plot, which develops each character a lot deeper and has a greater hook to get the player drawn to the plot.

 

(Heavy Rain fans can imagine the tension from the father)

Another qualm that struck me was the lack of moral ambiguity and consequence behind various actions, conversation choices and decisions the player face in various points of the story, which felt to me as a wasted opportunity. For example, telling the truth or a lie in a conversation does not create a butterfly effect on the story’s plot, neither does having revenge on mean bullies have any impact in the main character’s future. Unlike Heavy Rain, Beyond suffers from a lack of critical plot deviations arising from significant moments. The story just continues bull-dozing its way through in its own fashion, giving the experimental player (especially one who is curious enough to replay) a feeling that he just got cheated.

 

(Should I tell the truth? Nah, it doesn’t matter in the end)

(Just eat whatever you like…)

Beyond’s saving grace and trump card, has to be the main character Jodie Holmes, the powerful yet tragic protaganist in the story. The character is rendered based on; and voice-acted by actress Ellen Page (who acted in “Juno” and “Hard Candy” in Hollywood movies). The remarkable likeness, coupled with excellent facial detail and raw emotions, allows you to connect with the character on a personal level. You would feel her struggles, her insecurities and her frustrations in life as you play out her life story; from a little girl, to a rebellious teenager, to a mature woman. In certain chapters where the plot connects on a human level, such as being part of a homeless group in a bitter winter, Ellen Page always seizes the opportunity to make Jodie a likeable, genuine yet misunderstood character. You see, Jodie Holmes is a girl with a unique gift. Since young, she is linked to a separate spectral entity called Aiden, which constantly watches over her and does her bidding sometimes. Think of having Casper the friendly ghost on steroids, but being friendly and loyal only to you, and you get a rough sense what that power entails. However, the power comes at a cost to her as well, as people around her gets freaked out by the poltergeist activity happening around her and distanced themselves away from her, making her isolated and feared.

 (Capturing the markers on the face)

Other characters get overshadowed by Jodie, mostly due to the confusing plot, and partly due to lack of screen time. Nonetheless, character Nathan Dawkins, rendered based on; and voice-acted by actor Willem Dafoe (who acted as Norman Osborne/Green Goblin in Spiderman) also gave notable performances as a guardian to Jodie after her foster parents left her in his paranormal research lab. His role as Jodie’s guardian gets torn with his motivations as a paranormal researcher, and sometimes it leaves the tantalizing feeling of questioning his motives in certain plot points (which would get unveiled towards the end of the plot).

 

(You probably remember him more as Norman Osbourne below)

Gameplay-wise, Quantic Dream has steamlined the contextual interactions with the in-game world with an intuitive swipe using the right analog stick, as opposed by the more challenging quick time events and button combinations in Heavy Rain. The challenge by Heavy Rain gives a greater sense of urgency in certain scenes, whereas in Beyond, one can slowly take your time to do certain tasks or respond to a conversation. The buttons to be pressed are lesser, and there are lesser play on the quaking and spiraling of visual choices during moments of distress. In moments of combat, the action is again a simple swipe using the right analog stick, and even if you suck at it, the outcome will be the same regardless. Jodie wouldn’t die and end the game early for you; instead she will get knocked about or at worst, Aiden will just heal her. This gives an easier time for beginner gamers, but leaves a slightly unsatisfactory feeling of being far too passive for a hardcore player.

 

Beyond brings to the table the interesting prospect of controlling Aiden, the spirit linked to Jodie, but it sadly feels that the potential is left squandered in that area. There are very few moments where the player is left to solve a puzzle using Aiden on his/her own, as Jodie would always give a command “Help me Aiden”, “Go for it Aiden” and so forth. Controlling Aiden opens up a lot more possibilities than Jodie wouldn’t have, as it could blast objects/people, possess people, interfere with electronic gadgets, choke people and so forth. Instead of letting the player utilize Aiden freely in creative ways to get around a situation, the game sadly hand-holds for you by colour-coding enemies or objects to only allow a specific action to be performed on them. Switching to Aiden is also tightly controlled, since Aiden is a “stubborn spirit”. The overly-simplistic gameplay and the obvious hand-holding bury the potential where the game could have truly shined in time-limited puzzle-like scenarios or puzzle-solving co-op modes. The game makes it clear that it is obviously not a Deus-Ex scenario it is working at. Nonetheless, there are certain scenes where I had a fair bit of fun playing as Aiden, especially against groups of enemies that get spooked out when items (read: dangerous objects) are flung at them.

 

(I’m going to strangle this guy as Aiden…)

In conclusion, being an avid hardcore (I would describe myself as hardcore) gamer, Beyond Two Souls seems to me like a super draggy movie that masquerades itself as a video game with minimal player inputs to fool you into it. The gameplay and combat is bland and non-engaging, masked by a confusing plotline that manages to collect itself together towards the end. The superb acting, along with certain tear-jerking “Awwww” moments, are probably the few reasons why I would ever buy this game (I borrowed it). It is not a bad game, but it leaves you not feeling too wowed by it either.

I have recently taken a few days off my PS3 console to explore PC games, and I stumbled into Torchlight 2 which proves to be one of the best buys I have for PC games in years.

Let me explain.

For all those people who loved Diablo 2, Torchlight series hits all the sweet notes. This is not surprising as Runic Games were founded by Travis Baldree (lead developer of the MMORPG Mythos) and former high level executives of the Blizzard North team who developed Diablo: Max Schaefer, Erich Schaefer and Peter Hu.Runic Games rose from the ashes of Flagship Studios in 2008 due to financial trouble; and Flagship Studies was formed by pissed-off Blizzard North management following a dispute with the parent company.

Therefore, it is a mad rush of euphoria and nostalgia when one opens Torchlight 2 and gets into the gameplay. Held by a paper-thin storyline, the game makes it clear that it doesn’t want you to care about its story; it wants your soul and your every thought devoted into the character and its gameplay. Just seconds into the gameplay, one is thrown into the tried-and-tested formula of killing dozens of monsters emerging from everywhere. You have chests that are monsters (Mimic), urns that contains monsters, monsters flying into the fray (bats or what not), undead emerging from the ground, the list goes on and it is just pure smashing and exploding fun as your character slashes, burn, blast their way through zillions of them.

(Urghhh, back off!!!)

Graphics and sound-wise, Torchlight 2 nailed it with its bright and colourful cartoonish visuals with a touch of eeriness from the zither as background music, which is hauntingly familiar from the old Diablo 2 main character page. Beautiful as the game is, your eyes have little time to wander as you scan across the landscape for treasure chests and randomised drops that always leaves you tantalising for more and more delicious orgasmic loot. Like in Diablo, these drops are colour coded, and your heart always would skip a beat with you receive a powerful rare gold one (signifying a Unique item). These random rewards are part of gaming psychology; the prospect of winning is always out there, and one is willing to battle loads and loads of monsters to get that one little “my preccciooouuussss”

 (This is probably the expression when one receives a powerful loot…and please do not play Torchlight till one becomes like him)

That is not to say that the game is a mindless grind fest. Torchlight 2 offers a very smart world design that have different environments with different sets of monsters as a constant challenge. The monsters can be tough in Veteran and Elite difficulties, and often one must be quick in their feet to avoid dying an untimely death for their character. Champions monsters are aplenty with higher damage and hit points (usually with an unique characteristic) and bosses always present at the end of a quest to show you their dangerous and powerful moves. To add to the fun, phase beasts appear at random, opening up a portal upon killing to another area with fun optional mission objectives like  “Protect the crystal” or “Destroy the spider nests) to give a varied taste should one gets tired off slashing and bashing their way to a boss.

The character progression and levelling is a classic lovable formula, since you get to level the skill and attribute points ala’ Diablo 2 style. This allows for a great degree of customisation as one tries to create a character that suits his/her playstyle the most. There’s a very limited respect option that allows for trying out various skills though, so there’s no “Oh-shit” moments when you select the skills wrongly. This method of levelling the character is what I love about Diablo 2 the most, and its great the developers of Torchlight 2 retain the sense of replay-ability for every class allowing the player to experiment with new and radically different builds. Each build is based on a concept of focusing on a handful of skills that synergies well together to create a custom avatar with an unique way of killing enemies. Therefore, a tip for newbies playing this: Please do not spread your points into every skill in every tree.

A vast improvement over the first Torchlight, Torchlight II is built for a longer gameplay. One can play in single-player offline mode, or jump into online or LAN co-operative games where enemies scale up in difficulty as more join in. Even if the online interface isn’t as fully featured as something like Diablo III (you can’t link items through the chat field, for example), Runic still implements smart design features, like making it so every player gets unique drops, eliminating the threat of cool stuff getting stolen in case you’re playing with inconsiderate strangers.

There’s a lot of comparison between Torchlight 2 and Diablo 3, especially with the release of both games being so close to each other that Blizzard’s Diablo 3 gives the feeling of looming over Torchlight 2 completely. This is particularly true when I am doing this review, since there’s a little voice nagging in my head telling that this is the same as Diablo 3 in X way….this is different from Diablo 3 in Y way. I have invested hours in Diablo 2, Diablo 3, Torchlight and Torchlight 2; and if you liked Diablo 2, you will definitely like Torchlight 2. But if you do not like Diablo 3, as I do, you will probably still like Torchlight 2.

A word of warning to Diablo 3 fans, I am going to start my Diablo-3 bashing now and explain why it’s better to park your money ($24 on Steam) with Torchlight 2. Here goes:

Diablo 3 is a pain for the always-online requirement that Torchlight 2 doesn’t have. This means I can’t plug off my laptop and play Diablo 3 in some backwater country with no Wifi if I want to, but I can still continue my solo play in Torchlight 2. For me, a solo player, Torchlight 2 is a clear winner in this aspect. What’s more, Torchlight 2 is more balanced in its levelling and feels less of a grind fest than Diablo 3. The classes in Torchlight 2 are a lot more versatile than in Diablo 3; Diablo 3 has this sucky linear skill tree that forces to play in a certain way, while Torchlight 2 blows your mind away with its permutations in terms of skill trees with one class. And the loot can suit many classes; you can use a crossbow for the Engineer class, and then swap for an Embermage’s staff in an instant. The game doesn’t restrict to to X item belongs to Class A, Y item belongs to Class B.

Another thing I really like for Torchlight 2 are its bosses. I’ve found Torchlight 2 bosses to be more varied and interesting than the bosses in Diablo 3. Diablo’s 3 bosses are a major clickfest: all one really needs to do is to spam your skills, drink potions and hope that the boss dies.  In Torchlight 2, bosses follow varied attack patterns, use environmental tricks to trap and disorient you, summon clones and minions, and generally follow more interesting routines. It is generally a lot tougher and you have to be fast and be alert to the patterns to survive.

Lastly, Diablo 3 is completely closed and controlled by Blizzard, while Torchlight 2 invited the modding community to tweak and re-invent the game however they want. One wonders why Blizzard would want to restrict that, given the wild success of opening up mods for Warcraft 3 (spawning off all those interesting maps). Its good news for Torchlight 2 gamers though, because it means you can expect new user-generated content for many months to come.

Considering that Torchlight 2 does everything incredibly well, with so much content, gameplay, replayability, and incredible environment, you will be hard-pressed NOT to buy it at $24 on Steam (sometimes lesser than $10 if on sale). Once you start on this, I guarantee you would throw your Diablo 3 account into the toilet bowl.

This game is amazing in so many areas. I will rate it 9.5/10.

Last week, I gave a review on Orcs Must Die! 2. The game isn’t overly difficult, but some maps can be more challenging and frustrating than others. This week, I decided to do a favour to all beginners players who are struggling with the game by sharing some of the strategies I used in the game.

1) Learn how to use checkerboard layout in your floor and ceiling traps

For people who doesn’t know what a checkboard looks like, please see the drawing below.

A checkerboard design maximises your tile layout in your floor (and ceiling) traps in the best way possible. Many newbies are tempted to lay the same trap in a row, but it suffers from one big problem. Sometimes, a stray orc or even a kobold can run between the two traps, triggering them both at the same time. This results in wastage in trap effectiveness as the other trap could be activated on another orc. For the above, a Tar trap (War Mage only)/Brimstone combo is particularly effective. Tar slows everything that comes (more on that later) while Brimstone has a constant effect and is very effective against gnolls and kobolds.

2) Tar is easily the most useful trap available in the game

Tar is a unique trap for the War Mage in Orcs Must Die 2 and its primary function is to slow enemies that enter its area. Unfortunately, its is easy to neglect Tar trap since it is not one of the killer traps in the arsenal. However, please do not let its simplicity deceive you! Firstly, Tar traps cost 300 coin when the reduced price is fully upgraded, which is one of the cheapest permanent traps you can have with  Steam Trap, Pushers, Spike Trap and Coin Forge. The cheaper the trap, it means more traps for you. With starting coin often being a limiting factor at the beginning of levels, having a cheap and effective trap can make difficult early waves manageable.

Secondly, Tar trap is constantly active, along with Swinging Maces. Brimstone might seem to be constantly active, but it could only hit up to 5 enemies and must recharge after that. Tar, on the other hand, hits everything that touches it, all the time, without fail. Tar will slow single enemies, groups of enemies, from Kobold Runners to Mountain Trolls and all other enemies in-between.

Thirdly, Tar traps have a powerful slow especially with upgraded with the Unique to slow enemies even more. Slowing things down could mean the difference between winning and losing. Slowed enemies stay in killboxes and choke points longer, allowing traps to reset and striking them again. It also allows easier killing of fast enemies like kobolds and gnolls. Many traps in OMD 2 slow enemies, including Arrow Walls with chill, Acid Sprayers with poison, Ice Vents with freeze, Spike traps that slows. Tar traps, however, outclasses them all when comparing value, influence, and effect.

3) Learn how to use your barricades

Barricades are immensely useful, because, as the War Mage puts it, orcs apparently can’t jump. This means that most enemies, with the exception of Gnolls, have to go the path you want them to because of the barricades, allowing you to set up killzones and chokepoints to manage the horde more effectively. Sometimes, instead of defending your rift from 2+ sides, you can block one side with Barricades and force all enemies into one direction.

For these reasons, Barricades are highly recommended in almost all levels. As soon as you are able, upgrade them to level 3 to lower their cost. The less coin you have to spend on Barricades, the more you can spend on other traps.

One of the common strategies of using barricades is to use barricades in a snaking manner (see picture below) as a killzone. Enemies that pass through here must deliberately curve their path through your Barricade maze, like a snake. This tactic can significantly slow enemies. In addition, a snaking tactic is very effective when used with a wall trap that extends the entire pathway, or Swinging mace that swings through the entire length. Creative use of Push Wall near the exit (not the entrance) of the snake path will push lesser enemies back to the starting point, and Tar traps could slow them down to effective push them again and again to be stuck at the trap area. If combine with a Void wall, that also means all the enemies would be killed instantly. Grinders and Haymakers near the single entrance/exit tile could also maximise their effectiveness in the killzone. Just so you know, having an effective killzone is a lot better at killing orcs than placing traps all over the place.

Another strategy is to create a funnel (as depicted below). A funnel is not necessarily as effective as the snaking method. But it usually comes at the cost of having to use lesser barricades. While most of the hordes congregating at the middle point, a combination of tar and Swinging Mace usually would work, with the player facing the exit and blasting it away.

Barricades don’t have to be fully connected to block off a path; simply being connected from corner-to-corner is enough. In the diagram below, you can see how a chokepoint/funnel could easily be formed using this method. In the map Crutch, this could be used in conjunction with the middle statue to block off one route.  This can save you the cost of an extra Barricade here and there if you’re willing to experiment.

 

The wisps before the start of the wave is pretty accurate, as it shows you the path the enemies would take. Therefore, it is very important to pay close attention to the wisps when using Barricades. If a wisp curves away from a path the Barricade is blocking, it means that the barricade is usually safe. But if the wisps stop in front of the Barricades, enemies will attack them.

When using Barricades, be wary of Gnolls and Kobold Sappers. Gnolls act as if they don’t exist and walk over them freely. Sappers will attack Barricades if there are no other players, Guardians, Decoys, or charmed enemies nearby, and around 3 are enough to completely destroy one. They will usually destroy more than 1 due to their explosion’s radius. One effective way to handle Sappers is to use “dummy Barricades”, which is simply putting a single Barricade in a place where Sappers will target it instead of your primary Barricades. It’s less costly than replacing main Barricades and, unlike Decoys, won’t draw attention from non-Sappers.

Note that when using the Sceptre of Domination, charmed enemies can cause other enemies to unintentionally damage the  Barricades, since their attacks hit an area in front of them.

4) The crossbow can be your best friend

On higher difficulties or on Endless Mode, two things are usually required: Mana and the ability to kill off heavies quickly at range, since ogres have the annoying ability to stun you and once ganged-up with other enemies, it usually means your death. No other weapon can fulfil this with the exception of the Crossbow.

The Crossbow does fairly low damage but makes up for this with its rapid fire capabilities (to help kill off kobolds) and allowing you to land headshots for greatly increased damage. The greatly increased damage is nothing to scoff at especially when combined with Ice Amulet; since the frozen status increases the damage received for the enemies. Using that method, Earth lords usually die at 3-4 shots and Earth elemental with 2 shots. If you were to use a fully charged Sceptre to attack, usually an Earth Lord could easily take more than 8-10 blasts, making it easy for you to be overrun. Additionally, its fairly high accuracy makes it effective against air targets (compared to the Blunderbuss). The Unique ability of generating mana per headshot (10 mana each time) is very useful since it gives you more chances to use your Ice Amulet, or in my case, I use in combination with Ring of Lightning, which is perfect for killing multiple weaker enemies in 1 chain lightning shot.

5) Learn to refund your skulls to suit the map you are playing and not just your playstyle.

A lot of beginners make the mistakes of “locking in” the skulls without sensing the context of the map they are in. While weapon type may demand for a certain playstyle, the traps setup should be adequate to the map, and hence upgraded according to the selection.

A frequent mistake was to invest skulls in what I call contextual traps, traps that are effective in some maps and not others. One example would be spring traps, which can be useful in maps with pits/lava/acids, but has limited use without them. Another would be investing a lot of skulls in archers, which are fantastic with decoys and works wonderfully in normal mode. However, in Endless mode, gnolls will kill off these archers, and investing skulls in archers but not using them in Endless Mode is just a waste of skulls. The skulls could be better placed in Floor Portals for example, and using them could allow a better management in Endless Mode.

Therefore, be flexible in the trap layout and upgrade the appropriate traps for the appropriate map. Seeing the layout and knowing the environment and its traps helps a lot in terms of receeing before you leave the map to respec.

Hope you guys enjoy the tips above. For any further tips to this wonderful game, feel free to comment below.