Beyond: Two Souls (PS4)
By: Sony
STARTING the gaming year's traditionally fallow period with a heady blast of déjà vu, Beyond already spied the light of day back in 2013 on PS3, though the haunted teen simulator was designed with the grunt of Sony's latest console in mind.
Juno meets Carrie in a cinematic thriller that grabbed headlines on release when canny hackers accessed CG renders of no-nude-policy star Ellen Page in the nip (no-one attempted the same for costar Willem Dafoe).
Digital diddies aside, Beyond played out with lush movie-quality production values and a simple press-the-correct-direction interface. And with much moralising, branching paths to choose and some genuinely heart-pumping set-pieces, there's plenty to keep you hooked in this second gasp for the critic-dividing epic on Sony's newest.
As whining indie chick Jodie, forever tethered to a spirit called Aiden, our unseen spectre can engage in Tom-peepery, interact with objects and generally scare the bejesus out of folk. Players will guide Jodie from stumbling child to action heroine, a life that takes her from slumming it with hobos on bleak winter streets to taking on Navajo spirits in sun-kissed wastelands.
En route, players can follow on-screen prompts to choke sexual predators, panhandle for coin and cut umbilical cords in an experience that strains for emotional pull.
Under the auspices of Gallic director David Cage the frustrated movie-maker's garlicky whiff of pretension hangs thick in Beyond, which is stylish as hell though leaden with fromage. In short, it's French.
The lavish production boasts card-carrying actors performing vocal and motion-capture duties in an experience that blurs the line between games and movies. Add a bombastic soundtrack from Hollywood heavyweight and ex-Buggle Hans Zimmer and Beyond's nuts-and-bolts are undeniably polished.
The problem is that players are often more viewers than participants, and with David Cage as their tour guide. The most fun comes from controlling tantrum-throwing poltergit Aiden, who can possess people and transfer memories of others to Jodie.
In the brief moments when spirits attack, set to the intense strains of Zimmer's score, Beyond really comes into its own. Alas, you're usually just nudging the control stick in the direction of on-screen prompts.
Flawed but fascinating, Beyond is even more gander-worthy in this spruced-up, recession-busting form. Cage's earlier – and for my money, better – Heavy Rain is currently getting gussied up for a traipse down the PS4 aisle in March. In the meantime, Beyond is the perfect time to catch Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe doing their mo-capped thang.
