Before you do decide, each’s demo is now on Steam too ahead of the full releases there. Catch Heavy Rain’s here, Detroit’s here, and Beyond’s right over there. We’ve got lots of lovely words on all three of these games, too. So before you even get to those demos, here’s a bit more info from the archives of RPS.
Heavy Rain debuted on PS3 waaaay back in 2010, and made its way to PC just last summer. You play as several people searching for a boy who’s been kidnapped by a serial killer, so, you know, a nice light story. In her Heavy Rain review, Liz Lanier says “if you’re keen to try a Quantic Dream game, I’d say Heavy Rain is still the one most worthy of playing, if you can excuse some of the over-the-top elements of the story.” According to Brendan, it also has one of the most annoying children in PC games. I’ll let you decide if that makes it worth your time or not. All I know about Detroit is that it’s something to do with robots having feelings, and whether or not they deserve to live for having said feelings. Sounds like risky territory to write a game about, I wonder if they did it well? Let’s see what Alice Bee wrote in her Detroit: Become Human review: “Detroit is a perfect game to livestream, or play with three mates and half a bottle of tequila – but if you tell me you genuinely think the story is well done, I will immediately be sus that you, yourself, are an android poorly trying to replicate human behaviour.” Ah, that’ll be a no, then. Quantic Dream recently announced they’re going independant after the success of Detroit though, so they must’ve done something right.
Lastly, we’ve got Beyond: Two Souls. It follows a young girl played by Ellen Page who’s friends with a spooky ghost. Together they get into all sorts of shenanigans - oh, also Willen Dafoe is there. In Jay’s Beyond: Two Souls review, she says it “feels like a Frankenstein creature; a television show with interactivity jammed in for the sake of it.” The game’s redeeming quality is its acting though, so it could be worth checking out if that’s something you’re more drawn to. June 18th is a busy day for games finishing up their Epic exclusivity it seems, as that’s also the day Outer Wilds arrives on Steam. And just to avoid any confusion, that’s Mobius Digital’s Outer Wilds, not Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds (though that one will be coming to Steam later this year, too).
