Heavy Rain/Beyond: Two Souls Collection

Over the last decade or so French developer Quantic Dream has brought us some of the best cinematic adventure games to grace Playstation. Unfortunately as consoles have progressed, their stories have been left behind in a mess of backwards compatibility, until now.

Combining two key titles in Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls, this collection takes the original games and refreshes them for the beefed up hardware with a lovingly painstakingly detailed graphic improvement amongst a flowing 1080p 30fps visual.

For those who weren’t aware of its 2010 original release, Heavy Rain follows Ethan Mars who after awakening from a six-month coma finds his son Shaun missing to the ‘Origami Killer’, beginning a frantic race against time to save his life and potentially expose the serial murderer. The interactive drama Heavy Rain presents was at the time ground breaking, pushing the console graphics to its limits with a deep story line and immersive experience. The graphical upgrade should be an instant winner though it exposes some of the weaker points of the title. Voice acting of awkward Americanised accents and overly dramatic scenes are now garishly obvious along with a controller system that hasn’t quite moved to the dynamic feel as expected with a Dual Shock 4.

In contrast, 2013’s Beyond: Two Souls features a rich and near flawless PS4 port that burst with life on the screen but is still tied together with the non-linear and somewhat illogical plotline which at the time was partially rescued by the brilliant motion capture acting of Willem Defoe and Ellen Page.

The two play a yin and yang to each other but still remain as a fantastic and unique gaming experience that helped lead the way for more recent titles such as Until Dawn and The Last Of Us with a strong story focus with intense player involvement. Even after a few years and a new console, they can stand up to the recent releases, and with two games being dropped at half the price of the regular gaming prices, picking this up is a no brainer.