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Beyond: Two Souls represents a shift in the gaming medium, from standard visits to other worlds into story-driven spectacles, complete with Hollywood actors and incredible visuals, but does it hold it together long enough to be considered one of the PS3's greats?

Jodie Holmes is a girl with strange and enigmatic psychic abilities, achieved through a spirit named Aiden, who has been tethered to her soul since birth. As well as creating interesting gameplay opportunities as you control both Aiden and Jodie, this paves the way for a plot sprinkled with mystery, intrigue and a heavy dose of the supernatural.

Perhaps the first thing to make note of is just how unlike a game Beyond can feel at times. With Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe in leading roles, alongside a supporting cast of lesser-known actors who still put on great performances, this is as close to Hollywood as games have ever reached. So, when you're told to press a button on the controller, it comes as quite a shock at first, though you'll soon get to grips with the gameplay.

While the frame rate may drop, and some sections might not be quite up to scratch at times, the visuals are easily the best thing that Beyond has going for it, representing Page and Dafoe marvellously across various points of their life, which is something that even movie studios may have a hard time replicating.

It's just unfortunate that in almost every other way, despite the acting talent and visual grunt on show, Beyond either falters at points or fails entirely. With an incredibly jumbled story, almost amateur writing and some cumbersome controls among lengthy sequences which drag on for far too long, Beyond is a lesson in how a nonsensical narrative can make something with as high production values as this feel utterly average in its execution.

This leads to a few sections that really do manage to shine on their own, but feel entirely disjointed from the rest of the game. There's not much here that will hold your interest in the long-term, barely anything that isn't predictable and forced moments of drama which often feel unnecessarily shoehorned in permeate the title.

Beyond is joined by a mobile companion app, allowing you to interact with the game without the need for a DualShock. It's a novel idea, and one which is responsive enough, but leaves you having to look at your device's screen to see where the face buttons are represented. It truly feels like an entirely pointless and counterintuitive venture.

If you've ever played Heavy Rain, then you'll know what to expect going into Beyond in terms of controls; there are the face buttons to select dialogue options when presented with an opportunity, and even frantic taps of those buttons during quick time event sequences. While there are some more traditional game mechanics to be found, as well as a lot of sections which require flicking of the right stick rather than your traditional button-based QTEs, the gameplay is marred by clunky controls, which really detracts from the experience.

Controlling Aiden is neat though, as you float around unseen, interacting with objects and being quite malevolent at times. Even though he's an extension of Jodie, Aiden feels like his own character, and it's ultimately you that controls them both distinctly, having to manipulate a situation based upon your own mood.

Aiden is certainly an interesting concept, and one of the better mechanics of Beyond, with possession, distraction and plenty of other ghoulish traits coming into play. Ultimately, this plays straight into the more horror-inspired sections of the game, which are great in their own right and at times downright scary; it feels as though the game would have worked much better as a dedicated horror title.

But these great moments are few and far between, and at its heart Beyond is all about the drama. Emotionally, the game fails to engage at crucial moments, and doesn't feel as impactful as previous efforts, even Cage's work with Heavy Ran. Despite the great performances from a suitable cast, the poor scripting really detracts from the experience, and will lead you to question a lot of the design choices; even slightly picking apart the game will lead you to seeing that there isn't really much special about it.

That story is a puzzle missing a lot of the pieces; it's as if Cage had a great idea in his mind, but when pen came to paper, he left a lot of gaps in the plot. While this may not have been apparent to him, when presented to the player it becomes an incoherent mess of ideas thrown together in the wrong order, completely missing the mark.

It's just such a shame that there are genuinely good aspects surrounding the poor core, as the music from Hans Zimmer shows. This is used perfectly at times to create tension, ramp up the action or evoke emotion, feeling completely realised in comparison to the shoddily crafted story and clumsy gameplay, which are essential in the development of a great video game.

1. Great acting from a Hollywood-worthy cast.
2. Incredible, almost PS4 level visuals.
3. The few moments of coherency and structure really shine.

1. Discordant plot never manages to come together.
2. Poor writing and dialogue.
3. Gameplay leaves a lot to be desired.
4. Doesn't have the required emotional impact.
5. A lot of it fails to make sense.

Beyond is a tale of squandered potential. With acting talent such as Page and Dafoe on board, music from legendary composer Hans Zimmer and visuals that give the PS4 launch line-up a run for their money, it's such a shame that when it comes down to it, the incompetent story and poor gameplay mechanics leave a lot to be desired.