3. The Music
Imagine a giant sledgehammer repeatedly hitting you in the face while shouting out emotions that you should be feeling. HAPPY! SAD! LOVE! SCARED! That is the best way to describe the soundtrack for Beyond: Two Souls. Much like the script, it is track after track of cliché orchestral fluff that only diminishes how much of yourself you invest in a scene. If it is a sad moment, you hear sad music. If it is happy, the music is uplifting. If there is a dramatic event, the full orchestra starts playing its heart out. Heavy-handed is an understatement; it is almost like composer Lorne Balfe was told to write music that fits a particular mood but make it general as possible. They could have downloaded the music from a royalty free site and you wouldnt be able to tell the difference. You get fed up with the music overshadowing every scene or telegraphing what is going to happen before it happens. It becomes annoying because it is a symptom of everything that is wrong with modern soundtracks. Composers often resort to writing bland orchestral music, which you have heard a million times before. Bland orcestrals dont make a game epic, they drag it down to TV movie level.