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Win a Nintendo Switch Lite and Brain Training by signing up for our newsletter and sharing our resource. Read full details.Beholder (Series) Review
Posted: 14 months ago, last updated 2 days ago.
Author: @GeekDadGamer and Jo Robertson.
Overview
In the first game, you play as Carl, a government-installed landlord in a totalitarian state. Your main task is to secretly spy on tenants to hear their conversations. To do this you can bug apartments, search their belongings and profile them. You then have to report to The State anyone capable of violating the laws or plotting subversive activities against the Government to the authorities.
Each character has a unique personality, circumstances, and issues. Every decision that a player makes affects the way the story unfolds. The game has multiple endings each of them being a sum of the decisions made by a player. It's up to you whether you decide to play along with the powers that be or look to subvert its control.
In Beholder 2, you play the son of the man who has been killed, Evan. It's improbable that he flung himself out of a window and to the ground from a high rise. Instead of spying on tenants like the first game, you work directly for a corporation. Here though, you find just as many immoral people and actions - co-workers who are drunk, participate in orgies, and engage in all sorts of debauchery. You have to look out for yourself while keeping the company happy, and investigating your father's unhappy end.
Game Details
Rating: PEGI 16+, ESRB MATURE 17+
Release Date: 09/11/2016
Platforms: Mac, Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
Genres: Narrative, Puzzle, Role-Playing and Strategy
Developer: @Beholder_Game
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Commitment
Costs
Age Ratings
The first Beholder game was rated PEGI 12 for frequent scenes of mild to moderate violence to fantasy characters. Beholder 2 was rated PEGI 16 for strong violence towards fantasy characters, the use of illegal drugs and a sexual expletive. There are occasions when a character can be killed either through hanging, beheading or being coerced to jump onto large spinning circular saws blades and if unwilling to do so, they are physically dragged and kicked onto the spinning blades. This is accompanied with screams and copious amounts of blood. The moment at which the character meets the spinning blade is not observed, but there is still sufficient bodily detritus and blood seen as the incident unfolds. Events such as these are presented as 3D cut scenes, which adds to the overall gratuitous nature of the violence, which are invariably greeted by applause and cheers from the non-playing characters, as the victims are seen as traitors. There is also an instance of the use of the sexual expletive '*!@?*'. It is seen as on-screen text. Although there is the consumption of unnamed drugs, the visual effects and the demise of the character after having taken them is sufficient to regard this event as the use of an illegal drug.
Beholder 2 is rated ESRB MATURE 17+ for Violence, Blood, Sexual Content, Partial Nudity, Drug Reference, Strong Language, Crude Humor.
Accessibility
System Settings
Nintendo Switch has some built-in features, including a lockable zoom, that can be used on all games. Windows has extensive accessibility features. Some, like colour correction, work with games. Lots of accessibility software can be used with PC games, from voice recognition to input device emulators. PlayStation 4 has a range of accessibility settings. Some are system only, some work in games (invert colours and button mapping). Xbox One has a system features, the excellent co-pilot share controls mode and adaptive controller support for all games... read more about system accessibility settings.

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