Beyond Good and Evil by Ubisoft was recently re-released in high definition on the Xbox live arcade for download. I had the pleasure of being able to review this game, and here are my thoughts.
Beyond Good and Evil is a third person action adventure game set in the future, and employs an increasingly dark story line about an interplanetary war and global conspiracy. The DomZ, a group of aliens is invading the planet Hillys with the intent of draining the lifeforce of the inhabiting populace. As a result, marshal law is invoked and the Alpha Sections (a military) intervene to get the situation under control. With the help of a colorful cast of racial stereotypes, the main character Jade who works as a photojournalist finds herself in the middle and must uncover the truth about what is going on.
As far as gameplay is concerned, it took me a long time to get into it. When i first fired it up, I found a locked camera and a toon that couldn’t freaking jump. (yet) After I got over that, the game quickly became increasingly enjoyable. As it follows a zelda-esque style of play, any annoyances are soon taken care of. As with many action adventure games, your character starts out weak and is able to purchase upgrades, ranging from health to abilities and equipment. Later on a metal gear solid type curveball is introduced when sneaking missions come into play. The game is set in a free roam environment around a major city on planet Hillys . You travel around via your hoopty hovercraft, which immediately breaks down when you first use it. (allowing for the introduction of repairs and upgrades) At this point they had me. I even found some joy in farming photos for creds. My biggest complaint about gameplay is one that will only affect a small percentage of players; the invert option. Ugh. As one of the few (the proud, the mighty) that prefer to invert the y axis, i was very dissapointed to find that, well i just couldn’t do that. A look inversion option does exist, but it inverts BOTH axes. So either way I’m screwed on that one. However, if you don’t invert or played the original on pc, this is something you would never notice.
When it comes to visual effects, the environment is well done. At first your lighthouse/ orphanage home is a somewhat boring, pretty standard alternate planet cartoon rendition. The city however is like the 5th Element meets saturday morning. On the other hand, it kind of ruins any hopes of surprise in reference to the “good” army. It’s like foreshadowing for dummies; they are introduced early on with nazi-esque uniforms and come complete with propaganda films. But you can totally trust them guys, totally.
With the exception of the predictable story line and terrible invert option, Beyond good and Evil is a quickly addicting game, and I would reccomend it to anyone who likes action adventure rpg’s and has $10. Well worth it. Don’t forget to keep an eye out for the tenticle rape metaphor in the beginning!
