Beyond Good & Evil reviews
Listing of critic and player reviews for Beyond Good & Evil
/static/img/favicon.ico
MobyGames
The Good

As a rule, I hate "family" games, films, anything, I hate cute anthropomorphic animals, I really hate games that only let you save at checkpoints. And I usually dislike pastel colors.

Despite all this, I absolutely loved Beyond Good & Evil.

Maybe it's the way the anthropomorphic animals look more relaxed than all-out cutesy. Maybe it's the subversiveness of the way this game, rated nine years and up, shows a militaristic leader distracting people from the truth with propaganda rhetoric. Maybe it's that I got a bit of Thief-like sneaky action again. And that Spanish hip-pop works amazingly well.

Let me elaborate. Our heroine is Jade, freelance reporter who runs an orphanage in her spare time. No, wait, it's not cutesy. ...okay, so maybe it is cutesy, but it works, really. Just trust me on this. Anyway, the object of the game is to take photos to uncover the truth. No, wait, it's cool, it really is. You get to ride this hovercraft around between islands, and as a side income, you take photos of rare animals... Wait, where are you going? I said it works, don't you trust me? Can't stand this non-violent nonsense, you say? Well, when she's attacked, she's got this stick to beat monsters with, see, and it has this super-attack which makes it glow--

...very well, I'll just sit here talking to myself, then.

Jade gets around both on foot and in hovercraft, and, eventually, a spaceship. Searching for rare animals and taking their picture is actually where the big money is in this game: A lot of effort went into designing the teeming animal life of the planet, something like eighty species. This is simply the most brilliant secret-object-hunting excuse ever; and it adds to the tension of fights, as you'll want to get out the camera and take a snapshot of the monsters you're about to beat into a pulp.

Unusually, you spend most of the playing time with a companion to help you in fights, use special skills and operate equipment; think Lost Vikings with less frustration and some fresh gains on the format. The sneaky bits are generally excellent, and very suspenseful despite the cartoon esthetics.

With the roaming around the islands and the money-earning, you get the feeling of GTA3-style freedom, while in fact the design is quite tight. This allows for a lot of special-case scenarios: Every place in the game feels truly unique, never a cookie-cutter repetition; practically every problem has to be faced with a new twist, right up to the end. There are several sub-games such as racing and board games, and replaying the game to find all the hidden areas reveals an impressive variety - this also means you have several paths to finish the game. Combinations of paths, even.

The Bad

Of course, this level of quality can't be kept up indefinitely, and because of this, the game feels short but sweet - moreso because you'll be constantly glued to the screen. You'll wish for two more sequels to appear within the year.

The Bottom Line

So buy it already. Pump up their sales figures so they'll make another, because I need Beyond G&E 2. Badly.

The Good

Beyond Good and Evil is an attempt to merge several genres (platform action, puzzle-solving, melee fighting, driving, and sneaking), adding a Zelda-like propensity to collecting and unlocking.

Beyond Good and Evil is a smart game - it is good at creating illusions, good at holding hands in such a way that we don't feel offended. It knows when to change gears, and it has a great sense of tact and tempo. There is a lot of attention to the player here - as little frustration and as much fun as possible is obviously the goal. The game smiles at the player, it tries to entertain him as much as it can. All this is done with minimal pomp, and (at least in the beginning) in a fairly natural way. That's why the gameplay rarely gets boring - like a snake, it drops its skin and wears another; it is like an entertainer with several masks, a musician who plays different instruments and improvises on different tunes.

The most interesting aspect of the gameplay is cooperation with your teammates. Those are the all-around mechanic Pey'j, Jade's "uncle" and a representative of the species sus sapiens, and a super-cool military-trained agent Double H. Both can open heavy grates (Pey'j by using pliers, Double H by wearing a helmet and breaking them down with his head), press buttons that Jade can't access, and perform other useful actions. Both guys are also quite helpful and even indispensable in fights. Particularly dynamic are boss battles, which are a combination of simple melee fighting, gyrodisc throwing, Super Actions, and special strategies unique to each boss. Both your companions also have their own health meters, inventory, and AI in combat. You can issue commands to them by pressing the triangle button, and manage their inventory by giving them healing items.

The various locations of the game are accessed by vehicles: hovercraft and space ship (late in the game). You glide over water and dock in order to access the city or another location. At a certain point you receive a jump upgrade, which allows your hovercraft to jump over obstacles. Sometimes you must navigate your hovercraft on a road with gaps and avoid enemy fire at the same time. There are a few "hovercraft dungeon" areas where you interact with objects by shooting or pushing them. There is also hovercraft fighting in the game - at your disposal are rapid fire and a cannon that causes massive damage. Your space ship can obviously fly, but it is equipped the same way as the hovercraft, and also participates in battles. There are also a few minigames to spice things up.

It is hard to describe the setting of Beyond Good and Evil properly. It has some sci-fi elements, but they don't play an important role; the only city in the game is reminiscent of small, cozy European towns with narrow streets and brick houses. The bright, slightly cartoony visuals perfectly fit a certain fairy tale-like atmosphere of the game: its world is populated by humanoid animals, giving the game a sweet, endearing vibe equally remote from ultra-realism and Japanese gratuitous "cuteness".

The Bad

Beyond Good and Evilis beautiful, charming, and elegant; but it is not deep. Everything here is restricted to following the designers' admittedly well-crafted, but limiting scheme. Unfortunately, the game's very low difficulty level doesn't go well at all with its linearity. In essence, it's a typical example of a jack of all trades which is master of none.

If you look closely at the gameplay, you'll see that much of it consists of minigame-like challenges that trick you into mistaking them for full-fledged concepts. Every puzzle needs to be solved in a specific way rather than require you to think outside of the box. At first I thought that the game will eventually present more complex situations, but this didn't happen: after you familiarize yourself with your basic arsenal you'll have no trouble at all figuring out what to do in every situation. So as a puzzle game, Beyond Good and Evil is quite basic and unsatisfying.

This approach is evident in combat as well. The battles must be the game's most restricting, unremarkable, and unexciting feature. They are confined to small areas and are woefully scripted, leaving next to no room for any kind of creative tactics. You can win most fights by simply mashing down the attack button.

Beyond Good and Evil likes creating illusions. One of them is the illusion of non-linearity. When you get out to the surface for the first time, you see a large world that looks totally open-ended. You want to take your hovercraft and simply drive around, like in GTA. But very soon you discover that most of the areas are blocked, and you can go only where you are supposed to go. Later in the game, optional areas do appear, but it is still a far cry from a truly open-ended world, which this game would certainly greatly benefit from. Also, the game eventually forces you to collect so many pearls that you'll probably have to explore those areas no matter what. There is no comparison here with the freedom of movement and abundance of secrets and things to do offered by Zelda games.

The story is weak and treated with irritating negligence. What could have been a suspenseful tale full of moral ambiguity turned out to be a disappointing, simplistic affair. After the very first mission we find out that Alpha Section are the bad guys. From this moment on we work for the "good" fellows from Iris Network and sabotage Alpha's activities as much as possible. That's the whole story, and the blatantly "to be continued"-style ending doesn't compensate for its lack of quality in any way. The characters are also anything but deep: even though Jade starts strong, she doesn't develop at all during the course of the game and treats everything with a startling calm bordering on lack of emotions.

The Bottom Line

Beyond Good and Evil is a classic case of style over substance. Snapping pictures of sentient rhinoceroses and buying gadgets from a Chinese walrus is fun, but the actual core gameplay comes only in small portions, making you crave for a bigger, deeper, and more generous game.

The Good

You play Jade, a reporter and photographer, you need to uncover a government conspiracy while taking photographs of wildlife. Now that’s it in a nutshell but the actual game really is quite brilliant, it's a mix-mash of genres, but each one is done really well. You'll start off at your lighthouse home on the watery and hilly planet of Hillys, there’s a war goin on and the aliens have chosen this peaceful moment of relaxing by a tree and enjoying the view to bombard your home planet once again, a quick dash to the shield controls to protect your home and all seems to be well, for about two seconds, "Sorry, your electricity supply is short by 350 credits" Bzzt Bzzt Bzmm.. The shields down and an alien monster/meteorite has impacted with your lawn, dragged the kids underground, popped its three heads back up again and begun to attack. You’re thrown into third person combat straight away, to get the hang of Jades' fighting stick and super attack. Your side kick uncle Pe'j is a pig with a penchant for high quality wrenches, he'll help you sort out the immediate problems and will be in tow for much of the game, then its a nice break of taking snapshots of the local wildlife to raise a bit of cash. This is a mini side game of sorts which is ever present and is more fun than it sounds, there's whales, insects who have to be lured out with cheese, enemy creatures, bosses and bartenders (such as a groovy cow with sunglasses), all have to snapped. The boss battles are fairly frequent and all are very well done, some are huge affairs taking place in the air.

The planet of Hillys is the main hub of the game, you’ll travel from place to place via your hovercraft - which can be upgraded as you gain pearls, the only thing that the Rasta rhinos at Mammagos Garage will accept as tender, these fellows are much more chilled out than the rhinos here on earth and will upgrade your hovercraft with everything you can afford. There's four race tracks you can take part in that are very fast and very fun and will reward you with pearls and cash, there’s other race-like sections as well, a pedestrian town district and numerous other islands and areas. Another mini game involves playing a table top ice puck game against a shark.

Pretty soon you'll be embroiled in a conspiracy that threatens the whole population of Hillys, you’ll be contacted by Iris, an underground network of operatives who claim the Alpha Sections (the peace enforcers and planet defenders), who are always five minutes late for any fight and claim the Iris network are terrorists, are not all they seem. It's pretty obvious who you need to trust from early in the game, and due to its linearity there’s not much else you can do anyway, but the whole things so enjoyable it doesn't really matter. You'll often have to infiltrate areas relying on stealth to photograph evidence for the Iris networks’ underground newspaper. The stealth I liked a lot, not quite thief, but just right for this game. I kicked one of the Alpha Sections from behind in his luminous green air tank and his colleague exclaimed, "Buddy's in trouble!" and ran over to re-connect it, a small touch but I thought it was pretty cool, Beyond Good and Evil is full of nice touches.

There's a bit of puzzling to get around, usually involving getting from one area to another, I missed a not so obvious route through the scenery a couple of times at first.

The music is vastly varied and all very good if not excellent, the bars blare out an unusual brand of hip hop, while they'll be more ambient stuff for the cutscenes etc. I found this game genuinely funny a lot of the time, it made me laugh a lot, which was all very good and happy.

The Bad

The camera angles can be a nightmare at times, when the cameras not fixed and it's following Jade things are not usually so bad.

The game is really rather easy, and short, but the quality’s there so again not so bad.

The Bottom Line

It’s a little arty, a reporter/wildlife photography who looks after kids at her lighthouse may seem a bit to cute to begin with but it all works, once you get into the game proper it's always throwing fresh challenges and play styles at you, the pace is pretty fast but there’s usually a chance to take a break and zip about the waters of Hillys and explore the extra caverns and areas, or do a bit of shopping or upgrading. It's also crying out for a sequel.

The Good

The peaceful planet of Hillys is under attack by the vicious DomZ. Luckily the Alpha Section has established a base on Hillys and defends the aquatic world, but who are the IRIS network and why are they trying to discredit the Alphas? Are they DomZ collaborators or are they tied in to a deeper truth about the Alphas?

Enter Jade, a freelance photojournalist and foster parent to children orphaned by the conflict. Together with her “Uncle” Pey’j (a gruff, but lovable boar) they travel around Hillys on a hovercraft taking pictures in locations most people can’t get to. But as the game begins, the war comes to their island home, forcing them to take a more active role in the conflict.

Hillys is a typical one-planet, one-city, sci-fi world, but it is incredibly alive. Apart from the aerial and naval vehicle traffic, Hillys’s seas, skies and lands swim, fly and crawl with life. Jade’s first assignment (and one that will follow her throughout the game) is to create a photographic catalog of all the life on the planet. Using her camera, Jade will have to learn how to take a photo using the zoom feature and proper framing. This is key to the game and quite easy (unlike Bounty Hunter’s similar bounty marking system). For each animal photographed, Jade receives credits and once a roll of film is taken she earns a reward, often a Pearl.

Credits and Pearls make up Hillys’s economic system. Vending machines and conventional sellers accept credits, but the garage that services the hovercraft only accepts the more expensive (and much rarer) Pearls. Taking pictures is the easiest way for Jade to make money, but there are two ways to gamble (which work much better than Pazaak—take notes, George) and hovercraft races Jade can enter.

In addition to taking pictures and piloting a hovercraft, Jade is also an energetic explorer and skilled martial artist—the two go hand-in-hand. Often to get to where the pictures are, Jade will have to find her way through a “dungeon”—be it a cave or military complex, doing the tradition button pushing, inventory finding type things—and fighting a variety of enemies. Jade has a Daï-jo fighting stick (3rd person combat) and later attains a glove mounted disk-launcher (FPS-type action). She also fights in concert with her companions, utilizing a super-attack that they can perform.

Beyond Good & Evil has stealth portions. There are some challenging areas, but nothing I found impossible. Also, many of the stealth levels are pseudo-stealth, meaning that stealth is simply used to avoid combat. If you are detected, then you fight your way out.

Much of Beyond Good & Evil's open-ended design makes it feel like a role-playing game rather than a typical 3rd person action/adventure game. There is great emphasis on character development; Jade is emotionally invested in the story (as opposed to some videogame characters who seem disinterested in what’s going on around them) and the supporting characters acknowledge Jade and relate to their environments.

Beyond Good & Evil has stellar graphics with very fluid, distinctive animation. The game also has a wonderful soundtrack that had me hanging around in the bar just to listen to the “Buddy Holly – Propaganda” songs. Did I mention that I love this game?

The Bad

Beyond Good & Evil took me around 12 hours to complete; it seems short, but good games often do. Most of the game is very open-ended, letting you explore as much of Hillys as possible, but there’s a certain point where the game becomes linear until the end. I would have appreciated knowing that there was a point of no return.

Some of the stealth areas can be frustrating, but I personally felt a high level of accomplishment when I got through them.

And the dumbest complaint I heard about the game is that it ends on a cliff-hanger. It doesn’t. Finishing the game is completely satisfying, BUT the designers (perhaps too optimistically) left an opening for a sequel.

The Bottom Line

Here’s the biggest thing Beyond Good & Evil has going against it: a female protagonist and bloodless combat. Sales tanked, but gamers missed out on something great. Carlson & Peeters!

The Good

Beyond Good and Evil, created by Rayman supremo Michael Ancel, is possibly the most charming platformer on the PS2 system, and really makes you feel part of a living world. Forget GTA's bland sandbox or the boring skateparks of Tony Hawk's, here's a game that really puts you right into a world that you'd actually want to spend time in.

The sense of atmosphere is palpable and really quite beautiful. Strong words for a mere game, but BG&E is without doubt one of those games, like Ico, that starts to transcend the barriers between gaming a genuine cinematic experience. We're not there yet, but this is a step in the right direction. The plot is neat, petite and melodramatic in all the right ways - its a lot better than your standard 'alien menace' fps plots although it does find itself on the wrong end of a few naff moments. The game is also a basic satire on the role of media governing our lives, intelligent stuff for a game, even if this territory has been covered a bit in film.

The peaceful world of Hillys suffers under alien attacks constantly, but it is thankful for the Alpha Force, an elite force of soldiers championed by the media as our salvation. Although many civilians still go missing mysteriously, the Alpha Force are heroes, an example to all in the idyllic world of Hillys. Or are they? Okay, so the whole 'undercovering a conspiracy' plot has been done to death, but it hasn't been covered in games that much, certainly not in platformers. And the story is good fun, with enough twists and funny moments to keep you playing, even if you feel you know where the story is ultimately heading.

As photographer and orphanage owner Jade you sneak into a variety of locations, helping the Iris Network, a galaxy-wide resistance force, to unveil the truth to the population of Hillys. Again, very predictable, but the feeling of revolution and liberation as you start to reach the public is one of those terrific feelgood moments that you remember forever, and that only games can really muster. 'See those revolting citizens - I did that!'

The feeling of being part of an actual resistance movement is excellently recreated, with enough death and sad moments to feel like you are really battling against an almighty corporation. Sneaking through the cracks in the scenery or using your ship to blast your way in makes you feel like you are really up against it, and really makes the stealth tense (more on that later).

After entering a base, which take the form of everything from a drug factory to a slaughterhouse, your mission is to photograph all the nasty stuff going on. And its nasty - not blood and guts nasty but a real contrast with the stunning aesthetics of Hillys' scenery. The photographs are then sent out to Iris, who distribute them among the population. Seeing your report, complete with the photos you took, is really quite an ego boost, and then seeing people talk about what you discovered when just a few hours of gametime ago they seemed like lambs to the Domz slaughter - that's really cool.

The reason all these basic actions make you feel so great is because the actual world is so well realised. Lovingly designed characters walk the streets, hovercars whizz around the roads and even the mechanics are Jamaican rhinos with their own (excellent) reggae theme song! Even the giant Domz monsters are works of art. And the game world, especially the open sea, is simply stunning - especially as you upgrade your ship and discover more and more glorious countryside.

Another factor that makes the game so compelling is the dialogue and personality of the characters that inhabit the game world. The characters are very charming, and the dialogue is, compared with most games anyway, sparkling, fresh and very well acted. The leads are compelling, and even the bit-parts have their own quirks and eccentricities. The warm characters allow the game to move from light humour to bleak sadness in the blink of an eye. An event near the end of the game where Jade nearly gives up is beautifully done, and not anywhere near as naff as it really should have been.

Jade is an excellent lead, thankfully a bit deeper than the Lara Croft 'breasts and ass' stereotype while remaining clear of the forced 'feisty' cut-out she could have been. She's sassy, funny and genuinely seems like a fully-fleshed character. The sidekicks are more eccentric but steer clear of annoying for the most part.

Jade's step-father and loyal friend Pey'j is a pig, but only in the literal sense! When I first played this game, I couldn't quite believe I was adventuring with a talking pig, but you'd be surprised how this feeling disappears and he becomes good old uncle Pey'j - he's the game's key humour character, and his natural charm makes him a trusted ally.

Your other companion is Double H, a bizarre, military-tradition obsessed solider who you rescue from the Domz. It takes a little longer for you to get used to his sheer oddness, but after an hour or so you start to see just what a cool guy he is really. He's a lot deeper than he first appears!

Its odd that I've written so much without commenting upon the actual gameplay. The game has a rich variety of styles, but the main ones are adventury platformer bits (technical term!), with some stunning set-pieces, stealth sections, which are simple but satisfying, and driving sections, which are terrific fun.

As a straight platformer, BG&E is a disappointment - there aren't any jumps, as every gap is leaped across by simply pointing Jade in the right direction like you would Link. Really, the exploration sections are classic adventure, with puzzling and a fair amount of combat, like a very French Zelda.

The combat is quite simple, but looks so lovely you won't mind too much. Really all you're doing is bashing 'x' while pointing the analogue stick in the direction of an enemy and watching Jade leap into some quite stunning animation. If you're struggling to imagine it, try thinking of an arcade-heavy Prince of Persia combat system. A special attack (which becomes quite valuable after upgrading it at the game's store) and simple teamplay commands add a bit of variety, but really combat is a bit one note.

The bosses are stunning however. They look incredible, and although the method of dispatchment is always simple, it still feels very satisfying. Also of note are some frantic chase sections with you running through city streets crawling with guards baying for your lovely green lipstick. These are excellently handled, with cinematography that simply beggars belief.

The stealth is also quite simple, but the tense atmosphere and sense of danger make the sneaky moments work. You'll be skulking a lot more than you would expect upon first glance, but thankfully the game offers a good enough system to entertain, with lots of baddies to dodge and the occasional set piece that entertains (staying out of sight by hiding behind a moving crate for instance).

The driving sections are wonderful. They are perfectly done, with simple but satisfying shooting with a lovely lock-on cannon and again some wonderful set pieces that have you luring homing mines into crates to stay alive or stuck in the tractor beam of an enemy ship. The handling of Jade's hovercraft is simple but very controllable, and the upgrades that let you lock-on, jump and eventually fly make you feel really quite brilliant.

Special mention has to go to the subquests that pad out the admittedly rather small adventure. There are loads, from hovercraft racing, to an addictive tabletop game called pearl hockey, to desperately trying to find secret areas to find extra pearls (the game's black market currency), to trying to take a picture of every animal in the world! These diversions are terrific, particularly the animal photography one that makes the adventure sections work much better as you constantly scan the area to find a new species. The rewards for quest completion are excellent too, with a two-player pearl hockey game to be found and a fun little concentration mini-game for finding all the pearls.

To finish this bit I'd also like to comment upon the music. The score is again streets ahead of most gaming fodder, and I actually have bits of it on my PSP music collection. The little phrases are deftly composed and the music that comes in at moments of emotion or action are perfectly judged. I can still remember a nasty twist coupled with a stunning minimalist violin melody that just captured the moment.

To conclude this rather lengthy monologue, Beyond Good and Evil does everything right in terms of atmosphere, and is great fun to play.

The Bad

The game does have its weaknesses. You probably noticed that I didn't spend all that long on the actual gameplay mechanics, and when I did I used the word 'simple' an awful lot. This is because a lot of the game is actually very basic and comfortably easy. This doesn't matter for me as I love the atmosphere and the characters and the sub-quests - if you find you don't warm to the game immediately, you won't at all. The game is also rather short, especially if you aren't interested in side quests and secrets. Again, I loved it so much I found it endlessly replayable, but again that may not apply to you. I would try renting the game first to see if you really like it. My other complaint is with the stealth sections. Here the rather one-dimensional gameplay holds it back. Sneaking behind a guard and kicking his air tank to kill him rather melodramatically is great the first time, but the fiftieth? Also, too much is reliant upon trial and error, with a lot of deaths and restarts. Really, BG&E is a very unique game with its own charm - if that charm doesn't appeal to you, chances are you won't enjoy it.

The Bottom Line

Beyond Good and Evil is certainly among the top drawer of platformers this generation. I personally liked it better than genre standards like Super Mario Sunshine, but this all depends on just how much you like the world of Hillys and the characters that populate it. Technically, is it better than Ratchet and Clank 3 or Psychonauts? No, not really. But is it just as enjoyable, heartwarming and fun? Without a doubt. It might be short, it might be quirky and it might not be for you, but Beyond Good and Evil is an experience and a game that does not come along very often. Overlooked upon release, I expect you could find this for near nothing now - what have you got to loose by picking it up? Nothing at all.

The Good

In spite of the hype, I have little experience with the "Genius" of Michel Ancel. As far as i know, all he has done before BG&E is Rayman 1/2, and neither of the two struck me as wonders of the world. Regardless, Beyond Good & Evil comes with a great premise, has a number of original gameplay ideas that tie well into the storyline and setting without seeming gimmicky, and overall it comes across as a very well put together product by some obviously talented and creative minds.

The storyline is interesting right from the start, with a beautiful and harmonious world (the protagonist, Jade, is seen practising Chi-gong at the very beginning for example) fighting an infinitely alien enemy that seems like the direct opposite of anything else in the game. Even highwaymen are goofy and charmingly cartoony on the world of Hyllis, and i assume this is done to make the enemy even more shocking and horrifying when you do run into them.

The bad guys, oddly named the DomZ (sounds like a bad rap group), are a bunch of soul eating spider psychics who can't really decide wether they are in the movie Aliens or not, and they are backed up covertly on earth by the Hyllis-based Alpha Sector military unit (this isn't really a spoiler. It's obvious from the outset). Their ongoing attacks on the planet Hyllis has made certain groups of citizens weary of the Alpha Sector, who says they are in fact protecting Hyllis against the DomZ, whereas facts seem to say the contrary. Early on, Jade is approached by one such group, and is tasked to put her skills as a photographer to work revealing the true nature of the Alpha sector to the people of Hyllis.

In gameplay terms, this storyline mounts to a few distinct elements: Overworld shopping and adventuring along the lines of recent Zelda games. You walk around, explore, find dungeons, talk to characters and spend money, all to advance the plot. Racing and modding your Hovercraft, which is your main means of transportation around the overworld for about half the time, as Hyllis is a water planet. Dungeon crawling and puzzling with stealth as a strong element, where you're usually tasked with going some place you're not allowed and take pictures of critical events while remaining undetected. A sort of gotta catch'em'all game of animal photography where you try to collect pictures of every major species on Hyllis for cash. Crazy wacky completely insane action sequences and chases that defy description and always slap you right in the face when they occur. All in a good way of course. Wind Waker, Prince of persia: The sands of time and BG&E has made me aware of my favorite genre; The action rpg adventure. There are few genres that leave themselves as open to creativity as this, and BG&E is an excellent example. The gameplay constantly seems to be moving and flowing in different directions, and you'll almost never find yourself bored as the changes are so frequent. It's really rather pleasant to play games where the developers have obviously had fun.

BG&E has an art style that's quite brilliant, and uniquely French. Ever since Delphine were doing action adventures on the Amiga, the french have held the upper ante of fantasy design with an iron claw. These guys know fantastic. Half and half Don bluth & HR Giger, coupled with early Möbius and a slight tinge of early Disney, BG&E looks pretty fantastic throughout. Characters are brilliantly designed, and then in particular Jade, who is a proper poster girl for the modern era, army fatigues, fighting stick, bandana, camera and all. They animate wonderfully well, if slightly inappropriate at times (Jade's schoolgirl jog when in an alien dungeon is a bit unsettling to watch). Proper facial animation does a lot to convey a story, and BG&E even has a Pig looking sad. Kudos to Ubisoft for the effort. The world of Hyllis is otherwise rather beautiful, and viewed at high resolutions can make you think you're watching cartoon graphics at times. The water effects in particular are astonishing. The engine behind it all is surprising in how heavily it depends on point sprites, yet manages to pull it off. For instance, at the beginning, Jade is sitting under a large tree. The tree has hundreds of leaves that wave realistically, and it's almost amazing seeing that much motion in an era where trees are usually polygonal static objects. The tree is in fact made up of myriads of 2d images that look the same whatever angle you look at them, which dramatically lessens the impact on your graphics card. In short, the world of BG&E looks uniquely alive, but if scrutinized it has quite a few cheap graphical effects.

The audio work is for the most part rather mediocre. The english voice acting (which i assume to be inferior to the French. Why oh why wouldnt they let you use french audio with english subtitles like Evil twin did?) can be grating, but for the most part serves its purpose. The music however is astonishingly varied and well put together. I was very often surprised by the variation in genres. It can be seen as a kind of eclectic modern pop world music mashup, and it suits the living world of BG&E very well indeed.

A final specific note, i really enjoyed the camera mechanic. The idea of gathering this sort of information and putting it to use the way it is done in BG&E has simply not been done before, and the way the game portrays it is more than efficient. The camera rocks, it's that simple.

The Bad

Unfortunately, BG&E has some rather significant flaws. On my first way through the game i was so busy taking in the sights and enjoying the variety that i was blind to most of it. However, after playing it through and experiencing it's cataclysmically dissatisfying and ambiguous cliffhanger(!) ending, even though it is pretty obvious today that there won't be a sequel judging by the game's sales, the bad things just pop up all over the place. My biggest gripes are the following:

The storyline is shallow. There is no suspense as to who the bad guys are; you know it from the first moment you lay eyes on them. Characters are simple to the extent of being forgotten within moments. Jade looks after a house full of wartime orphans, each with distinct personalties. However, after the intro, these kids are quickly forgotten and play no real part in the gameplay after that. Each and every element of apparent depth eventually appears to have an almost mechanical function in driving the plot forward. You rarely see anyone do anything unexpected, and for a game which focusses so much on information versus disinformation, it can be viciously predictable. I was disappointed to see the hamfisted way the game tells it story, driving points and facts home with a sledgehammer, very little is left up to the player other than the inane ending, and the linearity of the game betrays the protagonist's early promise to get to the bottom of whatever it is that's going on. You have no choices, and you're led by the hand throughout. Whereas this also was true for Wind Waker (a comparison i'll stand by), Wind Waker filled in the linearity of the main story arc with a multitude of lesser story arcs to flesh out the world. BG&E does no such thing, despite having a well realised world to place such arcs in.

The controls go from bearable to atrocious, usually the latter. The mouse+keyboard setup of BG&E works well by default, despite having some odd quirks. Menu options are navigated with the mousewheel, the spacebar is used to confirm choices etc. One quirk i found particularly annoying is how obviously the game is designed for use with a gamepad. One minigame has you playing a strange form of Airhockey. To send the pucks in the direction you want, you must rotate the puck in the direction and send it off. Sounds easy, but it's all different when you realise that to turn it up/left, you must push your mouse up/left. Rotation is done by moving the mouse in circles. This radial motion is obviously designed for an analogue stick, and while it works okay when you input passwords and the like with letters and numbers spiralling out from the center, it really isn't very precise with a mouse. Most other problems with the controls include "imprecision", as the context functions occationally change when you least expect them to, wall hugging tends to simply not work, and a number of other strange little catches. One such catch is the hovercraft controls and how they deny you the possibility of circle strafing, even though there is no good reason it's not available. When stationary, the mouse moves the camera, when moving, the mouse turns the hovercraft. However, the wsad keys ALSO steer the hovercraft. Why make the camera/steering switch? In cases, this turns out to be simply broken, as a camera turned to the left versus a press of A to move left will result in the camera locking into an incredibly awkward position, resetting once the hovercraft is stationary.

The camera is horrible. I reckon by now that camera programming is every game developer's nightmare. I don't think there's any fun connected to making a third person camera work, and most games today are evidence of that fact. BG&E has a vicious and mean spirited camera that will do such things as get stuck in walls, flicker back and forth between front/rear views during combat (effectively reversing your controls back and forth), disappearing into the floor, letting you look through walls etc. It is strictly mouse controlled, though the game switches to stationary cameras that mostly do the job. The mouse controls are enormous offenders, as their rules seem to change based on the room you're in. It can be frustrating beyond belief to be simply denied the view you need because the camera refuses to be anywhere other than inside the floor or inside the ceiling.

2 dungeons and the case is closed? If my memory serves, there is a total of 4 "cases" you must solve with your camera. For instance, a case would involve taking pictures of an object on a trolley, and then two people handling said object. Once this evidence is assembled, it can be transmitted to the rest of the world electronically. It's a great idea but the game never makes anything big out of it. Four cases during 2 dungeons is all it takes to convince the world of the Alpha section's nogoody nature. For a game of 17hours in length, 2 dungeons is a little disappointing. No wonder people find the game short when the majority of game time is just filler and transit.

The Bottom Line

It's great fun the first time through, and you're viable to ignore the flaws and just take in the spectacle. However, i don't see a lot of replay value, mostly because you'll be so disappointed with the ending you won't want to experience it again. It is really quite extraordinarily bad in spite of its buildup.

In any case, a recommended rental, if only to see the fantastic visuals. Definitely one to show your friends.

The Good

I like the fact that the protagonist in this game, Jade, is not really a hero by default. She is not like Link, Dovahkiin or any other fantasy-store protagonist who somehow becomes the Chosen One. Jade is a photographer who knows a tiny bit about combat, but not enough to justify calling her a fighter. The story goes that she becomes embroiled in the troubles of a resistance that seeks to expose a corrupt government by photographing their secrets and by doing so saving the world, I like the idea of the everyday hero and the idea itself is really clever.

Working with the camera is fairly interesting. You can use it to see the world from a First-person perspective and scan your surroundings more accurately, but the camera also identifies objects and organisms. For example: Aiming the camera at a door would tell you, Fi-style, that the object you are looking at is indeed a door. In a more useful situation though: The camera revealed to me what a very strong enemy's weak-point was and this became essential to me when fighting that enemy.

I really like the character of Jade and her uncle Pey'j. The two of them have a very lovable relationship and the dialogue between the two seems very realm which helped endearing the two characters to me despite of Pey'j been more of a comic-relief type that I would normally hate. Jade is more serious though, but it was mostly her design that I didn't really like. Once again it is proven that character is more important than looks, I suppose.

After a rather action-packed opening sequence the game calmed down a bit and I learned that fighting was a rare pleasure and not an everyday occurrence. Most of the time you will be exploring the world, solving puzzles, doing side-quests, gathering items or taking pictures. I also give credit to the producer for putting that in the demo for the xbox 360 HD-release, as opposed to Brütal Legend which never showed it was an RTS until people bought and played it.

The game has a lot of different mechanics: moving, combat, driving and photographing just to name a few. This makes it all the more surprising that all the mechanics function very well (except for one I didn't mention and will get back at) and allow you to do everything as fluently as possible. I could also walk around for a while and then step into a vehicle, without suddenly having to figure out the controls all over again, which is a nice extra.

The Bad

The game is terrible at immersing the player into the world it is trying to create. Whereas good games like say... Dragon Age 2 would provide you with written information about the world around you or even explanations within dialogue, this game just kinda drops you in the middle of everything and never explains a damn thing. Why is Pey'j a pig? Why are there talking rhinos? Where am I? Who am I fighting? How does this world function? All basic questions that the game failed to answer, this is not immersing, this is what you get when a five year old writes the story for your game.

The big moment when I stopped playing this game was in an enemy facility when suddenly and out of nothing I was faced with sneaking sequences. I would say "introduced", but that word couldn't be more inappropriate. The sneaking comes out of nothing and not even a hint regarding the controls is shown. The game just automatically assumes you know how to sneak in videogames and when the enemies spot you. I am a bit of a gaming veteran, so I figured this out fairly fast, but even then it barely worked and I stopped having fun. The very first enemies you have to sneak past are heavily armored elite soldiers who throw grenades at you and kill you in two hits and don't tell me "You just suck at sneaking" because I played sneaking classes in Oblivion, Skyrim, Alpha Protocol and quite a few other games, I can sneak, but not in this game.

The game has a problem that I left unmentioned in my review on Kingdom Hearts, namely that the game switches between spoken dialogue and text-boxes. It. Drives. Me. INSANE. Have some damn consistency and either use text or use spoken dialogue, not both. I simply hate it when I talk to a character and I am treated on a few lines of dialogue before the game switches to a cut-scene where the characters speak.

Another small problem I have is with the name of the world, it's called Hyllis. While that is not really a problem, it's a fine name, it does mean that the inhabitants are called "Hyllians"... Sound familiar? The game is already very similar to a Zelda game, but this is just taking the piss.

I also didn't really like the way the inventory screen works. When you press start it show you a menu with your objectives, some items and other stuff, but not the actual inventory. To open the inventory you have to click on a specific slot which contains some weirdly named... thing and then it shows you the items that you are carrying. This first became a problem when I had to type in a code located on a ticket (God forbid that just having the ticket is enough), but I couldn't find the ticket anywhere and spend one and a half hour rigorously exhausting all the possibilities in an attempt to find out where it had went.

The Bottom Line

One of the easiest ways to farm some dislikes on a Mobygames review is to have a very negative opinion on a game that is critically acclaimed and generally considered to be an underrated gem, but frankly I don't give a damn because the truth deserves to be heard. While Beyond Good and Evil starts off pretty decent and allows you to enjoy a pretty simple fantasy adventure, it just poisons itself when it introduces sneaking mechanics to an already overloaded game.

If you are the kind of hipster gamer that will religiously defend anything as long as it's not mainstream then get this game and start sending me hate-mail. Everybody else can turn right and buy Wolfenstein 3D or something, everything on the XBLA or PSN is better than this.