| Product: |
Beyond Good and Evil (PC) |
| Date: |
15/12/08 (110 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Completely off the wall game with an off the wall story to boot. Beautiful!
Disadvantages: Puzzles can be a tad irritating, doesn't take that long to complete.
A world in which humans live alongside sentient animals ranging from pigs to goats, walruses to rhinos. An evil tyrant controlling the population through the heavy-handed use of the "Alpha Sections," an elite, militaristic police force trained to do his bidding. An invading alien menace. A young (human) journalist named Jade, who runs an orphanage in a lighthouse, on an island. A unique mix of investigative journalism, racing, jumping around, wildlife photography, sneaking, and beating the hell out of stuff with a big stick. Free roaming, puzzle-filled storytelling in the idyllic world of Hillys.
Michel Ancel certainly had odd things going on his head when he came up with the idea of Beyond Good and Evil. Thank goodness he did; ranking comfortably as one of my favourite games of all time, this is genius on a CD - brilliant voice acting, music, story and a beautiful immersive world in which the events unfold.
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Story
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I will do my best to set the scene without excitedly giving away the whole story!
Jade is a journalist and photographer working on the peaceful planet of Hillys looking after children who have been orphaned during attacks by the DomZ - evil aliens who keep attacking Hillys and capturing or killing its inhabitants. The army and the Alpha Sections under the despotic General Kehck seem powerless to defend the inhabitants fully, and the sight of burning buildings is not uncommon in Hillys despite the protective energy shields projected over the buildings.
You are thrown headlong into the action when Jade and Fehn (about the cutest little goat kid you ever saw) are outside meditating as the DomZ launch another attack. The energy shield fails - no money in the account! Oh no, what to do?!
There's only one thing left - grab a flaming brand and leap headlong into the action!
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Gameplay
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Ok so the combat is not exactly on a level with Assassin's Creed, but hey, it ain't that bad. Two buttons are involved - left click is your beat the enemy into submission button and right click is your dodge to avoid incoming death button. You also have the run away quickly option, which is indeed a very useful option, especially if you're trying to photograph the angry beast that is trying to impale/bite/pummel you at the same time.
The reason for partaking of this suicidal activity is that Jade's main source of income is from the Hillyan Science Centre, which pays her for every new photo of an animal she sends in. The rarer/more dangerous the creature, the more money you are paid. But then, the more likely you are to die trying to photograph the damn thing. Jade can also 'earn' money gambling, or by breaking open crates of purple spiky things called 'materia,' or in hovercraft races.
The hovercraft is pretty central to the plot. When you're not racing it, you're using it to collect the pearls that are used (illegally) as currency at Mummago's Garage - home of cheery Jamaican-accented rhino mechanics - where you slap upgrades on your trusty steed so that it can carry you off on your next journalistic mission. The only real restriction on your movements in Hillys is where your hovercraft can and can't go, so naturally this is used to unfold the plot steadily as you add more and more upgrades and gain access to more and more areas.
I can't emphasise how cool the plot is. It is written in a way that, whilst being maybe a tad predictable at times, is often hair-stand-up-on-your-neck cool. Crucially the characters are also incredibly likeable - all cartoonish, but cartoonish in a very bright, evocative manner, and voiced brilliantly. They all seem to wear really cool trousers too. Not only this but the game comes fully voiced in no less than six languages (and considering the amount of dialogue in the game that is quite an achievement) - English, Spanish, French, German, Dutch and Italian. I tried the game in Spanish and decided I like the voicing better in English, but I suppose that's not entirely surprising given my ropey Spanish.
Puzzles are another important aspect of the game - which normally involve working out how to get yet another flipping god-forsaken son-of-a-gun door open. I confess I nearly despaired at a couple of points in the game after lengthy searches for the way onwards, but I did manage to figure out what to do eventually. Looking back, irritating as these points were at the time, I'm not sure whether they are a weak point of the game...they sort of make it tougher and more interesting. Still I'd have preferred them to be a bit more intellectually challenging and a bit less run-around-in-circles-until-an-answer-presents-its elf.
That leaves sneaking. Jade's style of investigative journalism normally involves a fair bit of fighting, but if you're careful you can sneak through most places without the use of violence. Patrolling guards, laser beams, door codes and trickily accessible switches all make for a good stealth game, at least until something unpleasant hits the proverbial fan, which happens fairly often.
A small gripe I have about the game is, incidentally just like Final Fantasy VII (another fantastic game), that you can only save at certain designated places known in BGE as "M-disk" consoles (which are also used to read any other disks you collect throughout the game). In practice however this is not a major problem as you get a checkpoint before any tricky bit of the game, and the consoles are fairly plentiful, but you have to ask why they can't just let you choose when you want to save.
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Graphics
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The game is getting on a bit now - it was released in late 2003 - and the graphics do look a tiny bit basic, but at the same time many modern games are going back to a similar cartoonish graphical style. It actually adds to the beauty of the game that it manages to be a both funny and serious cartoon, simultaneously dark and light-hearted. The world and characters are designed perfectly to be incredibly expressive of their personalities - soldiers in funny tin suits with bulging chests, kids in cute baggy trousers, Jade with her green-themed outfit, Agent Double H with his chiselled good looks...
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Music
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The music is another important reason why the game is so flipping brilliant. Composed by Christophe Heral it manages to cover everything from fast paced action music to isn't Hillys pretty music and even French hip-hop. All of it is fantastic - especially the song Akuda House Propaganda which plays in the Akuda bar.
The soundtrack is, furthermore, freely downloadable! Legally! Hurrah. I do not however remember where on earth I got it from unfortunately and can't easily find it using Google, but it's there somewhere. Admittedly many of the songs are only really good as background music in the context of the game, but others are well worth having.
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To Conclude...
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After all that excitement you may be surprised to hear that I have yet more good news! Firstly the game costs a mere £5 or so from Amazon, and secondly there is a second game being produced! Ancel had originally envisaged the game having at least two sequels, but bad timing for the release led to poor sales and a gem of a game almost being completely lost in the mists of time. However, panic over, they're making another one. Only trouble is it may only be for Xbox or PS3 or some other expensive console which I really don't want to buy...but on the other hand judging by the first game it's worth splurging £150 to play it if there's no other way.
BGE is not at all like your average adventure or fighting or racing or role-playing game, and is downright weird at times, but if you're after something a little more interesting (and cheap!), definitely go for it.
Summary: What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil. - Friedrich Nietzsche
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