Summary
Shallow, boring and uninspired.
The Good
From its first announcement, BG&E was surrounded by a moderate amount of hype, and indeed, it showed a lot of potential right from the beginning. And with an obviously large budget and the luxury of a long development time, it had all the prerequisites to become a great game. My interest in the game wasn't too high, but after it received nothing but the highest praises from the press as well as from fans, I ended up buying it nevertheless. Something which turned out to be a big mistake ..., but lets get to the good points first.
From a technical point of view, the game is excellent. The graphics aren't the most detailed the PS2 has ever seen, but they are still easily among the best, and, more importantly, just downright beautiful. It is obvious right from the beginning that a lot of effort went into designing the characters and locations. The cartoonish protagonists might not be for everyone, but their design is often unusual and generally above average. The game world is quite attractive as well. There's a large bustling city, some truly beautifully designed landscapes as well as some darker locations inhabited by your enemies. There are also some nice effects like reflecting water, fog, or the generally fantastic lighting. None of the effects are overused or feel out of place, and they greatly improve the already strong visuals.
The music is quite good as well. It generally does a competent job of creating a suitable atmosphere. However, while there are some unusual and interesting tunes (that work surprisingly well in the game), none of the music is really outstanding or memorable.
The story is tad better than in compare-able games. It isn't terribly original and most of the plot twists are quite obvious, but it's still above average. One of the story's strong points is that there is more interaction with other characters. While you don't get to make any real choices in conversations, you still feel more a part of the story than in games where you spend most of the time running around on your own with only the occasional cutscene advancing the story. Also, the main characters are worked out a little better than in other similar games and their actions are more believable, since you don't simply attack your enemy head-on, but rather must collect proof for his activities to get the public on your side.
The gameplay features elements from many different genres: Exploring, fighting, solving (simplistic) puzzles, riding a hovercraft in Shoot'em Up-sequences or races, photographing, stealth passages and some platformer elements. Transition between these different parts of the game is seamless and the controls are always simple and intuitive.
Great huh?
The Bad
Well, not really. Unfortunately, none of the different gameplay elements are worked out well enough. They would all work nice enough as a little extra to an adventure or action game , but the problem is that there is no core gameplay. What we have here is basically just a couple of mini-games slapped together, but not a single one of these has enough "meat" to be really challenging or entertaining.
The combat consists solely of pressing the attack button and dodging every now and then (plus some generally pointless and annoying, but sometimes needed, special attacks of your team mates). The controls are pretty stiff and aiming enemies, while not difficult, doesn't work too well. The battle-system is vaguely similar to that of Zelda OoT/Wind Waker, only much more primitive and with worse controls; and Zelda's battle-system, while entertaining and occasionally challenging, isn't particularly deep to begin with.
The platformer elements are equally shallow. Jade, just like Link, jumps automatically when she reaches a chasm. The problem here is that this doesn't work nearly as good as in Zelda, and unlike BG&E, Zelda wasn't in desperate need for some real gameplay, which makes this fault all the more embarrassing. Before you get any ideas, I'm not comparing BG&E with Zelda because I think that they would be similar (they aren't), or because I expected BG&E to be as good as Zelda. It's just that some gameplay elements are clearly inspired by Zelda and comparing the games shows quite well how you do it right (Zelda), and how you don't (BG&E). Apart from ordinary jumping, there are sometimes sequences where you have to avoid obstacles by dodging them or jumping out of the way in the right moment, but that really doesn't amount to anything as they are poorly designed and devoid of any challenge.
But wait, BG&E is an adventure right? An action-adventure, but nevertheless an adventure, so there must be some exploration and puzzle-solving going on! Well, BG&E disappoints in this regard as well. There isn't too much in the way of exploring since the game is quite linear (again, this would be quite all-right if the gameplay had anything else to offer). Exploring the city gives you a sense of freedom, but there isn't much to do apart from your current mission. Exploring the city often serves as a nice, atmospheric way to advance the story, but it doesn't have much of an impact on gameplay. As for the puzzles, you sometimes have to push things onto switches or get objects and use them one or two rooms later if that's what you would call puzzles. You are sometimes accompanied by NPCs who have special abilities that could be used to solve puzzles, unfortunately though, you hardly ever have to use their abilities in a clever way as it's usually far too obvious where and how to use them. There are a few situations in the game that almost could have gotten away as (simple) puzzles if it wasn't for the cutscenes telling you exactly how to solve them. Actually, I think the designers could have sped up these situations by simply implementing a dialogue box: "Solve puzzle? Yes/No", that would have worked just as well. All-right, to be fair, I think I need to mention that there are actually a handful of decent puzzles, but there are too few of them to redeem the overall lack of challenge of the other "puzzles".
The Shoot'em Up, photographing and racing parts are OK, but fairly simple and obviously can't make up for the lack of real content, which prevents them from being the nice extra they would have been in any decent game.
The stealth parts are not downright bad, but, just as the Shoot'em Up and photographing parts, they can't possibly save the game and they are too simple (which would be forgivable, if the rest of the game ... well, you know).
Finally, the story also has some problems. I said that the story was a little better than your average 3rd person action-adventure, which is true. However, the problem is not so much the plot itself but the fact that it doesn't go along too well with the game's scenario. I'm the last person to complain about a game being childish. If a game is childish it might have good enough gameplay to be worth playing anyway (just look at Nintendo's games). Some games wouldn't even work very well if they weren't set in a childish scenario; just imagine a grownup version Super Mario. I don't even want to know what that would look like. BG&E's problem in this regard is that, while the game can be played by people of all ages, the story is apparently geared towards a more mature audience, yet it's set in a world of talking pigs, sharks, walruses and all sorts of other weird creatures. The scenario in itself doesn't bother me too much, what does bother me, is the fact that the game spends so much time on telling a story that wants to be serious but doesn't fit in with the game's scenario. Even if it wasn't for the unfitting scenario, the story simply isn't as good as the designers/writers apparently thought, and too much time is spent on cutscenes, considering that the plot itself isn't very deep or complex.
The Bottom Line
BG&E isn't downright bad, if you're looking for some light entertainment it fits that bill (and I'm not being sarcastic here, there's nothing wrong with some light entertainment). However, if you expect a little more from a game you have to look elsewhere. What amazes me though, is the fact that BG&E was hailed as being innovative and original even though it doesn't introduce anything new. This wouldn't be so bad if at least some of the gameplay elements had been worked out a little better. The only thing that makes BG&E remarkable is it's above average art direction and high production values, but that alone doesn't make a great game. Sure, combining as many different gameplay elements as BG&E does could have easily resulted in something much worse, but it only works well from a technical point of view. As far as game design is concerned, it's shallow and soulless. It tries to please everybody by simply throwing in elements of all sorts of genres, which is usually what happens if a company (or designer ...) desperately tries to create something new without actually having any interesting ideas.
BG&E simply took many gameplay elements that were popular at the time of it's release and combined them into a shallow uninspired game, that, for some reason, received the highest scores and praises from the press and from fans. This really worried me, and I'm glad the game didn't sell too well. I'm not sure whether it's a poor, uninspired and pretentious attempt at creating something innovative, or simply an attempt to cash in by combining many popular gameplay elements without caring/knowing about how the game as a whole would turn out. At any rate, I'm glad that it didn't get the chance to become an example for future games.
