Beyond Good & Evil

aka: Between Good & Evil, Beyond Good & Evil HD, Project BG&E
Moby ID: 11290

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Critic Reviews add missing review

Average score: 87% (based on 35 ratings)

Player Reviews

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 120 ratings with 4 reviews)

Brilliant.

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.

Windows · by Ola Sverre Bauge (237) · 2004

Unique and a whole lotta fun.

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.

Windows · by Jack Lightbeard (2685) · 2006

An eclectic gem in the rough, marred by a few rather silly problems

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.

Windows · by Andreas SJ (21) · 2004

Not that good

The Good
- lovely graphic style & character design
- fitting soundtrack

The Bad
- too linear
- not much exploring to do
- too easy
- the sophisticated gamer may find the whole experience "too shallow"

The Bottom Line
Well, this game was for a long time on my list of games to get my hands on as it was considered to be a insiders tip. To my disappointment this game didn't catch me.

The controls and interactivity with the world and during fighting are limited to actions that can be done with one or two buttons - you don't have really the freedom of doing much more than needed. My personal feeling is that you can't really explore the world - but rather follow a more or less a "given" path through the game and just pressing some buttons here and there to perform "predetermined" actions as you advance.

The photo shooting task becomes dull after a while.
The cartoon setting and the characters are modeled quite good - and the voice acting is pretty good too - some characters like the Reggae listening rhinos are quite memorable.

But in an overall view the game is boring - during puzzle solving and also during fighting. Sorry, but this game is only average.

Windows · by cosmo ruski (39) · 2011

Contributors to this Entry

Critic reviews added by chirinea, Scaryfun, Wizo, COBRA-COBRETTI, nullnullnull, 666gonzo666, Picard, Marko Poutiainen, Big John WV, Patrick Bregger, Tim Janssen, Xoleras, nyccrg, jaXen, Samuel Smith, vedder, Emmanuel de Chezelles, Alaedrain, Alsy, Karsa Orlong.