Beyond Good & Evil

The Good
Rayman creator Michel Ancel has realised an ambitious vision of the futuristic world of Hylis - a central city (think Star Wars) with islands of varying sizes dotted around a huge lake (don't think The Wind Waker). His green-lipsticked photographer heroine, Jade, is unquestionably cool, undoubtedly French and makes a welcome addition to the growing list of noteworthy female gaming characters. Her companions (a Buzz Lightyear type and a Mr. Fix-It pig), with whom teamwork is key, are also well thought out and acted with admirable humour.

The game is very playable; whizzing around the lake on your hovercraft, which handles very well, is a joy. The game's puzzles, whilst mostly of the lock and key type, are logical and usually interesting although not always particularly taxing, often requiring Jade to make use of one of her companions (e.g. one character pressing a switch whilst another goes through a door). There are some excellent stealth sections, requiring Jade to creep past guards and sneakily take out their air supplies with her wrist-mounted disk shooter. The camera works very well too, rarely obstructing the player's view of the action as so often happens in modern games. The photography aspect is cool - Jade is a freelance photographer working on an assignment for the local underground newspaper. As well as her mission to uncover the secrets of the Alpha Sections and the DomZ, Jade can photograph the local wildlife. This is a great aside from the rest of the game, and the sight of the enormous whale in the lake is truly awesome. The lush graphics, interesting plot, characters and mini-games make this one to get hold of.

The Bad
Some players may feel that the game is too short for an action/adventure game at around 10 hours - and also that there's little warning of when the end is coming. It is quite possible to have gone straight from mission to mission without really exploring the whole world, which is regrettable. Having mentioned this, it's also worth pointing out that it's a shame that there aren't more places to explore. On first sight of the city, it seems huge. In reality, most of it is for show. Perhaps Beyond Good & Evil 2, if there is a sequel (and there are hints that this may be the case), will expand the universe a little and give the player more distractions from the main thread of the game.

The Bottom Line
BG&E deserves a hearty recommendation for anyone who enjoys action/adventure games in the mould of Starfox Adventures, the Zelda series, etc.

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
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.