Beyond Good and Evil

I have done a great injustice to Ubi Soft for leaving this game on my shelf and not playing it for a week. I really only play RPG’s, FPS’s, and flight simulators, I bought BG&E for my mother, since she always plays action adventure games on xbox all the time. She took to long to get to it and I was bored one day so I gave it a try….. IT WAS WORTH THE TRY.

Titan A.E. meets The Legend of Zelda:

This is possibly the coolest short american game I have ever played that wasn’t an rpg. I haven’t had so much fun in so long, even though it’s a short game (finished it in two days) I didn’t even want get up to go to the bathroom.

The storyline has potential to be strong but becomes weak immediately because you find out the major plot twist in the game by a few seconds in. which sucks, because it’s a nice plot twist.

The graphics are very nice, and I love the art, strangely resembling the movie Titan A.E. It’s not identical in a way where it’s the same artist, but the clothes, armor, the nature of the monsters, and the different races reminds me of it strongly.

The music is suprisingly good, even though I can’t count more than five tracks off the top of my head, the pianist is a tear-jerker.

But the gameplay is what makes this game so much fun, there is so much to do, there is no wrong way to play this game; and this is where I mentioned the legend of zelda, like that game, this is a sub rpg (items, upgrades, equipement, alternating between puzzles and fighting. The game gives you an option between stealth and brute force (although it greatly encourages stealth, since it’s more involved, cooler, more fun, and all out fighting is TOUGH, but it can be done that way as well, plus it’s usually quicker.) Also along with fighting and puzzle solving, you carry with you a camera, the most important item in the game, playing a very large role, you take pictures for evidence involving as objectives for your mission, as well as money making purposes (taking atleast 1 picture of every creature on the planet, each paying up 300-2000 units.) also it’s just fun taking snapshots of everything you see, and it’s VERY challenging to try and take a picture of something that wants to KILL YOU, because alot of enemies count as animal or evidence.

Even ingame stuff like saving your game takes a related path, it’s your "record file" or journal, in your list of all the other mdiscs you have wether they be messages, maps, clues, passwords, surveilance videos, information or just plain comic releif that you can check at any computer.

what else…. the buddy system is fun too, your’e almost always with a partner that can help you in fights or puzzles (good A.I. too) also I was impressed with the NPC’s; thier dialogue changes constantly, and your character (Jade) knows EVERYBODY.

The most fun I have had in a LONG time, my complaints: way too short, upgrades and items are way too expensive considering your income, and Jade needs a personality workover.

Originally, in spite of great reviews, I was a bit turned off by the character design, so I passed on it.

Since, I’ve heard enough great things about it to be completely sold on it, but I can’t find a copy of it anywhere. 🙁

It is an incredibly great game. I wish they would have kept the original character designs for Jade, but ah well. Also wish it were a bit longer.

I did have a pretty bad experience with it though. Towards the end of the game there is a part where if you do it out of order, it will just fuck up (some type of scripting error… bad programmers should be shot)… and I was a dumbass and saved it after the fuck up… so I had to start the game over entirely. This was right before the final boss.

i got this last week and finished it in just over a day. i also think it was way to short but i really enjoyed it. the atmosphere and music is beautiful especially at the lighthouse. i hope they make a sequel-maybe with a different story and characters but with the same gameplay and development team