Beyond Good & Evil

"A perfect example of the "cool" kind of weird."

Usually when a game is weird, people like to call it creative. If that's the case, then UbiSoft's Beyond Good and Evil is one of the most creative games in years. Coming from the honorable Rayman creator Michel Ancel, Beyond Good and Evil is a game unlike any other. The story is one that's strictly for adults, even if there aren't any curse words or fountains of blood to be found. We've all played a game before that deals with a conspiracy, but none quite as good as this. Beyond Good and Evil also manages to combine several gameplay elements that make it sort of a jack of all trades, except without the ''master of none'' tagged on the end. While most people will eventually pass this one up, those who decide to get it will be very happy they did.

Beyond Good and Evil centers around Jade, a young action-reporter living with her adopted Uncle Pey'J(whom I might add happens to be a pig with a bit of a southern accent). Jade and Pey'J run an orphanage at their lighthouse home on the small planet of Hillys. They take care of kids who have had their parents taken away by alien invaders known simply as the DomZ. These DomZ attacks are happening more often every day. Yet the Alpha Squads(the guys in charge of protecting the Hillyans from such attacks) always seem to show up late, when the DomZ have already left. Jade will soon find herself trying to unravel this government conspiracy and restoring peace to her planet. The story from beginning to end is glorious and stands out from the croud of mediocre storylines that have been found in many games recently. Instead of peaking somewhere along the story and slowly getting worse, the story just keeps getting better and better until the very end. The twists and turns all seem to be placed in the exact spot and at just the right time so they don't seem unrealistic.

To do all the things it takes to save the world, Jade will need to take pictures using her camera, travel to different areas of Hillys on her hovercraft, fight and explore on foot. Using Jade's camera is, oddly enough, one of the more fun things I've done in gaming recently. This Pokemon Snap-esque addition really makes the game better as a whole and adds a new dimension to the gameplay. A woman will pay you to send her pictures of any animal you can find on the planet. This makes for some pretty intense moments during tough boss battles, because you know that if you can get a good shot the picture will be worth big bucks. Your camera is also used to take pictures of various things that will help you move the story along.

To fight, Jade uses her Dai-Jo, a staff-like weapon with two glowing green...things on each end. You never get to upgrade it or get a new weapon throughout the game, which might bug some people, but I personally didn't have any problem with it. There are also certain situations which require you to do a super-attack. This attack is(obviously) more powerful that Jade's normal attack and can be used to do different things that her normal attack wouldn't be able to do. She can also do a special attack with the person that she is fighting with that allows her to knock down suspended bridges and destroy an object that's blocking an entrance.

There's also the hovercraft, Jade's vehicle of choice for most of the game. It handles surprisingly well and is actually a blast to fight enemies with. There are also a few hovercraft races in the game, but they're really nothing special, sadly.

All platformers seemingly need a form of collectible, and BG&E doesn't stop the cycle. There are 88 pearls that you can collect throughout the game and they can be used as currency to upgrade your hovercraft.

However, there IS a certain platformer cycle that BG&E does break. I'm talking about having ''lives''. Usually in most platformers, you'll have a certain number of lives that, obviously, decrease whenever you die. Once you're out of lives it's game over. However... in BG&E, there is no such thing as a life. Instead, whenever you die you simply restart at a certain place that's usually very close to where you died. This is really a great addition because the transition from death to starting over is seamless, takes only a few seconds and is virtually free of loading times. I think many of today's platformers could learn by example in this department.

Next, I'd like to say that both my eyes and my ears nearly had an orgasm when I entered my first fight. The graphics and audio are simply amazing. I really mean it when I say that I haven't been this blown away by the beauty of a game in a while. The artistic style and musical score are both superb. Monster and character designs alike are usually very out of the ordinary yet very believable at the same time. The world of Hillys is a breathtaking site from Jade's lighthouse and you might find yourself taking pictures of the landscape just for the hell of it. As I sit here recollecting the game Syberia (which also had many strange things in it that seemed eerily realistic) I'm forced to conclude that French artists have a gift for making the unbelievable believable.

As for the music, I must say first of all... Best. Battle Music. Ever! There's this creepy voice that sings something slightly unintelligible during it and then a really deep voice that does the same thing, you've really got to hear it. Easily the best battle song I've heard in any game for a long time, maybe ever. I'm not joking when I say that the music in this game sounds like it belongs in a big-budget major motion picture. There's all kinds of music here, even Jamaican! It's been a while since I've been so impressed with a game's music, but you could probably deduct that on your own after reading that. :-)

The controls and camera are occasionally a little iffy... Sometimes the camera can be troublesome when Jade is running. Occasionally you can't see the bottom third of her body. This is kind of troublesome because you can't see anything that's on the same level as that part of her body but more or less it's just annoying. This is probably because the entire game is presented in a letterbox format, but I think that the letterbox actually makes the game feel more cinematic like it should. Draw your own conclusion on which is better/worse.

For the most part, the controls are just fine, except for when you're controlling Jade sometimes. Her hovercraft is actually easier to turn than her, which is more than a little odd. It's even harder to turn her when she's running. Even with that little nuisance, though, the controls overall are just fine.

The one drawback to this game is its length. It took me 11 hours to complete it and there isn't much of a reason to repeat the game unless you simply want to experience it once more.

Still, after all is said and done, you'd be wise to hurry up and pick this game up before it's gone. And when I say hurry up, I mean hurry up. UbiSoft has reportedly stopped production on BG&E because of it's atrocious sales(I've heard under 50,000 copies!). If you're lucky, you can find it for twenty bucks or less. And, for twenty bucks, you don't have much to lose.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/02/04