Nothing To Do With Nietzsche

Howdy,

Today I want to talk a little bit about Beyond Good and Evil. The game, not the book. Developed by Rayman creator Michel Ancel, BG&E was a fairly high profile, multi-platform title from Ubisoft that performed very poorly commercially, despite critical acclaim. The game is for all intents and purposes a Zelda clone, yet it manages to rise above the heap in a couple of areas.

First, a disclaimer: I never beat the game, for reasons I will later address, so some of my criticisms may have been addressed as the story progressed.

The game's greatest strength seems to lie in its personality. It has a relatively unique art style, implemented through well conceived graphics, to create some truly beautiful moments. The nice water effects deserve particular attention, as the overworld is traversed by boat a la The Wind Waker (don't worry, it is much faster). The first dungeon, completely bathed in an eerie blue light, also stands out. It is a shame then that so much of the later game takes place in generic, grimy industrial settings.

Conspiracy and oppressive government rule are the main story focuses, which is a welcome break from the "impending calamity from dark forces" plots that plague the genre. Unfortunately, at the point I reached these themes had been handled in a somewhat broad and safe manner. If it was aimed at children this would have been fine, but the game does carry a T rating. After Metal Gear Solid and Deus Ex, I was hoping for a few more risks.

Characters are brought to life through competent, if unspectacular, voice acting. Many talk with various accents, the Jamaican mechanics to the Southern sidekick, which is either charming or horribly offensive depending on your point of view.

The game excelled at creating memorable battle sequences, whether it was chasing a giant serpent in a speedboat or saving kidnapped orphans from aliens. Slow motion was used particularly effectively to accentuate the fights. However, there are not as many of these as there could have been, and none last quite long enough to be truly satisfying. As is the norm for the genre, combat is quite easy.

Jade, the main character, is initially a photographer and as such there is a photography system in place. Snapping pictures of wildlife for money is remarkably fun and rewarding, but I wish the world was more open to exploration, which would allow for more photo opportunities and sidequests.

The biggest issue the game runs into are the later dungeons. After the first, the developer drops the Zelda-esque design and opts for a tedious stealth approach that completely negates all the combat skills the player has acquired up to that point. The enemy AI is frustratingly limited, losing interest in the player after only a few moments of alert. Levels are laid out with some spacious gutter near every gaurd encounter; hiding in these basically ensures safety as they will not pursue you and quickly lose interest. This negates all tension and reduces every bit of "stealth" to "wait, shoot, hit, run, repeat". While the design is somewhat consistent with the story, it is so tedious as to actually ruin the game.

Beyond Good and Evil had a lot of potential and while it has many fine qualities I ultimately cannot recommend playing more than the first four hours. It is a shame it performed so poorly commercially though, I would have loved to see if Ubisoft could have fixed these problems in the two planned sequels. Instead, it has been relegated to being a rough gem of the bargain bin.

Der Wille zur Macht,
Jade