Beyond Good and Evil Review (no fat)

Game Description

Armed with a camera and Daï-Jo, a wooden stick, you are Jade, an investigative reporter in the world of Hillys. As expected, the camera is your primary weapon and your mission is to infiltrate the enemy and photograph the suspected treason of the military which is supposed to be defending you. You also get a hovercraft to move around but most of the game involves finding sections on the map by foot. Reaching higher levels unlocks more firepower for the craft as well as more Pearls, the currency of choice in Hillys.

Beyond Good and Evil - Game play

The 20 year old heroine, Jade, lives with her uncle Pey'j who took her in when her parents were killed. When the story starts, Jade and the humanoid pig, Pey’j, have taken in more war-orphans to live with then in their lighthouse in Hillys.

While the alien forces of DomZ are out to destroy Hillys, the planet is being defended by an elite force called Alpha Sections. The social commentary and politics in the storyline comes into play when Jade is recruited by IRIS, an underground organization who believe that the DomZ and Alpha Sections are actually in cahoots with each other and need to be exposed.

The most obvious mission for Jade is to expose this unethical military nexus by photographing the DomZ and Alpha Sections in compromising positions. The other, refreshing mission is to take pictures of the wide variety of animal life on Hillys, as a paid assignment for a scientist. This ensures that the player notices the scenery rather than blank it out completely.

The accent on the game is on stealth and puzzle solving. But Jade has to switch from stealth or attack to escape at times and the chase sequences bring a rush of adrenaline to the game. In her bid to avoid being seen by patrolling guards, Jade can acquire the help of her companion Pey’j, and later, Double-H as well. Double-H is an IRIS agent who looks like a subtle but effective parody of a sci-fi movie hero. Controlling the companion is done intuitively with a single button and they can be used to set-up the enemy for Jade to destroy them. There are various puzzles to be solved like cracking passwords to gain entry and finding Pearls to pay for repairing of transport.

Beyond Good and Evil - The Snags that aren’t

With platform adventure games there are, more often than not, problems with the camera getting out of focus and creating bizarre situations that only raise your blood pressure. However, Beyond Good and Evil has a well settled camera that does its job well and doesn’t get in the way of things at all.

Also, there is no mind numbing decisions to make about which items to keep and which to drop…there are bigger and better mysteries to solve here so selecting items is not one of them. Quite intuitively, Jade’s pocket AI Rinaldo takes care of the items by scanning them and reproducing them later when required by Jade. The system works well and Jade and her companions can easily draw on the resources.

Beyond Good and Evil has quite a bit of side games that are a fashion in RPG adventures today. However, these are nicely interlocked with the gameplay on the whole. The hovercrafts racing and a master level puzzle are built seamlessly into the main storyline only enhance the game’s overall atmosphere and help Jade win more pearls to complement the principal quest. Similarly the side quest of taking photographs of all the animals on the planet adds to the environmental appeal of the game and means that you have a regular source of pearl income…if you put in the effort.

Beyond Good and Evil - The Controls

Even newbies will find the control spontaneous and the learning curve easy. When Jade is ready to attack, she automatically pulls out her stick and her camera is very easy to handle. A is the button used for Action - Move, Talk, Attack. B is for backward and forward movement and Z is used for clicking pictures.

Beyond Good and Evil - Audio

Orchestral music, reggae beats, funky rap, plain old piano music - the audio is one of the highlights of the game. Great effort has been put into making the audio blend with the storyline. Of particular appeal is the voiceovers for the various characters, they sound very real and mesh with the animation on screen. The background music heard over various parts of Hillys emphasizes its exotic appeal. Also, the populace of Hillys can be heard talking between themselves and this makes the place realistic.

Beyond Good and Evil - Video

The Game feels very smooth and fluid. The wide screened letter box type display gives a cinematic effect to the game. The principal characters, especially Jade, emote very well and feelings like hate, joy and worry are effortlessly rendered on her face. The frame rate is constant in the face of changes in the background. Hilly is a waterlogged planet and the effects like waves and rippling water are very realistic. The game has a bluish greenish tinge so that such effects get heightened. The interiors are shadowed and this heightens the sinister aura.

Beyond Good and Evil - Summing Up

Beyond Good and Evil’s storyline is not run of the mill and evokes subtle shades of gray. The Graphics are seamless and they blend well with the storyline, but the highlight is the Audio, which would not be out of place in an animation movie. A gamer friendly in-game death system also means not many will leave it off frustrated. So the only gripe we could come up with is that the whole experience comprises of a rather short 14-15 hours of dedicated gameplay…an unfortunate dilemma with most good things.

Beyond Good and Evil - Cost

Beyond Good and Evil currently retails for $19.99.