Beyond Good & Evil™

I think this is the first positive review I do in GOG. This game has character, it's pretty inmersive and the story is fun. The different characters are lovely. The difficulty is normal, and the music, god, the music is epic. I can see how much love placed the developers on this game. I really recomend this game, I do not give it 5 stars because it may be a bit short, and you can feel lose at some point (I did a random thing, then and only then the story continued), and some history elements are predictable. Anyway - I'm pretty hard scoring games, if I do a 3 stars review they are like oher people 5 stars ones. I highly recomend playing this game in you enjoy advendtures.

I first read a review praising this game and it's gameplay when it came out but it had a too cartoonish look for me so it put me off. Eventually the full game came with a magazine I usually bought and I installed for my younger sister(8yo) to play she really enjoyed it despite struggling a bit with some levels which I did help and I was amazed at the story, level design and gameplay this game showcased. It's also fully voice with localization including Spanish which it's pretty well done and really helps for non English speakers. You are basically a female reporter in fantasy world and start to solve a mystery that ends in a full blown conspiracy, it has very good designed and iconic characters, world & maps are all well flush out that feel fresh with progression, include some mini games like racing, the gameplay is the typical adventure arcade/fighting/platforming type but really fits well with the game and draws many elements. Now that I think some of the elements of the story and the design (how every elements of the game work together) reminds me of KOTOR design and attention to detail.

I played this game for the first time a couple of weeks after finishing The Wind Waker (2003) and to this day I'm not sure which game I loved the most. It's that freaking good. The music is spot on; the characters are memorable; the atmosphere; the minigames; ...I even enjoyed the weirdly fiting control sheme for kerbord+mouse but my friends told me it also works great with console controls. Just buy this game, and after finishing it you will understand why Ubisoft Montpellier receive this amount of cult following.

I base this review on the Uplay version after installing the HD patch (So i can play in 1080p) The PC version is ok as long as you fiddle a bit with the controls. I had to set the mouse sensitivity slider all the way to the left before the camera became usable) they become perfectly fine. There is a superior looking HD re-release on consoles but its PS3 and X30 only i think. Anyway back to the game. It's a cult classic zeldalike. The story is mostly linear but you are free to explore and looking for side missions in the overworld which yield pearls that are used to upgrade the hovercraft... and open up more of the overworld . The Melee combat can be described as proto arkham. There are no counters per say but Jade can hit most enemies out of their attack animation so fights against 2+ enemies can turn into a glorified whack-a-mole. Still there's not too much emphasis on combat for it to become boring and the game switches things up pretty regularly with bosses that require working with your companion to bring down, races, chases, puzzles, photography, (rather basic) stealth vehicle combat etc. And while some elements might be less than amazing (Like the races and stealth section) they are generally short enough to never really overstay their welcome. The story is good for 2003. You can obviously tell who's the bad guy rather quickly but the story has a twist or two in store. The game has a cliffhanger ending as it was planned to be a trilogy and there will likely be no continuation on that story anytime soon (The BGE2 that is in development is a prequel).

Beyond Good And Evil is a third person action adventure, starring reporter Jade as she tries to save her homeland from essentially genocide. It is a largely solid game, though it suffers from a lot of unfulfilled potential. As I have never played this game it its heyday, it should be noted I'm writing this review based on recent nostalgia-free experience. This is most apparent in the story and settings. The game tries to make you feel like a tiny part of a society living under an oppressive and powerful regime, yet it ultimately falls short in this regard. This can be seen by the fact that most levels focus on stealth, and the main goal is to gather photographic proof of the regime's atrocities so that the population may rise up, rather then killing them all yourself, and while I believe such a premise has a lot of potential, the combat makes your character into a one woman army, which serves to destroy any feel of smallness of your part. Enemy soldiers, though tough, are easily defeated provided you can land a single stealthy attack on their weak spot and as long as you have one of your NPC companions with you, you can easily take out large groups with regular combat. The fact that almost every level ends with a large boss battle further takes away from the feeling of insignificance, as flattening some behemoth that's ten times your size tends to hammer home the fact that Jade is more of a one woman army rather then a simple reporter. The fact that the game ends on a cliff-hanger (I.E. Blatantly leaving room for a sequel when the story could've been easily wrapped up) doesn't win it any points in its favour. The game could've stood to be a little longer too. I'm no gaming master, yet I managed 100% completion in just one weekend. The controls are a little less then ideal, but I can't in good conscience mark the game down for it, as it was made specifically for console controls and didn't handle the transition to PC all too well. That said, it's not too difficult to map the controls in a way that suits you, so it's not exactly a game-breaking flaw. Now the bad stuff is out of the way, I can talk about what's good. For starters, while the story isn't perfect, it is quite original, and for that I applaud the designer for at least putting some effort into it (a rare thing in gaming, especially in the console family). The combat, despite being at odds with the setting and story, is quite intuitive, beautifully animated and all round quite enjoyable. The game features a female protagonist who is more then a mere marketing novelty or eye candy. The support characters too are a colourful lot and the dialogue is enjoyable too. Basically, like with the story, you can see the developers have made a genuine effort which as I said before is a rare thing and I applaud them for it. The soundtrack is also brilliant, and the entire thing just happens to be sitting in my music collection as I type this. All in all, I'd give this game 88 out of 100. It's a very solid game that any adventure game fan would enjoy. In fact, I'd recommend it to anyone looking for something unique in the way of gaming. At $9.99, it's well worth the price, even if you finish it in just one weekend like me. Granted, it may not appeal to the average fan of Halo or anyone who likes things that feature "space marines" (I feel dirty from typing that) teabagging corpses, but if you're after an fun little adventure with a unique story and characters, I'd say it's $9.99 well spent.