Retrospective: Beyond Good & Evil Comments by John Walker

Gawd. Barely a week goes past without someone mentiong this very average game. Yes, I did play it. Meh.

See also http://www.brainygamer.com/the_brainy_ga...

Excellent retrospective that should give people who haven't played this before a good idea of what so many of us appreciated in the game years ago.

I still have my Gamecube version but if the sequel comes to PC then I'm almost certainly going to buy it. Hopefully they can get the original voice actors back.

My favourite bit in Beyond Good & Evil:

When you're running away from some guy shooting at you, into the camera, across some rooftops, and then suddenly the game starts slowing down, gently and seamlessly takes control away from you, and turns into a cutscene where Jade leaps into the air and is caught by Double H. Perfectly done.

I loved the mechanics of it but it didnt grasp me. Shame.

However that was 4 years ago and people change so may give it another go.

Loving the retrospective stuff also.

You missed a 10/10 at the end!!!

Magic game. I'm so glad I got a BC PS3 so I can play it whenever I like.

Still a bit of placeholder left in one of the captions, the one naming all the allies.

Absolutely mesmerising game. Quite definitely one of my favourite action adventure games of all time. The story and cutscenes, particularly in the second half, are very well-executed, they really pull at your emotions.

On that note, I almost cried when I saw a bunch of copies of the PC version hidden behind some mediocre games at a store a few years ago. BG&E was priced at 1 Euro, and still nobody was buying it. I stealthily moved a few copies to the front of the shelf and hoped that I would make some person's day if they decided to pick it up.

One of the best things about this game is how well it's aged, or rather not aged. Many of its features and approaches were ahead of its time.

I didnt think it was that great. Plus the final boss where the controls switch round. I couldnt finish it and put the pad down.

great story and characters and you can't not laugh at the pig!! i think this game was just way ahead of itself, but its got cult status now, hopefully the sequel won't ruin it.

Was there any praise for BG&E's amazing music in this article? I don't remember. But then there are too many great things about this game to mention.

It's only a fiver on Steam. Maybe it's worth a try...

What struck me most, returning to this after many years, was quite how unlike anything else the game was. There are comparisons to be drawn, certainly. The gorgeous chunky cartoon world (still adorable after over five years, thanks in part to smart design in the first place, and partly due to the PC version happily scaling to enormous resolutions) and third-person action are in some ways traditional, recalling Ratchet & Clank. That mixture of relaxed exploration punctuated by frantic action. However, this is a whole other kind of relaxed.

Something keeps telling me you haven't played many console games. Zelda, anyone?

Quite how a five year old game can run at 1680x1050 I'm not sure, but it certainly does.

PC game running at such resolution? Incredible. No, wait, it used to happen even in XX century, with Quake 2 engine (Heretic II, Kingpin).

CARLSON AND PETERS!!

One of my favourite games EVER.

Ive never played this. :(
I would play it right now except my ps3 doesn't have BC! Stupid Sony!

Missed this first time round - definitely worth a try at EUR5 on steam!

Never played it, think i will stick with Xcom or ceasar 3 for old time game playing!

Great article John one of my favorite games ever, and as morriss said, the only thing it's missing at the end is a 10/10.
Would love to see a sequel.

Played this on PS2 when originally released. That was a decent Christmas for Ubisfot with this, Sands of Time. A truly awesome experience. I bought the PC version when the sequel was announced and replayed it, falling for it all over again. Great to see a game that lives up to the nostaglic spark you feel when remembering it. The sequel, along with Team Ico's next gen effort, will probably turn out to be a genuinely beautiful; experience. And that sequel teaser is awesome...must have watched that about a millino times already. BG&E 2 cannot come soon enough.....great retrospective. :)

Hmm a few years since i played this, partly do to UBISOFTS lack of gamepad support in the PC version.
However it was truly great experience i assume its just as fun to play now as back there. as there really hadn't been anything quite like it. But ubisoft please add gamepad support its fucking killing me.

Soundtrack is one of the few really great soundtracks the west have delivered to the game industry.

Fond memories.

I love love love love love BG&E :D

That and Psychonauts are the two most overlooked games in the history of gaming.

7/10

The factory style bit was a pretty crap, miserable, dingy level. I really don't understand the hype but I suppose I did complete it which is something.

Shame it's not backwards compatible on the 360, otherwise I'd give it a spin for old times' sake.

I never got on with this although I didn't play it for that long. It's probably something I should definitely give another go.

Hmm a few years since i played this, partly do to UBISOFTS lack of gamepad support in the PC version.

That was one thing that bugged me for a while. It took me a little while to get used to the mouse and keyboard controls. I'm not a natural PC gamer, I just got it on PC because I didn't have a PS2, and it was cheaper than the Cube.
Saying that, I've got a French Cube copy of the game I bought on holiday, expecting an English language option >_<

It is a lovely game though. I really should finish it...

I played the game when it came out and loved it and recently have started it again with the company of my 7 year old neice who simply adores it! Can't wait for the sequal!

Fantastic

Bah, all of you declaring BG&E to be "average" should be banned from ever playing games again, you clearly don't know what you're talking about. One of the finest games of all time.

What's more this beautiful game (my all time favourite outside the adventure genre) hasn't aged a day, proving just how timeless good design, quality storytelling and ingenious art direction are. Thanks for making me reinstall the thing EG!

Great game. Absolutely loved it.

I loved everything about this game, apart from the sodding vehicular racing sections, they just sucked all the joy that built up in the rest of the game away from me. Particularly a part where you were racing across a collapsing road section where loads of jumps meant instant death if you failed. I just couldn't understand why anyone would think those parts were fun compared to the joyous platform sections.

I didn't mind the vehicular hub world part though.

"Best game of the year it came out" I remember myself thinking. Back then, not many did agree.

Its funny what time does with games like ICO, BG&E, Psychonauts. You think you might be crazy. Everyone else jerking off to their halos and gran turismos (both wonderful games/series btw). But time proves you just had a bit of luck, picking up a game noone else saw. Also, reading gaming mags during your childhood helped finding those gems.

I'd been tempted to get this from Steam a couple of days ago, now I'm convinced!

One of the best games ever created with characters that almost match up to The Longest Journey in quality. A good retrospective, sums it up well.

Chtulie: It's Secundo.

it was definately the best game of the last generation for me. How I just wish it was Backwards compatible.

I kinda feel like playing JSRF now.

Never played this either, have bought it now thanks to this though! Have been meaning to play it for years.

Beyond Good & Evil is shit.

It may not have sold much at first, but I can only imagine it had (has!) a hell of a long tail...

@Yossarian: The music was spectacular indeed. Ubisoft released the soundtrack as a download at some point, you can get it here: http://www.myspace.com/HyllianMusic

Ah, yes, Beyond Good & Evil.

In light of the all-around fantastic reviews and the fact the demo was superb. I caved in and bought the game for the PC. A strong female lead? Soothing introduction? Great artstyle? It looked tremendously promising, even though doubts tingled at the back of my mind that the game seemed just a little too consolised, just a little too kids-oriented...

Unfortunately it all goes downhill after the beginning. The action is bland and generic and, despite what the article's author says, has such an enormous difficulty curve that I never did complete the game entirely.

But worst of all, the plot - in spite of the title - is atrocious and the most banal imaginable. The cheesy stormtroopers, who make no show of hiding the fact they're eeeeebil from the very beginning, the ragtag rebels, the square-jawed HH... I really don't remember a game that made me cringe so much. For a game that's called Beyond Good & Evil, it certainly does a fantastic job of keeping to the old tropes of black-and-white.

Still, there's hope that the sequel will learn from past mistakes - keeping the characters and artstyle, the things that really shone in the original, and planting them into more original gameplay, since this series deserves so much more than just being a generic platformer. And dare I hope for a decent story? Yes, yes I dare.

I picked this up on pc a few years back for a fiver, played it for a few hours then my pc bit the dust!!
Really should start playing it again, i thoroughly enjoyed what i got to see of it.
Looks like im hunting around in the loft this afternoon.

|It's an alright game. But about a 3rd the length it should have been.

it's definetly not worthy of the praise heaped upon it though.

HappyCarrot - you can always snap the seal later, after certain events : )

Yes, I did criminally under-mention the score, beyond a throwaway comment in the fourth-from-last paragraph. I'd already gotten over 1500 words, and had to stop somewhere. But it deserves enormous praise.

Thanks for pointing out mistakes - I've asked Tom to fix them.

This game was an absolute masterpiece, it had such a strong plot and set of characters. The different gameplay styles (platform, racing, stealth) were also seamlessly integrated into the story, particularly the race you had to deliberately run off-course from in order to gain access to a hidden facility . The art design, locations and music never descended to desert/lava/ice world cliches. It was a bit short though and I suspect that it was disappointing for people who bought it expecting a straight-laced sci-fi adventure or some kind of platform beat-em up.

Shamethe PC version is a bitch on Vista, I can get it running at around 25fps, with all the detail turned to lowest, hardware acceleration off, and the res to 640*480, on a laptop, I run left 4 dead on at medium settings at 1280*800, still its worth it.

For £5 this is probably the best value for money on Steam, even beating the orange box

@lemming81

Your obviously a troll but still - FUCK OFF

SixFoot - have you tried turning anti-aliasing off? That seems to fix it for most people.

If not, check out the Steam Forum page on the game - there's a lot of tips for getting it running.

I played this game on the Gamecube many years ago and loved every minute of it. Saying that, I would hate to return to it now for fear of ruining those great memories.

Yes, the game is short and yes, it never really challenges you to any great extent, but the story is worth playing through the game for. Perhaps a little hackneyed when you think about it, but never dull.

I am looking forward to the eventual sequel as the first game left you on a massive cliffhanger :)