Beyond Good and Evil HD - Review

Beyond Good and Evil was a title released in 2003 and failed to capture an audience despite reviewers giving it fairly positive reviews.  I even remember walking into a Circuit City, seeing the game for the PS2 for $9.99, and still not giving it a chance.  Well, fast forward 8 years later, and I get a second chance to try out Beyond Good and Evil HD on the Xbox Live Marketplace for their House Party celebration.

Jade in all of her reporter glory

You play as Jade, a photographer who can't pay the electric bill. After finding out that she can take pictures to earn some money, she and her man-pig friend Pay'j set out to snap some shots of animals and get drawn into a rebellion, revealing a kidnapping plot that is a little out of this world.

I say that because you'll eventually end up in space

The first thing that I noticed when playing the game is that the control is just god awful for people who invert the Y-Axis.  If you want to invert it, you also have to invert the X-Axis, which as a strictly Y-Axis person, is just plain dumb.  I eventually got used to it, until I actually got a flying ship where you would push up and go up, contradictory to any flying ship I have played in since Top Gun on the NES. 

The story and world oozes 90's adventure game.  There's only enough in the world to make it feel like it could be populated, and whatever it is that you're looking for seems to always be right where you want to find it.  There's two primary ways to get around in the world, first, you pilot a hovercraft to sections in a small bay like area, and once you reach your destination, you dock and explore on foot.  Jade isn't very strong, but is small and can crouch and sneak around pretty easily. 

I never had a problem controlling Jade aside from the camera, she would always do what I wanted her to do outside of combat.  Once in combat, all bets are off.  Sometimes I can do back flips, and swing her staff weapon around with relative ease, sometimes she would dodge awkwardly and still get his by a nearby explosion.  Her special ability, a move that lets her twirl around in the air firing projectiles, takes too long to charge up and is forgotten through most of the game.  Combat overall feels weak without enough emphasis placed on it.

Typical fight that is in no way shape or form hard to win

The other side of the spectrum is stealth, which a much heavier emphasis is placed on.  Sneaking behind guards with no room for error becomes frustrating quickly.  It is worth noting, however, that no two of the sneaking areas felt the same, so there was always something new to try to figure out. 

Finally, somewhere in the middle, are various mini games that challenges that you can try to complete.  Not all of them are necessary, but you're going to need to do at least some in order to finish the game.  These include Hovercraft Racing, a version of Air Hockey, animal photography, and chasing down looters (also in hovercraft).  They were a fun side mission to complete, but would often take you out of the story for too long while you had to run around the world collecting items to upgrade your ship to get to the next area.

One final complaint, the last boss is pure combat and precise combat at that.  Nothing in the game prepares you enough for the choreography that you have to follow in order to beat the final boss, and players are left up to their own discoveries on how to do it.  Here's a hint, his attack pattern repeats because you screwed up, you have to get every hit on him without him hitting you to beat him.

In conclusion, it was a pretty alright game.  It was interesting enough to hold my attention and be added to my very exclusive 100% achievement complete list, but dull enough to make me wish I was playing Dragon Age 2.  I'm glad I picked it up, though, if only to see what everybody says was such a tragedy to never get the recognition it deserved.  Well, BG&E, I wouldn't have paid the $50 you originally retailed for, but I probably should have snagged you when you were in that bin at Circuit City.  Give it a try if you're looking for something to do over a weekend.  There's worse ways to spend your time.