Beyond Good and Evil...in many ways, Beyond Comparison...
User Rating: 9 | Beyond Good & Evil PS2
If you’re looking for a fast paced thrill ride with tons of chaotic action and perfectly tight controls…then this isn’t the game for you. On the other hand, if you’re looking to immerse yourself within a richly unique world that has a lot of decent puzzles and engaging stealth missions, then Beyond Good and Evil should make you very happy. I like this game a lot. My recent approach to videogames has been to amass a respectable, yet varied collection in order to dabble. When I’m in the mood for some cartoon violence I can pop in Ratchet and Clank UYA, or if a decent first person shooter is what I crave, I’ve got Project: Snowblind at hand. Or when I feel like jumping into a dark and desolate world in order to shoot the heads off some not-zombies, I can play a bit of Resident Evil 4. This is a strategy that has served me quite well. However, once I started playing Beyond Good and Evil I felt utterly compelled to abandon this approach. It forced me to play it and only it and forget the other games for a while. This, in my opinion, is very high praise. I sometimes have the attention span of a three year old hopped up on Sugar Smacks. I tend to get bored with the same thing over and over. Yet, the overall skilled execution of this game was so engaging that it compelled me to play it through without ever removing its disc from my PS2’s disc tray. Why this is…Though the visual quality isn’t all that revolutionary, technically speaking, by the high standards with which many games have set the bar lately, the fresh aesthetics are unique and very enjoyable to observe. The gameplay mechanics, again, aren’t revolutionary; however, the things you’ll do in this game are perfectly well-rounded and quite enjoyable to play through. The sound is top notch. The musical portion of the soundtrack is varied, ranging from subdued ambient melodies to reggae, salsa and Euro-techno (Propaganda!...no, not the band…play the game and you’ll understand) that lends a very multicultural vibe to the whole thing. The voice acting is even better. It’s never bad and in many cases it’s just about the best I’ve ever heard in a videogame, which is important since this is a very story driven game. In fact, the lead character, Jade, is performed by a woman whose voice is so perfectly suited to her character’s face and expressions that it really helped me lose myself into the experience. Also, many times the characters in the game will converse with one another while you’re playing, much like Prince of Persia. I found this to be a very nice touch since you won’t have to stop and watch every time something needs to be said. Moreover, it comes in handy from time to time when a certain area should be explored and your companion runs off on his own, saying something like, “Hey, Jade. Come check this out.” This overall approach helped make the game less of a game and more like how the “real world” functions. Another reason I was hopelessly driven to play this game was its pace. It’s not very slow, but it’s also not exactly fast. If it were a Cohen Brothers movie it definitely wouldn’t be Raising Arizona, then again it’s not Blood Simple either. It’s more The Big Labowski or The Hudsucker Proxy. Now, with this exceedingly esoteric comparison out of the way, I’ll just say that it has a decidedly mid-range pace that never gets boring, yet isn’t so zippy-fast that it’s easy to forget as you plow through. It’s just right. And, as a story driven game, its tale unfolds in such a methodical manner that I was compelled to find out what happened even into the late hours of the night after I should have turned it off and gone to sleep. I enjoyed it that much. Unfortunately, however, the game is not perfect. The controls are bit sluggish. Jade didn’t exactly do the things I wanted her to do with precise punctuality. Thankfully, it was never so sluggish that it got in the way of gameplay (I never died as a result of it), however it was noticeable. Another minor complaint I have is that there is no real player manipulation in terms of platforming. Admittedly, this isn’t a Mario game and therefore I wasn’t expecting to bounce from wall to wall. However, there’s no jumping ability and in the end when jumping/climbing/etc. are required, all you have to do is point her in the appropriate direction and the game will do all the work for you or provide a context-sensitive option to get the job done. For some people this will come as a blessing. If you’re not into all the hopping around some games force you to do, then you’ll find a sense of relief in ignoring the mastery of your hand-eye reflexes in order to focus more on the missions at hand. Yet, for someone like myself whose been “virtually” jumping through games for decades, it was somewhat missed. And one last, teeny-tiny complaint I had was that, though the game’s dialogue is almost entirely spoken, there were added options of communication that were text only. In other words, once the main cutscenes (and character dialogue as you play) are completed, you’re given the opportunity to ask a few more questions and in each instance these are never voiced by the actors. It wasn’t a glaring flaw but the silence was unfortunately noticeable. But don’t fret over it too much – it’s a minor flaw at worst. And yet, when all is said and done, these negligible complaints are pittance compared to the overall sheer joy this game provided me. Be forewarned, though…many of the missions are extremely stealth-based. If you only get a kick out of assaulting your enemies head on, then you may not enjoy the tasks you’re assigned. You’ll have to do a fair amount of sneaking around and taking pictures, but for me this was a strong point since this is where most of the puzzle solving came into play. In some areas it took me a few tries to figure out just what I was supposed to do, but once I did it wasn’t difficult to master. And in the category of "neither complaint nor standout strength" is the game’s combat system. It’s pretty basic. In fact, most times it amounts to button mashing or simple first person stagnant shooting. This could be construed as a flaw, however in the midst of most fights, the developers have added a theatrical “slowdown” effect that is somewhat Matrixy as well as somersaults and such that prevent things from becoming too stagnant. And besides, the combat portions don’t happen quite enough for the redundancy to become all that noticeable. In the end you’re left with simple controls that, in and of themselves, may be perceived by some as only somewhat rewarding yet, coupled with the variety of gameplay as a whole, fit in nicely with the overall experience. It should be pointed out, if you don’t already know, that this game was directed by Michel Ancel who was the mastermind behind Rayman. If you’ve ever played any of the Rayman games before then you’ll instantly recognize Mr. Ancel’s unique visual style, though in this game it’s grounded in a more "real world" framework than the quirkiness of Rayman’s world was. But that’s just fine. This game never sets out to be a clone of his other work at all. It’s a unique experience from start to finish. Therefore, if you think the idea of photographing local fauna and covert operations of a suspicious government in order to collect lot’s of money and uncover a conspiracy that has set a planet into chaotic war sounds appealing to you…and if you don’t mind compromising sophisticated control for a very pleasurable, stealth-oriented experience filled to the brim with uniquely crafted visual images, a compelling storyline and superb voice work – not to mention a wonderfully balanced variety of options in terms of gameplay – then I can not recommend Beyond Good and Evil highly enough. In my opinion, this is one of the most underrated games to come out in years – not critically underrated, mind you – but underrated by the masses. The word about this game should be farther reaching than it is. It truly deserves it. And like sooo many older, yet still great games nowadays…it’s only 20 bucks! 
