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| .............CONTENT
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When Jade's not tending to the lighthouse, she also moonlights as a freelance photographer. Relatively soon into the game, Jade allies herself with a group called IRIS, an underground news source keen on exposing the link between the Alpha Section and the DomZ attacks. With IRIS at her side, the rest of the game focuses on Jade gathering the resources to infiltrate Alpha bases, infiltrating said bases, and using her trusty camera to collect the evidence she needs to expose the truth beyond the planet conflict. Luckily, Jade's forays into the enemy strongholds are rarely solo affairs. Beyond Good & Evil features many Ico-esque challenges, or puzzles that require two people to successfully complete. There is exactly one contextual button to control Jade's team, and the game always gets the context right. Not once did the game fail to respond or misinterpret what I wanted my companion to do, nor did the AI have any trouble with path finding through Beyond Good & Evil's tricky, winding, multi-tiered dungeons - making the AI controlled assistant an actual blessing. Even in combat, having a friend around helps Jade out, while never breaking down into an escort mission. Jade's buddies can defend themselves pretty well, although it's never a good idea to let them fend for themselves. Jade can even request combat assistance from her friends, usually in the form of a seismic attack that knocks the opponents vulnerable for a short amount of time. The majority of Beyond Good & Evil's gameplay is Jade with her trusty camera, sneaking through dungeons, finding evidence of baddies and their bad guy activities, and fighting the occasional monster, alpha, or boss. To impede her progress, Jade must figure out the standard box/switch puzzles all gamers are accustomed to in addition to some stealth-based puzzles and some combat all thrown in for good measure. The puzzles are pretty much the standard fare, with boxes to push, switches to pull, and platforms to jump off of. All in all, the puzzle elements are well-designed and challenging, if not innovative. But they do tend towards the repetitive, and by the end of the game, players will be wishing for a little more variety. Stealth in Beyond Good & Evil is also a very important game mechanic. By pulling and holding down the L trigger, Jade goes into her stealth mode, allowing her to slink around undetected. Most baddies will see Jade and ring an alarm if she either: a) runs around and makes noise or b) runs into the baddies' line of sight. If Jade avoids doing these two things, she'll succeed. If not, the enemies come running with grenades, laser guns, giant hammers, shields, and pretty much anything else they need to squash Jade down into a finely ground, edible human paste. To add a little dimension to the familiar stealth mechanics, Jade can also debilitate a guard by shooting the oxygen tank on their backs. However, guards can repair each other pretty quickly so this is only a good idea if there is only a single guard between Jade and her objective. Combat makes up the remainder of Jade's duties, but with the way the girl fights, it's odd that she ever had time to learn the intricacies of photography what with the mandatory 20 hour training sessions she had to have put in to be this good. The short way of saying it: she's awesome. All combat is controlled with one button. With this one button, Jade can setup combos, perform her super move (charged by holding the attack button down), and gracefully attack all surrounding enemies by moving the analog stick in the proper direction. The fighting system is simple and beautiful, adding nothing beyond what is needed while still being complex enough to allow for some challenge. With a partner at her side to bash opponents up in the air so that Jade may alley-oop them, Jade becomes even more devastating as she can then (in slow motion) whack enemies into each other, causing chain-reaction damage. The combat system is simple and yet elegant, making all other combat systems seem complicated and bothersome; Beyond Good & Evil just got it right. And
as if multi-faceted dungeon crawling wasn't enough, Jade also has the opportunity
to explore the world of Hillys in between missions via her trusty hovercraft.
Jade travels from location to location via a kind of world map where the locations
are spread out over an explorable world. Jade's hovercraft can, at first, only
boost and shoot. But over time as Jade upgrades the craft, it gains the abilities
to jump, lock on to enemies, and even travel to space. However, upgrading the
craft requires pearls - currency of the black market. Jade can acquire pearls
in any number of ways, whether it's defeating bosses, buying from back-alley merchants
using currency called materia, or just finding them lying around. The game uses
this pearl/ship-upgrading to keep Jade out of areas where she's not supposed to
be (the ol' Metroid, Castlevania mechanism). To collect money to
buy these pearls and other power-ups, Jade is employed part time by the Hillys
Science Foundation who seeks to categorize all life on Hillys. So Jade, photographer
that she is, is given the task of taking a picture of each specie on the planet.
Depending on the rarity of the subject, Jade receives her payment: materia.
Graphics: 9.5/10 Sound:
9/10 Control:
9/10 Overall:
9/10 [ top ] | |||
Not
too many gamers are familiar with the name Michael Ancel. Despite being lauded
as a game design prodigy and releasing several gorgeous and brilliant games, he
still doesn't receive the same recognition as gaming's A-list celebrities. Well
for those who aren't familiar, Frenchman Ancel's claim to fame is developing the
wonderful Rayman series - a series that does well in the states, but not
very well. With Ancel's latest release, Beyond Good & Evil, he and
his team once again pull out all the stops and present to us another title full
of spectacular, innovative gameplay; gorgeous, heavily stylized graphics; and
a compelling story brought to life through great characters, a sense of timing,
and a level of immersion rare in today's games.
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