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Beyond Good & Evil review

Game: Beyond Good & Evil
Platform: PlayStation 2
Genre: Adventure
Developer: Ubisoft

Reader review by wolfqueen001

June 30, 2010

I wouldn’t call Beyond Good & Evil a conventional sort of game. Sure, it may combine traditional aspects of adventure titles that may not ease skeptics’ cynicism, but it also adds elements that make it unique and memorable. After all, it’s the only game I know of in which you must use photography to instigate political revolution.

The story begins with Jade, a young compassionate woman, living out her seemingly peaceful existence taking care of orphans in the planet’s main lighthouse. That peace is quickly interrupted when an ill-timed power failure negates the facility’s shields, making it vulnerable to attack. Soon after, the sky turns green and strange meteorites crash into the ground. From their slimy depths spew forth the DomZ, an invasive alien force that has been kidnapping Hillys’s population for as long as its citizens can remember.

Thus Jade is forced to fend off waves of ugly monsters, freeing the captive children within their sarcophagus-shaped bodies, until the mastermind behind this small invasion appears. A floating eyeball surrounded by damaging tentacles rises from the ground to finish the job its minions started. Alone, Jade can’t handle the beast, but once her hog-faced “uncle” Pey’j enters the fray and tosses her the powerful Daï-Jo staff, the two use teamwork to overcome an otherwise unstoppable enemy. Pey’j distracts the beast and its minions while Jade launches a twirling special attack that temporarily frees the eyeball from its protective shell, allowing her a few precious seconds to land enough hits to send the creature back to wherever it came from.

And so, within the first ten minutes of play, you’re introduced to one of the most critical aspects of the game: controlling your partner. Pey’j, and, later, the armor-clad Double H, will aid Jade in more ways than just combat. He’ll help her push objects too heavy to move alone, open gated entrances with the use of a wrench, and temporarily immobilize enemies and wildlife so Jade can knock them into each other for easy kills, or into objects to create pathways into new areas. Such cooperative capability doesn’t come without a price, however. Like Jade, her partner also has a set amount of health, which, if not watched carefully or inflated with health-increasing items, can quickly disappear, resulting in death and a restart at the nearest checkpoint.

Shortly after the opening sequence, you’re introduced to the most important feature: the camera. In order to restart the lighthouse generator, Jade is granted a contract with the Hillian science center, which offers to pay her for photos of every species on the planet, each with its own realistic taxonomy. Her first picture, an insect that looks remarkably like a ladybug, is fairly easy to capture, but there are many animals to photograph, including the numerous human-animal hybrids that wander Hillys’s pedestrian district. Not all of them will be as simple as pointing the camera and shooting, however, especially since bad framing often results in failure. Some creatures move too quickly to capture easily while others require a trick to lure them out of hiding. Perhaps the hardest thing for me to photograph was this creature that appeared to consist entirely of bubbles. It would hide behind boxes and walls where only a thin trail of its existence could be seen. In order to lure it out of hiding, you had to strike it with a well-placed gyro disc, where it would scamper to a new hiding place. It was fast, and if you weren’t just as quick, you’d lose your shot in a matter of seconds.

If you’re like me, you’ll even go to such lengths to be as artistic as possible, trying to capture each creature in its best light and prettiest framing. You can’t actually miss a beast – even if you slay the only manifestation of a certain DomZ boss, its corpse can be photographed wherever it may fall. But even so, the most daring will try for action shots, snapping the picture as the thing you’re looking at actively attacks you. I photographed Crochax in this way. The large mosquito-like insect has an attack in which it latches onto your (or your partner’s) face and sucks your life away until someone swats it away or it gets bored. Before it launches this attack, its mouth opens wide and glows temporarily. I took the picture right at that moment.

As much as I enjoyed discovering Hillys’s unique wildlife, the real purpose of the camera is story-driven, and it’s the story that truly gives the game its character. With her trusty camera, Jade must unravel the truth behind the invasion. Her evidence, much of it horrifying, easily reaches the masses, and their protesting increases with each new article she publishes. Her investigations into tightly guarded military compounds reveal the reality behind the propaganda war between the mysterious Alpha Sections and the so-called IRIS rebels.

Of course, in order to gather that essential evidence, Jade needs access to these top-secret facilities. Fortunately, her main form of transport has everything she’ll ever need. But not at first. The hovercraft Pey’j had steadily been working on starts off in sorry shape. The first task in repairing it involves heading over to the rhinos operating their black market auto shop, taking illegal pearls in exchange for upgrades. There you buy a more suitable engine. The added speed allows for quick navigation through the planet’s waterways, handy for dodging torpedoes and chasing after monstrous sea serpents. Other upgrades include a neutralizing cannon that allows the craft to lock-on to enemy targets, and a jump kit for leaping over laser mines.

Once you penetrate a compound’s outer defenses, stealth becomes critical. Heavily armored military personnel patrol corridors in a set pattern. Avoiding detection is key because unlike stealth sections in other games, these enemies can’t be killed through simple combat. These foes have only one weakness, the breathing tanks strapped to their backs, making direct confrontation almost impossible. Adding to the danger, many protected rooms have turrets that instantly kill you if you’re spotted. Even fleeing the room to deactivate the alarm can be risky as the soldiers will send a zone-clearing droid into the corridor they think you’re hiding in. That, too, will kill you instantly if you’re trapped within range of its laser.

If the prospect of sneaking through monochrome corridors like some sort of female Solid Snake doesn’t really appeal to you, I would like to point out that, all things considered, this is actually a rather small part of the game, even if it’s ultimately what drives the story forward. The real love for this game comes from its outstanding openness, exploration and all the little side projects you can complete. As with photographing every animal, a task I enjoyed more than any other, there are plenty of things to do. And, if you’re as captivated by the world’s sheer beauty as I was, you won’t consider it filler. To collect all the pearls, you’ll have to win hovercraft races, chase looters through booby-trapped caverns, beat random NPCs at mini games, and even explore the inside of a volcano.

Beyond Good & Evil has something to offer for everyone. It’d be a shame to miss it.

Rating: 9/10

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