Porridge said:

I wanna get the game. For some reason I think I want the GC version. But if it plays better on a different system, please tell me. Thank you

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Great Rumbler said:

I played the PS2 version originally and I came across a glitch that caused my partner to dissapear and made it impossible to progress any farther.

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Great Rumbler said:

I played the PS2 version originally and I came across a glitch that caused my partner to dissapear and made it impossible to progress any farther.

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A Black Falcon said:

Not the PC version, it's horrible. Between the total lack of gamepad support -- obviously a serious problem for a game designed to be played on gamepads -- and some resulting control issues that it caused (or maybe they are just other bugs? Either wa, there are some areas that are very hard to get through because of the digital-only movement controls... to this day I never managed to get around this one specific corner in the pit under the police base or whatever in the main city...) and the load times, poor framerate (why is a game that graphically doesn't look very different from Rayman 3 (PC version) running at half the framerate? That game runs fine on my PC... why can't BG&E? Oh right, it was a terrible port. Rayman 3 for PC has full dual-analog gamepad support, needed for the game... BG&E has an equally large need for such a control scheme, but it's keyboard/mouse only. Thanks.) , and multi-CD installs (3 CDs for a game that should be on DVD? Annoying, even if you don't have to switch them because of the 2GB install...), even though I only paid $20 for the PC version, I wish I hadn't... the game is overrated in many ways, but my opinion of it sure wasn't helped by the bad porting job...

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castle007 said:

Same here.

Spoiler

There is a part in the sewers when you don't follow a certain path your partner will disappear. I had to load the game again.

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DarknessTear said:

Is the XBox version at least good? Nobody has said Xbox.

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Jeff-DSA said:

You are terribly wrong about that one, junior.

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Mega Man's Electric Sheep said:

"I played the PS2 version originally and I came across a glitch that caused my partner to dissapear and made it impossible to progress any farther."

Yeah, that's in the cube version as well.

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You are terribly wrong about that one, junior.

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Does the story have anything to do at all with Nietzsche's philosophy?

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A Black Falcon said:

I'd post my comments about this game, but they're quite long... maybe I should anyway, they are things worth saying.



No. As usual it's just using the name to make the game sound like it actually has some plot depth, which it doesn't...

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A Black Falcon said:

I'd post my comments about this game, but they're quite long... maybe I should anyway, they are things worth saying.

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Dunpeal said:

Xbox, doesn't it have 480p? The gamecube version doesn't i think.

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Dunpeal said:

Xbox, doesn't it have 480p? The gamecube version doesn't i think.

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bard said:

GC simply because the controller is better. It's also the most difficult one to find.

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DarknessTear said:

Is the XBox version at least good? Nobody has said Xbox.

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Fuzzy said:

It was difficult for me to find it less than three months after it was released. After that I never saw a new copy of the GCN version in a store again.

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-Story -- simplistic, predictable, juvenile. They went a little bit of the way towards creating an interesting world, but beat you over the head with the message (yes, I get it, the government uses propaganda to control its people! ... if propaganda was really like that, it'd never be believed... it's a simple cartoon charicature of a government propaganda campaign...) and really put very little depth into the thing... once in a while the game tries to be more, and have true depth and an interesting, unique plot, but then it decends back into its normal simple conventions, and you realize that the potential the game has is not even close to being realized. The characters lack depth and are not very interesting, beyond the basic action/adventure kind of way (the praise this game gets leads you to believe that it is something more than just a typical action/adventure/RPG, but it really isn't, sadly...)... character development? Um, not much. Oh yes, and the Plot... Very simplistic and full of massive plot holes created by its very simplicity.

Really, it could have been great... with an interesting sci-fi story about aliens controlling a government and forcing policies bad for them on them by creating an other 'evil alien threat' that could have been done well... but the way it is done here, it simply does not achieve that. It needs less cartoony touches and more believable, complex plot... well, either that or it needs to drop all pretentions of depth and admit that it is the simple game that it is... one or the other. Being most of the way towards one end while making vague attempts at times to be on the other side does not work. (Such as the game's name... using the name of a Nietzsche book for a work so simplistic and utterly unrelated to anything he ever thought of is incredibly insulting to his work...)

-To be specific about my plot criticism. The simplicity of the scenario creates an impossible situation that I cannot ignore. One frequently-mentioned "good thing" about this game is the fact that as you progress in your campaign for the truth, people start to notice and protest... but... 1) That rebel cell base sure isn't hidden all that obtusely... 2) They have in it a line with direct contact to the planetary GOVERNOR'S office??? Huh??? This makes no sense... wouldn't the aliens have such options as as 'wiretapping' or 'monitoring what the puppet government is doing'? 3) If the bad guys were a real government that were as controlling as the game says they are, they would not allow protests like you see in the game to happen. The protestors would simply be squished as soon as they appeared. The way the game does it greatly hurts the game's realism and believability. Yes, I know that simple can be good, and complex might hurt the game's humor (which is mostly pretty good), but I'm sure they could make it work as a much better-realized game that has a much more cohesive, believable world than this one does... it really hurt the believability for me, even when I did know I should ignore it because the game is not trying to be complex.

-Gameplay -- this is not "stealth". Stealth is where you avoid things, or get punished. This is puzzle-rooms. Look at room. Solve puzzle in room. Go to next room. Solve puzzle in room. Yes, often that puzzle involves keeping away from enemies, but "stealth" it is not in anyone's wildest dreams... no game where all you have to do to escape from the guards is run back into the last hallway (in the linearly-laid-out dungeon), hide in the conveniently located dead-end drainage pipe in that hall between rooms, wait for the enemy to shoot at the wall for a few seconds, and try again, has "stealth". Just like with the story, the simplicity of this system makes it much less interesting than such things are in better games. Play Thief. Or even Lost Vikings, in the 'puzzle/adventure' category (if you ditch the ridiculous 'stealth' label)... now that was a great game...

-Combat. Very simple button-mashing.. hit attack. Do combo. Repeat. Sure, it's somewhat fun, and certainly vastly more entertaining than the tedium of the combat in Star Fox Adventures (that game makes BG&E look amazingly good...), but still, it's very simple. Not much here.

-Difficulty. The game is extremely lenient. Often, the best way to beat challenging enemies is to die, because you will start again in the same room (reset, but that's no penalty)... with MORE HEALTH THAN YOU STARTED WITH. Yeah, "difficult" this game is not. The health dispenser things are worthless since the best way to heal yourself is just to die...

-Money... I found myself without enough money (and with lots available to buy) a lot of the time. Maybe I just needed to return to old areas to farm monsters more often, but it was often annoying.

-Hype! Really, the massive hype for this game made me think that it'd be a great game, but I was extremely dissapointed... between the simple gameplay, simplistic story, basic message, lacking difficulty, etc. means that it just doesn't live up to it. This is the biggest problem with the game, really. If I'd gone in expecting a fun, but flawed, little game, perhaps I'd have enjoyed it, but after it'd been so massively hyped by so many people, finding it to be what it was was very dissapointing, even if it is overall a pretty good game...


Now... before it looks like I hate this game, I don't hate it. It's a decent game... B-range, I'd say. It has plenty of good things going for it, like a great sense of style and very nice graphical design. The graphics are great, and the artwork even better... The combat is a bit more fun than in some other games of this type (though that's not saying a whole lot). The story and characters are decent too, once you accept the game as the game it is and not the game that most people seem to claim it to be. Going around in the overworld with the hovercraft is fun, when the framerate isn't in single digits. The dungeons are well designed and almost always fun. The game has some clever puzzles, definitely. I'd like to finish it someday... oh yes, and really, the dungeons are the best part of the game -- most of the bad of the game goes away (all that is left is the pitifully simple difficulty level, really), and much of the good stands out... but on the whole? Beyond Good and Evil is a deeply flawed game. I do hope that a sequel is made, however. There are some good ideas here, and Michel Ancel can be amazingly good (Rayman 2 is astoundingly brilliant and is still one of the greatest 3d platformers ever made...) when he tries. This was clearly an attempt at a deep original property, and hopefully if they make another one they can realize it as such...

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The real problem with this game probably was that it claimed to be trying to do more and be truly different from what had come before... and then it got all this hype that from people saying that it had succeeded... but, sadly, it just hadn't done that. Still, the basic idea was a good one. Like with most every aspect of the game, everything could have been done better than it was... it didn't really end up playing, or seeming, much different than what had come before. t is true though that the 'female journalist' thing was a bit different, and they did succeed at the 'female main character, but not a Lara Croft-style 'exists just for the sexuality' kind of character... and the pictures thing worked, as a collection element. It was certainly more fun than the frusterating task of collecting enough money to get all those stupid pearls with...

Really, probably a big part of my dissapointment was expectations. I'd read about the game, and thought it sounded amazing (a Zelda-ish game from the guy behind Rayman 2? I want that!)... a somewhat original game concept (female/journalist/etc), what seemed like the potential for some good storytelling, great artwork and art design (of course), etc... and then the reviews... and then it came out, and later I got it (for $20, so it wasn't too much, and not right at launch, but that doesn't really matter, what determines if a game was worth getting is how fun it is and how much you like it...)... and it just didn't live up to that. 'Accept that it's childish'? But that's the thing, IT doesn't completely accept that... it partially does, but it partially does not... it should have stuck to one or the other. Don't hint at a much more complex, deep storyline if you aren't actually following that plot... story is good, but not as much so when it's as simple and overdone as this. Really, though they don't necessarially have to make the story deep and complex, though I'd love to see that... they could just have it be at the level it is, but implemented better. Make the story more interesting and less predictable (as it is, there is nothing that you don't see coming ten steps ahead...). Make the conspiracy a bit more subtle. Have some less linear dungeons... and make it slightly harder, and make it a bit harder to escape the guards... in general, take what they had, but improve it. That's what I'd hope for from a sequel...

Part of this just seems to be opinion, though, like the 'how much do you like the characters' thing... how I just could not get past the hurdles and say 'it's great anyway' like I can with some games... there were too many of them, and they were too serious. But though I had issues with it, I kept going because I was having fun... money problems excepted... until I ran into that can't-get-past-it bug in that level that kept me from progressing, and I quit. Since I doubt that trying again would magically get me past the point, I'm not sure if going back would be worth it... especially given how much money I need, and how getting it isn't that fun... I probably will someday, but not that soon I expect. I would if I knew that the game would actually work... but the controls of this PC version are just so awful... I have a dual analog joystick! LET ME USE IT! Lazy, lazy port.

Oh yeah, I also think they maybe should have kept Jade's original design... they changed her to look a bit older and more experienced... (ignoring the obvious improvement of 'the final version used more polys') -- see IGN's early screenshots for Jade's original design.

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