Thursday 19 Apr 2007

From the mind of Michael Ancel, comes Beyond Good and Evil, a brilliant story of a planet in turmoil, where those who would seem to be protecting you are actually your enemy, and where your trusty digital camera is the ultimate weapon against the oppressors. That might be what the back of the game cover reads, or not. But in this case it would be accurate and not a complete fabrication. Beyond Good and Evil does have a very interesting plot, and is simply one of the most interesting and well rounded games I have seen. There have been hundreds of games where a camera is used as a peripheral item (from Gran Turismo to Zelda), but this is the only one I’ve played where the camera really is your weapon of choice and power. It does borrow a good many ideas of Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda series, and while it isn’t quite on a par with the best of that series, it does come awfully close, and is different enough to warrant your attention.

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The game starts off with a fantastic action sequence where your little lighthouse is being attacked by strange creatures. You are Jade, and your background is very sketchy – the only obvious facts are that you are the adopted mother of a group of orphan children who stay with you in your lighthouse and you have a friendly neighbourhood pig-human (a Sus Sapien according to the research lab you pay for your wildlife pics) for an uncle called Pey’j who is also your friend and protector. You are also a photographic journalist by trade, which is why you are asked to investigate certain strange happenings in the first place, so you start the game armed with a camera and a stick called a dai-jo staff to make it seem more impressive. We (for there were more than one of us playing and watching this beautiful game) found the mechanic of searching for and photographing various animals around the planet Hillys to be a most unique and interesting game play idea and would all look out for new species that might be crawling, flying or swimming around.

After fending off the attack on your lighthouse by the evil DOMZ, the first thing you need to do is to get Pey’j’s hovercraft going. Once you’re out on the bay, you can hover all over the place, but are cleverly limited by your hovercraft’s abilities. In order to upgrade the craft and thus access other areas you need to collect pearls through various means, such as taking photos, finding hidden caches or purchasing them with your hard-earned money. As you go about doing this, the plot unfolds in a fascinating manner, with all sorts of twists in the tale. You are called upon to conduct reconnaissance missions into the heart of “enemy” compounds in order to uncover the truth of what is happening on the planet, and just who these DOMZ are.

Expose the conspiracy. Capture the truth.

For the most part you are free to travel when and where you please (as long as you can get there with the equipment you have) and there are many rooms hidden away with a variety of treasures such as pearls and new forms of animal life for those who are adventurous enough to seek them out. Sometimes in order to reach an area of the map where you mission lies, you must collect these pearls in order to purchase an upgrade to your ship that gets you there, so exploration is both interesting and useful. Many of these rooms are found in the main town in the game, while others are hidden in coves in the harbour, or even down secret passages you can find during the races. The hovercraft races are just another example of the variety in the game as they are very well implemented and a lot of fun. When you feel ready to tackle the task you have been assigned you can enter the “dungeon” and continue the main plot line. These dungeons are inventive, with the main mechanic being puzzle solving rather than hand to hand combat. The end goal of most of them is to photograph a certain place and thus uncover the secret of what is really happening on planet Hillys.

There is very little in Beyond Good and Evil that is obscure or contrived – you always feel like you’re in the hands of a master designer. There are some puzzles that are reused within the game, but overall there is more inventiveness apparent here than in ten lesser games. If you follow the main plotline without veering off too much the game is possibly a tad short for those expecting Zelda-like proportions, but it felt like the right length to me at around 20 hours, and if you want to discover every pearl and photograph every species in the game you will be occupied for quite a while longer. I found the art in the game very beautiful; some of the translucent underground flowers and animals are quite magnificent, which makes them all that much rewarding to discover and photograph. The music is also wonderfully varied and entertaining, while the voice-acting is also really quite good in comparison to most.

Beyond Good and Evil is a hugely entertaining title with an engaging story, wonderful visuals, likeable characters and inventive and well-crafted game play – I highly recommend it.

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Contributor:	Peter

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