Never having played the original release of Beyond Good & Evil I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when I was done downloading the game. As game opens you are introduced to your character Jade. After a short cinematic and fight you are introduced to Jade’s “Uncle†Pey’j, who is tied for best character in the game in my opinion. His only competition comes from the Iris Agent Double “H†who you meet a little later on. Ubisoft’s big selling point on this port/re-release is that the game is now HD. I won’t lie that it took me awhile to determine what exactly made this version High Definition. Certainly the overall graphics are very similar to the original GameCube and Playstation 2 era release, perhaps a little prettied up. The real HD comes from the water, lighting effects, textures and bloom being used. In addition to the graphical updates, the soundtrack was remastered to a higher quality.
The story of Beyond Good & Evil pits Jade against the DomZ, an ugly alien race that reminds me of a cross of Borg and some sort of failed Necromantic Project. You are given a series of missions to infiltrate some highly secured settings to obtain photographic proof of some shady dealings between the Alpha Sections and the DomZ. Sorry if I spoiled anything, the game did come out 8 years ago.
The game itself is, as far as I know, a direct port of the original. And it shows at times. The camera can be a nuisance and the controls can occasionally be very clunky. This is most notable in situations involving sneaking past the Alpha Sections Guards, the Hovercraft Races, and Boss Battles (specifically the final boss, don’t even get me started on Phase 2…or 4…) which all rely on fairly precise control of the camera (which is sometimes fixed in a certain position) and carefully timed button presses, or in the case of the races, managing the sharp turns while maintaining speed.
Regardless of the dated controls and camera this game is intensely fun. I got sucked into the story very quickly and had a grand time taking pictures of the 56 animals in the game. I even came to enjoy the challenge posed by the sneaking sections, and blitzed past them on my second play through. In fact the only thing I am having problems completing is collecting all the Pearls, because of the races and the disc game against Francis. There are also a number of distractions to keep you away from the main story for a bit, including the races, hunting down the various animals, Looter Caverns which are akin to a timed sprint race and talking to the various denizens of Hillys. The other notable addition to the game is an online leader board which tracks your completion.
Overall, I highly recommend this game for 800 MS points whether or not you played the original release. Ubisoft worked some magic with this game for it to retain its charm and playability from its 2003 release.
