Beyond Good and Evil reviewed

In 2003, Beyond Good and Evil was released on many platforms(I'm reviewing the PS2 port, FYI) and nobody bought it. In 2004, people flipped their lids in praising this game and saying it's one of the best ever. After playing this three times, I've decided that those people must be the most easily amused people to ever play video games for it's a fairly good game...and that's it, just fairly good.

On the planet of Hillys, the evil DomZ has been attacking the peaceful planet for a while now. The Alpha Sections has been protecting Hillys for a while now...but are they doing it to the best of their supposed ability? The "evil" IRIS Network says no but they're "terrorists" so who cares what they think. So in comes Jade, plucky reporter that you control, who embarks on a path to the truth, the moon and hitting things with a staff for some reason.

This isn't much of a game but more of an interactive movie. This is by no means a bad thing cause it's a pretty good movie and there is still enough lee-way for you to play and explore the world which the characters do make kind of fun. The chemistry between Jade and her pig-man uncle Pey'J is unforced, natural and loving. Then when Double H, an IRIS member joins in there's also great chemistry between him and Jade. The voice acting in this game is awesome in it, there's not a note of any false emotions or flatness. Which is good cause they make us care when there's an awesome action set piece, from driving a hovercraft into a slaughterhouse while a mechanical spider is firing lasers at you or you're on a rooftop being chased by soldiers while things explode around you or you fighting the DomZ with a stick....THAT'S ON FIRE! But the game's biggest asset is the music. It's like a film score where it doesn't feel the need to play every second of the game. When it does play it makes an impression and it is quite beautiful. Then the original songs are catchy even if they are a hodgepodge of various languages like English, Hungarian and Spanish.

But on the flip side flaws do exist that bring this game down. The game does create its own living world but it's pathetically small. There's a tiny city, a few islands, some caves and a couple industrial buildings, that's it. Once you can explore the whole planet, it takes a few minutes to explore every square inch of the surface. And then the game is way too short, once the game actually gets going it's 3/4's done and you're wanting more which is why you never want to explicitly make a trilogy. But the biggest insult is how the game hypes up themes and moral shades of grey but in the end, all the twists are sickeningly obvious, sickeningly simple and just as black-and-white as any other narrative that has the black-and-white mentality.

I mean it's a perfectly good game but it's the French(who pretty much made the game) were trying to too hard to be all smart and have contempt for something. I don't know what but it's further proof that nobody cares what the French thinks cause they are the Butt Monkeys of the world. Now I know there's a sequel coming out and maybe that will realize the potential that Beyond Good and Evil has but for right now, it is an ambitious game that didn't quite make it but the end result is still worth it.

7/10