All entries for Wednesday 17 August 2005

Beyond Good & Evil

Ok so I'm jumping on the game review bandwagon, now that it's here in an official capacity (thanks Mat or whoever was responsible). I'm not going to do a full review, but I want to draw your attention to one of the best games of recent years, and one that was sadly overlooked by so many people.

Beyond Good & Evil is a game unlike any other I have played. While on the surface the game mechanics are similar to those of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (Ubisoft's other much-overlooked Christmas 2003 game), the actual experience is completely different. Beyond Good & Evil is an adventure game – an interactive story about war, propaganda, friendship, and the struggle to expose the truth. As Jade, reporter and photographer for the IRIS network, your job is to do just that. (On a side-note, Alyx from HL2 looks suspiciously like Jade's less interesting sister.)

The game features wonderfully stylised graphics (which obviously look better on a PC than any console), some great set-pieces, and in my opinion, the best music in any game ever.

It isn't perfect – there are times when the controls are a bit annoying, and the PC version can have an annoying bug about half way through – but it comes closer to perfection than anything else I've seen in the last 3 years. That the 2 sequels which were originally announced seem to have been shelved for good is a crying shame, and I would encourage everyone who enjoyed the game to find and sign as many internet petitions requesting these sequels as possible (and there are quite a few). Rarely does a game provide this much innocent pleasure.

9/10 (Yes, 5/5 can = 9/10 dammit)

: 17 Aug 2005 23:42 |  Tags: Games |  Comments (11) |  Close comments |  Report a problem