Review: Beyond Good & Evil HD
The war has arrived at the gates of Hillys. This peaceful lining planet in sector 4 is now completely encircled by the DomZ’ Armada. General Kehck, supreme commander of the Alpha Forces would like to take this opportunity to address a final message to the population: “Loyal Hillyans, the appending battle will be a difficult one, but thanks to the Alpha Sections …”
And that’s how Jade’s story begins, with war. For a long time, there had been peace on Hillys. The protection shields weren’t activated, everyone was happy. But on that one terrible day, everything changed… The DomZ came and killed a lot of innocent people. As a caretaker for little children orphaned by the DomZ, Jade must fight to survive. Let the adventure begin!
Hillys is under siege by the DomZ. They abduct beings and either drain their life force for power or implant them with spores to convert them into slaves. The Alpha Sections, a military dictatorship, takes power, promising to defend the population. They promise to protect the people of Hillys against any threat. You don’t believe it? Watch the camera crew that shows up after every battle between the DomZ and the Alpha Sections, showing the ‘happy ending’. Oh, life has to be wonderful when the difference between good and evil is so big. The Alpha Sections are the good guys, the DomZ are the bad ones. If everyone says so, I guess it must be true… But what if the truth goes “Beyond Good and Evil”?
To start her big adventure Jade must go to work. She collects enough money to repair her hovercraft and starts her search for the mystery of the DomZ. Jade receives a disc, containing a message from a Mr. De Castellac, saying that he will pay her to do a job for him. Jade, who really needs the money, takes the job. After completing the job, the ‘driver’ of Mr. De Castellac unveils who he really is: an IRIS Operative.
Jade is living together with her uncle Pey’j. He’s the person that brought Jade to Hyllis. Pey’j and Jade’s father built a space ship together, called the ‘Beluga’. When Jade is tasked by IRIS to investigate the disappearance of a few hundred civilians, Pey’j insists on going with her. Her task is to find out what happened to the civilians. She discovers that the civilians are being taken by the Alpha Sections and given to the DomZ for ‘transformation’ or energy sucking. While Jade is crawling down a small tunnel, the Alpha Sections kidnap Pey’j. To get Pey’j back, the only thing she can do is complete her investigation, which will eventually take her to the Moon in the Beluga…
As the title of the game already says, the game is an HD-remake. So obviously, the graphics should be a bit better than the original. It’s impossible to compare the graphics of an arcade game with the graphics of a game like Red Dead Redemption, for example, but I could say that the graphics are indeed a bit better than the original game, which I’ve played on GameCube.
The game is played in third person, which means that the camera is behind the character. In some situations, you can use your own camera , which will put the game in first person view. You can use the camera to take pictures or to shoot Cryo Discs. There are some moments in the game where Jade has to walk over a small passage, pushed against the wall. When you do that, the camera is in one place, so you can’t move it. In some cases, that’s very annoying, because you can’t see where she’s going or what to expect of the location where you arrive. Also, I was in a situation where I was crawling over something small and every time I reached the end, Jade fell into a black hole. The only reason for that was the bad location of the camera.
Some would say that a game without much variation in the gameplay is doomed to fail. But that’s not going to happen in this game. The best part about Beyond Good & Evil, is that everything fits into the puzzle. Whatever you are doing, it’s part of the bigger picture and there are no sidemissions. And that’s what’s really important. Eventually, the game is fun enough to complete and to keep you hooked on your television screen.
If we only look at gameplay, Beyond Good & Evil HD would be an action-adventure game. The fighting doesn’t go further than the same move over and over again, with exceptions of a special move, sneaking is just stooping and the hovercraft is used for transport and not for racing. The game has created a fantasy world that’s created with a lot of love and details.
The game itself is really nice, I loved playing it. The reason why I downloaded it is because I never finished the original game on GameCube. It costed me 800 MP to know the end of the story and I don’t regret buying it. It’s one of those games that makes you sit in front of your TV for hours. When you start playing, you can’t stop halfway.
Conclusion:
Beyond Good & Evil HD is a game which is given a second chance to prove itself. A chance that wasn’t used in vain. The remake is better than the original game. That’s mostly caused by the new graphics. I’m close to saying that BG&E is one of the best adventure arcade games on the XBL Marketplace.
