| Beyond Good & Evil | |
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 European cover art for the PC version |
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| Developer(s) | Ubisoft Montpellier Ubisoft Milan (Windows and Xbox ports) |
| Publisher(s) | Ubisoft |
| Distributor(s) | Ubisoft IGN, via Direct2Drive Valve, via Steam GOG.com GameTap |
| Designer(s) | Michel Ancel, Jean-Sébastien Morin |
| Writer(s) | Michel Ancel |
| Composer(s) | Christophe Héral |
| Engine | Jade engine |
| Version | 1.01 |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Nintendo GameCube |
| Release date(s) | |
| Genre(s) | Action-adventure game |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: T OFLC: G8+ PEGI: 7+ |
| Media | CD, DVD, Nintendo optical discs |
Beyond Good & Evil is an action-adventure video game developed and published by Ubisoft and released in late 2003 for the GameCube, Microsoft Windows (PC), PlayStation 2, and Xbox platforms. The game focuses on the exploits of Jade, a female investigative reporter and martial artist, to reveal a planet-wide alien conspiracy with the help of several agents and the "IRIS Network" resistance movement.
Designed by Michel Ancel, the creator of the Rayman series, Beyond Good & Evil was envisioned as the first of a trilogy, but was a commercial failure due to its ill-timed release and lack of popularity. However, it received critical acclaim, becoming a cult classic. The game also received several awards and honors. A sequel, Beyond Good & Evil 2, is currently in development.
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Beyond Good & Evil is an action-adventure game with elements of puzzle-solving and stealth-based games.[1] Players control the protagonist Jade from a third-person perspective. Jade can run, move stealthily, jump over obstacles and pits, climb ladders, push or bash in doors and objects, and flatten herself against a wall.[2] As Jade, players investigate installations in search of the truth about war with an alien threat.[1]
In the game's interior spaces, players solve puzzles and make their way past enemies in order to reach areas containing photographic evidence.[1] Jade's main tools are her Daï-jo combat staff, a melee weapon; discs for a ranged attack; and a camera.[3] At times, it is only possible to advance in the game with the help of other characters; the characters are computer-controlled and players direct them via contextual commands.[1] For example, in combat, the player can order them to perform a "super attack", either pounding the ground to bounce enemies into the air, allowing the player to hit them long distances, or knocking them off balance, making them vulnerable to attack.[4]
Besides collecting evidence and completing assignments, Jade's camera is used to take pictures of animal species in exchange for currency and instantly scan objects to reveal more information about the environment.[3] When upgraded with the "Gyrodisk Glove", Jade can attack enemies or activate devices from a distance using the camera interface.[5]
Traveling around the world is accomplished via an upgradeable hovercraft; also used for races and other minigames; and, later, a spaceship, the Beluga, which can store the hovercraft on board. The main city serves as a hub, allowing the player access to the various areas they must explore in order to expose the conspiracy.
Beyond Good & Evil takes place in the year 2435 on the mining planet of Hillys, located in Sector Four, a remote section of the galaxy.[6][7] The architecture of the city around which the game takes place was designed with a rustic European style. The world itself combines modern elements, such as e-mail and credit cards, with those of science fiction and fantasy, such as spaceships and anthropomorphic animals coexisting with humans.[8] The once-peaceful planet is under siege by aliens called the DomZ that abduct beings and either drain their life force for power, or implant them with spores to convert them into slaves.[7] A military force called the Alpha Sections emerges to defend the populace.[3] However, the Alpha Sections seem unable to stop the DomZ despite their public assurances. An underground resistance movement, the IRIS Network, fights the Alpha Sections, believing them to be in league with the DomZ.[9]
Beyond Good & Evil's main protagonist, Jade (voiced by Jodie Forrest), is a young reporter. She resides in an island lighthouse that doubles as a home for children orphaned by DomZ attacks. Pey'j (voiced by David Gasman), a boar-like creature, is Jade's "uncle" and guardian figure.[3] Double H, a heavily-built human IRIS operative, assists Jade during missions. He wears a military-issue suit of armor at all times. Secundo, an AI built into Jade's storage S.A.C., offers advice and "digitizes" items. The main antagonists are the DomZ High Priest, the chief architect of the invasion, and General Kehck, who uses Alpha Sections propaganda to gain the Hillyans' trust, even as he abducts citizens to sustain the DomZ.
Jade and Pey'j are looking after children of Hillys orphaned by the DomZ. When Jade runs out of money to run the shield that protects them, she finds a photography job, cataloguing all the species on Hillys for a science museum. She is recruited by the IRIS Network, which suspects that the Alpha Sections are behind planet-wide disappearances. Jade's first mission is an Alpha Sections factory, where she discovers evidence of human trafficking being orchestrated by the DomZ under the Alpha Sections' authority. Along the way, she rescues Double H, who was kidnapped by the DomZ and subjected to torture. Pey'j is abducted by the DomZ and taken to a slaughterhouse to be launched to a lunar base. After failing to extract Pey'j from the slaughterhouse in time, Jade learns that Pey'j was, in fact, the secret chief of the IRIS Network.
It becomes clear that the Alpha Sections are being possessed and manipulated by the DomZ. Using Beluga, the ship Pey'j used to travel to Hillys, Jade and Double H go on a mission to the DomZ lunar base. After rescuing Pey'j, transmitting her final report, and sparking a revolution, Jade confronts the DomZ High Priest. She learns that her human form is the latest container to hide a power stolen from the DomZ centuries ago. Using that power, she is able to defeat the DomZ High Priest, and rescues those that have been abducted.
Beyond Good & Evil was developed by Michel Ancel, the creator of Rayman, at Ubisoft's Montpellier studios in France. A group of 30 employees comprised the "core team" for the project. Ancel stated that his goal was to "surprise players that often feel bored with repetitive gameplay," citing the experience of change as "part of the pleasure in a game or movie." Ancel chose to make the character of Jade an investigative reporter in order to "create an interesting mixture of various gameplay styles," including photography, adventure, and interaction with regular Hillyan citizens. The game's environment was created in an open world style to increase immersion and keep the player in suspense as to their next destination. The JADE engine was designed to be flexible, able to display large areas as well as cinematic and gameplay graphical detail. Ancel also stated that he regretted not adding a multiplayer mode to the game.[10]
The game was originally shown at the 2002 Electronic Entertainment Expo, where it received negative reception. Originally more "artistically ambitious" and resembling games like Ico, the game was substantially changed in order to make it more commercially appealing. Jade's design, originally a teenage girl, was modified to be more powerful and fitting of her job. The game was also shortened by removing long periods of exploration, due to Ancel's dislike of this aspect of gameplay in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. The development team was "demoralized" by the changes, with Ancel commenting that the finished game resembled a sequel more than a re-working.[8]
Tyrone Miller, a public relations manager for Ubisoft, said the title comes from a "need to investigate beyond the superficial facts of what is good and what is evil."[11] Prior to release, playable previews of the game were offered in movie theaters.[12]
The soundtrack of Beyond Good & Evil, composed by Christophe Héral, was praised by reviewers and is also featured in Video Games Live.[13] It has been released in its entirety as a free download by Ubisoft.[14]
Héral was hired by Michel to compose the soundtrack of Beyond Good & Evil due to his background in film, a linear narrative. Director Hubert Chevillard worked with Héral on a television special, The Pantin Pirouette, and referred him to Michel. Héral was assisted by Laetitia Pansanel (orchestration) and his brother Patrice Héral (creation and voice).[13]
Mainly Bulgarian lyrics were chosen for the song "Propaganda", which plays in the game's Akuda Bar, to allude to the Soviet propaganda of the Cold War. It uses a recording of a telephone conversation by Héral with a female Bulgarian friend to represent the government's control of the media. The two "rappers" are Héral and his brother. The word "propaganda" itself was originally yelled by the game's entire development team, but this was cut from the final version of the song. It also incorporates Arabic string instruments and Indian percussion. A song called "Funky Mullah" was originally planned to be used in the Akuda Bar, but it was replaced by "Propaganda" because Héral decided that its muezzin vocals, recorded on September 8, 2001, would have been in bad taste in the wake of the September 11 attacks.[13]
"Fun and Mini-games", a song that plays during hovercraft races and other mini-games, includes Spanish lyrics. The lyrics for DomZ music were created from a fictional language with prominent rolling "r" sounds. The crashing metal sound effects of "Metal Gear DomZ", music played during a boss fight, were recorded from the son of Héral's neighbor playing with scrap metal. The voices in the city of Hyllis were also recorded by Héral himself.[13]
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Beyond Good & Evil received generally positive reviews on release. On the critic aggregate web site Game Rankings, which compiles video game review scores into an average, the various versions of the game have scores ranging from 83.2% (for the PC) to 88.2% (Xbox), based on 23 and 52 reviews, respectively. On Metacritic, which assigns a score out of 100, the game has scores from a low of 83% for the PC version and 87% for the GameCube and Xbox versions, based on 26, 33, and 40 reviews respectively.
1UP.com wrote in its review of the PS2 version that players could be pulled out of the immersive gameplay by glitches, chief among them a choppy frame rate that was especially irksome because the game did not appear to tax the console's hardware.[33] IGN praised the game's graphics, gameplay and level design and further said "BG&E is one of those rare games that shines from all points with an unmistakable quality of intelligence and personality", pointing to the attention to detail, setting, plot and voice acting. The magazine also felt the game was perhaps too short.[34] EuroGamer praised the game's characters and storytelling, saying: "From this day forth, Michel Ancel is no longer 'the creator of Rayman'. From now on, he is 'the genius that brought us Beyond Good & Evil' [..] Cast out amongst a slew of Christmas blockbusters, BG&E rises above them all and leaves an indelible impression."[35] GameSpot also praised the game's graphics and audio.[36]
Edge commended the game for its storytelling and design, but criticized its plot as unable to "match Jade's initial appeal", becoming "fairly mundane" without "the darkness and moral ambiguity suggested by the title", and Jade's everyman appeal being undermined by the relevation of her "mysterious hidden identity". Edge also called the gameplay interaction "hollowed out" as an unintended consequence of Ancel's attempt to streamline the game.[8] Nich Wadhams of the Associated Press called Beyond Good & Evil "innovative" and "a good entry game" with "rarely any snags or annoyances", but called the plot "too facile to take seriously" and commented that the game itself did not "stray too far from convention".[6] Dan Toose of Icon Magazine called the game's setting "dark, baroque and earthy, a far cry from the squeaky-clean action of the Final Fantasy games", describing the game as "a very European take on the role-playing genre" and "one of the best adventure games in years".[37]
While Beyond Good & Evil received critical praise, it sold poorly. Unfortunate timing of the release against other titles such as Ubisoft's own Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, as well as competition from proven sequels,[38] led to disappointing sales, something that Ubisoft North America CEO Laurent Detoc labeled as one of his worst business decisions.[39] Ubisoft's former North American vice-president of publishing Jay Cohen and European managing director Alaine Corre attributed the commercial failure of the game to a lack of marketing. "The game play was there, the technical excellence was there but perhaps the target audience was not there," Corre told the BBC.[40][41] The game was intended to be the first part of a trilogy of games, but the game's poor sales placed those plans on hold at the time, although Michel Ancel had stated his desire to produce a sequel to the game.[42]
Beyond Good & Evil was nominated for or won several gaming awards. The International Game Developers Association nominated the title for three honors at the 2004 Game Developers Choice Awards: "Game of the Year", "Original Game Character of the Year" (Jade), and "Excellence in Game Design".[43][44] Ubisoft titles swept six of eleven awards at the 2004 IMAGINA Festival in France, with Beyond Good & Evil winning "Best Writer" and "Game of the Year Team Award".[45] The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences nominated the game for "Outstanding Achievement in Character or Story Development" at the 2004 Interactive Achievement Awards.[46]
In 2007, Beyond Good & Evil was named 22nd best Xbox game and 12th best Gamecube game of all time in IGN's feature reflecting on the sixth generation of video games.[47][48] It also came 47th in "The PC Gamer Top 100" from the PC Games magazine PC Gamer, and was ranked as the eighth best game on the Xbox by X-Play.[citation needed] In their "Top 200 Games of all Time", Gameinformer placed the PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube versions of Beyond Good & Evil as the 200th best,[49] while Nintendo Power called the Gamecube version the 29th best.[50] Nintendo Power also placed the Gamecube version as the 11th best Gamecube game of all time in their 20th anniversary issue.[51] Destructoid ranked the Gamecube, PS2, and Xbox versions as the 6th best game of the decade.[52]
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Beyond Good & Evil | Table of
Contents | Walkthrough
| Beyond Good & Evil | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Developer(s) | Ubisoft Montpellier |
| Publisher(s) | Ubisoft |
| Designer(s) | Michel Ancel |
| Engine | Jade engine |
| Latest version | 1.01 |
| Release date(s) |
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| Genre(s) | Action-adventure |
| System(s) | Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Windows, GameTap, Direct2Drive, Steam |
| Players | 1 |
| Rating(s) |
ESRB:
 TeenPEGI:
 Ages 7+USK:
 Ages 12+ |
| System requirements (help) | |
| Website | http://beyondgoodevil.com |
Beyond Good & Evil is an action-adventure video game developed and published by Ubisoft and released in late 2003 for the Nintendo GameCube, Windows, PlayStation 2, and Xbox.
The game focuses on the exploits of Jade, a female investigative reporter and martial artist, to reveal a planet-wide alien conspiracy with the help of a boar-like humanoid named Pey'j, a spy code-named Double H, and the "IRIS Network" resistance movement. Tyrone Miller, a public relations manager for Ubisoft, said the title comes from a "need to investigate beyond the superficial facts of what is good and what is evil."
Beyond Good & Evil, initially designed by Michel Ancel, the creator of the Rayman series, as the first of a trilogy, was a commercial failure due to its ill-timed release and lack of popularity. However, it received critical acclaim, becoming a cult classic. The game has received two awards at the Imagina Games Awards and several nominations at the Game Developers Choice Awards and the Interactive Achievement Awards. A sequel, Beyond Good & Evil 2, is in development.
Beyond Good and Evil takes place in the year 2435 on the peaceful mining planet of Hillys, where a mix of human and anthropomorphic animal species co-exist with the native wildlife. The planet's architecture and technology consists of rustic and futuristic elements. The planet is under siege by insect-like alien DomZ forces. The DomZ abduct beings on Hillys, and either drain their life force for their own, or implant them with spores that convert them into creatures that work for the DomZ. A military dictatorship called the "Alpha Sections" emerges to defend the populace. However, the Alpha Sections seem unable to stop the DomZ attacks despite their public assurances. An underground group of journalists, the IRIS Network, attempt to uncover the secrets of the DomZ and the Alpha Sections and expose the truth to the population of Hillys.
 North American cover art. |
| Beyond Good & Evil | |
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| Developer(s) | Ubisoft Montpellier Studios |
| Publisher(s) | Ubisoft Entertainment |
| Designer(s) | Michel Ancel |
| Release date | PlayStation 2: November 11, 2003 (NA) November 14, 2003 (EU) PC: November 19, 2003 (NA) December 5, 2003 (EU) Xbox: December 2, 2003 (NA) February 27, 2004 (EU) GameCube: December 11, 2003 (NA) February 27, 2004 (EU) |
| Genre | Action, Adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Age rating(s) | ESRB: T PEGI: 7+ |
| Platform(s) | PC, GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox |
| Media | DVD, GameCube Optical Disk |
| Input | Controller |
| System requirements | 55 Memory card blocks (GameCube) |
| Credits | Soundtrack | Codes | Walkthrough | |
Beyond Good & Evil was released in 2003 for the PC, GameCube, Playstation 2 and Xbox. The game was designed by Rayman series creator Michel Ancel and published by Ubisoft Entertainment.
Beyond Good & Evil received glowing praise from game critics and gamers (the few that played it at least) alike for its immersive game world, likable characters, and beautiful score. It was released amid the Christmas season of 2003 with barely any advertising and, subsequently, quickly dropped in price from a normal $50 to the "Please for the love of God buy this" of $20. Beyond Good & Evil was intended to be the first of three games, but due to the poor sales of the first game, it was believed that no sequels would be made. Recently, however, pre-production work on a sequel, Beyond Good & Evil 2, was announced.
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Beyond Good & Evil takes place on a planet called Hillys. This planet is in the middle of a war with an alien race known as the DomZ who constantly attack the planet, killing and capturing its residents. To protect themselves, the people of planet Hillys enlist the help of the Alpha Section, an elite military force, to fend off the DomZ insidious attacks.
It seems, however, that the Alpha Section aren't as effective as they lead the people to believe, and they hide a terrible secret.
The world of Beyond Good & Evil contains many items that will help Jade on her journey.
Personal items are objects that Jade carries in her sidebag and can be used at (almost) any time.
Vehicle items are items that can be used only while in vehicles.
Special items are items that induce a permanent effect after they are found.
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