Articles
The Best Adventure Games of 2003
by Randy Sluganski
February 13, 2004
JA’S BEST ACTION/ADVENTURE GAME OF 2003
| BEYOND GOOD & EVIL Developer: Ubi Soft Publisher: Ubi Soft Release Date: December 2003 |
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Usually when a game’s retail price drops in half only a month after being released, it’s due to poor quality or lack of marketing. Beyond Good & Evil is the exception. The past year was a watershed for action/adventures and BG&E led the pack.
Ubi Soft put a major marketing campaign behind BG&E and the game received rave reviews from both the gaming community and the mainstream press. It is my belief that the game should have been marketed more to the adventure audience and less in the teen-orientated console magazines, for BG&E is a game they would devour. Many gamers still have bad memories of the awful action/adventure hybrids of years past, not realizing that this is now a viable, separate category.
BG&E is a hybrid of action sequences that, unlike many games of this ilk, involve no special coordination; racing sequences that are a blast; fighting sequences that are a breeze and lots and lots of exploration and puzzles. The plot is a take-off of Orwell’s 1984 set in a future ruled by aliens.
The main character is Jade. Both cute and nimble she belies the belief that game heroines need to possess unrealistic body proportions. It is her sidekicks though who steal the show: Pey’J a talking pig and Double H, a gung-ho soldier reminiscent of Buzz Lightyear.
At times it seemed that JA reviewer Ray Ivey was about to run out of superlatives when reviewing BG&E :
Beyond Good and Evil joins that august list of hybrids in which the designers went out on a limb and the limb didn’t break.
The simplest way to describe this game is that it’s a sort of Zelda-like action/adventure. But that wouldn’t tell the whole story. The game also has a Pokemon-like creature collection element (more on this later), object collection reminiscent of classic platform games, very fun racing elements (ditto), strong stealth elements, plus an overall feel that’s very reminiscent of a pure adventure game.
