Beyond Good & Evil HD Review (XBLA)

Beyond Good & Evil HD is a well deserved second chance for a great game that was largely ignored when it was first released to reach a larger audience. The core gameplay and overall design still hold up surprisingly well, and the revamped graphics are well done and look great. There are a couple of hiccups, but nothing that should keep you from giving the game a try. It tells a great story, features some fantastic music, and an ambitious mix of gameplay styles that we don't see very often. For 800 MSP ($10), it is absolutely worth a look.

Beyond Good & Evil is fondly remembered by most people that played it as one of the better games of the PS2 / Xbox / GC generation. Despite poor initial sales, BG&E eventually became a cult classic. Now, eight years later, Ubisoft has given the old girl a new coat of high-definition paint and released Beyond Good & Evil HD on Xbox Live Arcade. Does the game still hold up? Find out all of the details here in our review.

Beyond Good & Evil is the story of a world called Hillys that is being attacked by aliens known as the DomZ. A group called the Alpha Sections is supposed to be protecting the people of Hillys, but something doesn't quite seem right. It is then up to photo journalist and main character Jade and her funny pigman uncle Pey'j to try and discover the truth behind the attacks and save Hillys.

The gameplay is a mash-up of genres. You'll run around and hack and slash at enemies in some super simple one-button combat. You'll sneak through enemy bases in stealth sections. You'll pilot a hovercraft around a sprawling hub world looking for missions and other secondary objectives. Since Jade is a photo journalist, you also have a camera you can use to take pictures of any animals you see (to make some quick cash) as well as to get photo evidence to reveal the truth of the story. Beyond Good & Evil is a third-person action adventure at its core, but with a lot more going on and it all works pretty darn well.

Except that the controls are occasionally awkward and take a lot of getting used to and the camera is semi-awful. You do eventually get used to the somewhat unorthodox control scheme, but the camera never really feels right. It is too close to your character, and there is no real "invert" option for the controls, which makes the game very difficult to get used to for those of us weirdos that like inverted controls. Well, there is an "invert" option, but it not only inverts the Y axis, but X as well, which is the most unintuitive thing ever. Up is down and down is up (inverted controls) I can understand. Left is right and right is left, however, (as activated in BG&EHD when you use inverted controls) makes my brain hurt. It took me a solid hour before I was used to it, and even then it never felt right.

Once you do get used to the camera, the core game underneath is still very solid. The story is fantastic and the characters are instantly likable. The photography aspect of the game works amazingly well and is really rewarding. The exploration and combat is well done. BG&E is still a great game.

The new coat of HD paint also looks nice as well. You can still tell it was a last-gen game to start with (blocky designs, simple geometry, simple textures) but the HD facelift makes everything really sharp and smooth and nice looking. The environments still only look so-so, but the character models clearly got a lot of attention and look great. The music and voice acting are both outstanding as well.

Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.