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Beyond Good and Evil Review - Xbox

Beyond Good and Evil is an RPG title like no other. Join Jade on her journey around the planet Hyllis - a planet raging in war between its inhabitants - the Hyllian people, and a destructive alien force called DomZ. A secretive organization by the name of IRIS contacts Jade, asking her to help out with some tasks. IRIS questions the government's motives, and believes that there is some corruption within the politics of Hyllis. Read on to find out whether it's worth taking Jade on her mission to go far Beyond Good and Evil.

Gameplay

It's not long in to Beyond Good and Evil that you meet your porky friend Pey'J. He helps you throughout some parts of your missions, and you become quite close especially after you find out about your history. There's some great teamwork that goes on in Beyond Good and Evil, and it would have been good to see a co-op feature where one player can actually use Pey'J. Perhaps in a sequel we'll see this at work. Jade is your basic 20 year old babe, modeled by some horny developers deep in the dungeons of Ubisoft. She's gorgeous, even at her low texture state, and idealistic to be in control throughout an epic RPG like this one. With her trusty camera, her dai-jo stick, and her worthy martial arts skills, you'll face off against some nasty animals.

Beyond Good and Evil is a cross between The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, and Pokemon Snap. The main aim of the game apart from going through the missions that the IRIS give you, is to collect pearls. These are often collected from killing foes and participating in races on your boat, but you also get a pearl every time you take 10 pictures of 10 newly discovered creatures which are then sent back to the scientists for research. With these pearls, you can then visit the motor shop to upgrade your boat as you travel the vast seas of Hyllis. The combat and the sailing around on your boat is much like Wind Waker, and the fact you have to take photographs of nearly everything is like Pokemon Snap on the Nintendo 64 (incase you were lost from the comment earlier). When you enter in the main city, or canal if you will, of Hyllis you'll notice there's quite a lot of traffic in the water and hovering above the water. This may remind you of Star Wars. Beyond Good and Evil definitely had a lot of very nice ideas thrown into it.

Along with the blue pearls, you also have money to gain. Most of the creatures drop some money when you kill them, and you can also extract money from minerals, and plants, boxes, and crates, etc. The money can be used to buy pearls if you want, but also different (continued next page)