🚀 go-pugleaf

>What have you been playing... IN JUNE 2017?

Beyond Good & Evil

Judging by wiki articles, Michel Ancel had large ambitions for an open-world 
BG&E game with much free exploration, which ended up being constrained and 
squeezed down for consoles, but I had a great time with what his team 
released.  I'll just note things that stood out for me in my playthrough --  
not in any attempt to analyze the game, but more as an acknowledgement or 
celebration:

First was the female protagonist running an orphanage with multi-species 
kids, taking pictures of animals, with large colorful powerups:  Very 
approachable and cute.  The UI -- I was very pleased with the circular wheel 
menus, with their construction-paper-cutout design, and the alphanumeric 
code entry expanding-spiral layout was a delight to use.

Next is the cosmopolitan nature of the planet Hillys, and how unsurprising 
and normal is its presentation.  The casablancan Akuda bar, moraccan 
Pedestrian District, jamaican Mammago Garage, chinese Ming-Tsu's and their 
delightful musical themes.  There's a generosity of spirit and community 
shown here that is central to this game's appeal I think.

The plot and gameplay (no spoilers).  It's a good fairly straightforward 
plot, where one is tasked with Uncovering the Truth, with a nice ending 
twist that presumably would have been expanded upon in the projected 
trilogy's sequels.  The actual gameplay has a nice mix of stealth, 
exploration, and combat, which I thought well-balanced (except for a 
surprising ramp in difficulty in the ending boss battle, that took many many 
reloads and walkthrough consultations to master).

Next is the mystery of the title, which articles like 
http://www.thegamecritique.com/recent-posts/truth-propoganda-and-the-power-of-people-in-beyond-good-and-evil/314/ 
attempt to address.  Was there some 'journalistic integrity in the age of 
Baghdad Bob & YellowCake' influences, or even a Nietzschean connection?  Eh, 
probably not, but there's a cachet and mystique about it that lingers and is 
highly appealing.

Rumors of the prequel being developed are that it will provide both some 
background to Jade's parentage, as well as expand on the enigmatic ending of 
BG&E1.  There's one minor touch of detail that struck me with wonder 
repeatedly while cruising around Hillys, that I hope will be a cornerstone 
of BG&E2 -- that you could look up with your camera at the sky, and see a 
text popup about a star system or planet.  You only visit the moon in BG&E1, 
but Ancel emphasized repeatedly the scaling capabilities of the new engine, 
which opens up extremely exciting potential for visiting other worlds (see 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8IguhQqhAg )

I used a Widescreen patch http://ps2wide.net/pc.html  for the GoG version of 
the game, as well as an Inverted Mouse patch (from the GoG forums).  some 
screen flickering in the UI was mildly annoying, but apparently can be 
addressed by backing off on display quality in settings.

rms