Game of the Month Discussion, Feb 2009: Beyond Good & Evil

[Godzilla Blitz]

Beyond Good and Evil
Beyond Good and Evil and Deus Ex went to overtime in the voting before Beyond Good and Evil pulled away to a 22-19 victory to become the Game of the Month Club's first selection. Resident Evil 4 was the third candidate, but started slow and never could quite match the other games' support. Here's the voting thread for more info.

Game of the Month Club Information
The idea behind Game of the Month is that it's usually more fun and easier to play through games in a group, so each month a bunch of us play an older game at the same time. We share our impressions, thoughts, and reactions to the game as we go along. Everyone and anyone is welcome, so if you didn't vote and would like to jump in, please feel free to join. The goal is conversation and fun, but feel free to go as fast or as slow as you'd like. The overall "goal", however, is to try to complete the game within the calendar month of February 2009. If it takes longer, no problem, but the aim is for us to be playing the next game as we get into March. The Main Game of the Month Club thread is here.

Beyond Good & Evil Information
The game is available for the PC, XBox, PS2, and Gamecube (Wii). It doesn't appear to be on the XBox 360 Backwards Compatible list. The game can be found online at quite a few places. Steam has the PC version for $9.99. There are some reports of difficulty getting the game to run, but that is almost always the case with older games. Kronovan reports that Gametap has the game, and one-month subscriptions are $9. I bought a PS2 copy of the game from Half.com for about $10 shipped. The XBox version is also available. There is EBay as well, but the game appears to be running a bit high there at the moment. Lastly, there are always second hand sellers on Amazon.

Discussion Thoughts
I think it'd be fun to keep track of who is participating and how far they make it with the game. Along those lines, if you intend to play along, please make a quick post here letting us know. Even if it's something like: "Waiting for game to arrive. Will join as soon as it does."

The more discussion the better, but please mark clear spoilers with the spoiler tag. To a degree, I don't think we can be too anal about this if we want to foster discussion. We'll need to share some concept of the story and such, but I'm thinking that clear game helping hints to get unstuck and major plot points should be marked as spoilers. If you're really not sure about something, it might be better to err on the side of caution. You can always take the spoiler tags off later.

For people just reading along but not playing, feel free to contribute to the discussion as well. This is in no way intended to be an exclusive group.

Lastly, suggestions, ideas, and comments are always welcome. This is the first time we've done this, so we'll likely want to tweak things as we go along.

Have fun, and off we go!

[Godzilla Blitz]

Beyond Good & Evil Participants
Arkon: Playing PC version
Briko: Will play PC version
depward: Will order PS2 version
Dreamshadow: Will play PS2 version
Kagath: Finished!
Godzilla Blitz: Finished!
Homard: Will play PS2 version.
jersoc: Will play PC version
jonsauce: Finished!
Laner: Playing PC version
Midguided: Playing PS2 version
rabies66: Will play Xbox version
ROTC1983: Playing the PC version
Scraper: Playing PS2 Version.
teggy: Finished!
visionblind: Playing PC Version
warning: Playing the PC version

[depward]

Will be ordering the game for probably PS2 this weekend.. looking forward to this!

[Godzilla Blitz]

I didn't have this game, so I ordered it from Half.com a couple of days ago, just in case it won. It should arrive in a week or so. I'll start playing once it gets here.

I have to admit, I know almost nothing about this game. I've seen it so many times in used game bins, but always thought it looked like shovelware. I never realized it was as highly regarded as it is. I'm actually really looking forward to playing the game, as it's rare when I play something with so little idea of what it's about.

I'm also very interested to see how many of us make it through the whole game. With older games, sometimes the challenge can be just getting the game to run properly (or even just getting the game in the first place).

[Laner]

I'll be playing via PC.  Got to the first save point last night.  The music so far is top notch.

[Gratch]

I'll be playing via PC.  Got to the first save point last night.  The music so far is top notch.

That it is.  It's the most played game soundtrack on my "video game music" playlist by quite a large margin. 

[Scraper]

Im in for the PS2 version via PS3 BC.

[Scraper]

I didn't have this game, so I ordered it from Half.com a couple of days ago, just in case it won. It should arrive in a week or so. I'll start playing once it gets here.

I have to admit, I know almost nothing about this game. I've seen it so many times in used game bins, but always thought it looked like shovelware. I never realized it was as highly regarded as it is. I'm actually really looking forward to playing the game, as it's rare when I play something with so little idea of what it's about.

I'm also very interested to see how many of us make it through the whole game. With older games, sometimes the challenge can be just getting the game to run properly (or even just getting the game in the first place).

From what I remember the first time I played it, the game takes about 15 hours to beat, so most of us should be able to finish within the month easy.

[mytocles]

If it helps anyone decide if the game is something they'd like, I'll add my very old two cents here.  I already played the game when it came out, but I didn't finish it.  If you like platforming elements in a clever and amusing game, then it's the game for you.  Unfortunately, I'm bad at platforming, and I got tired of trying to leap one laser beam, roll under the next, then stay in place to avoid a roving laser - and get zapped over and over because I suck at platformers.  I'm also not big on repeating stuff, so it wasn't a good combo for me.

BG & E is a great game though, with a ton of elements to keep you engaged.  I would just warn people like me that you will probably get frustrated at some point.  Even I got quite a ways in the game, despite my platforming difficulty, so if you can handle that aspect of the game, I'd urge you to try it - you are in for a real treat. 

I'll be following the thread because it will be interesting to see how far I got in the game - my impression is that I got about 2/3 or 3/4 of the way through.  If the place I got stuck and caved on turns out to be much earlier than that, I'll just quietly slip away, lol... shhhh... 

[Arkon]

I am going to get this from Steam, hopefully it will run for me under Vista 32bit.

[jersoc]

works on vista 64. you should be fine.

[Godzilla Blitz]

I didn't have this game, so I ordered it from Half.com a couple of days ago, just in case it won. It should arrive in a week or so. I'll start playing once it gets here.

I have to admit, I know almost nothing about this game. I've seen it so many times in used game bins, but always thought it looked like shovelware. I never realized it was as highly regarded as it is. I'm actually really looking forward to playing the game, as it's rare when I play something with so little idea of what it's about.

I'm also very interested to see how many of us make it through the whole game. With older games, sometimes the challenge can be just getting the game to run properly (or even just getting the game in the first place).

From what I remember the first time I played it, the game takes about 15 hours to beat, so most of us should be able to finish within the month easy.

Yes, that's in line with what I found as I did some checking before I set up the poll. 8-20 hours seemed to be the range. After reading mytocles' impressions, I'm guessing I'll be more toward the higher end.

Looking forward to this!

[metallicorphan]

i loved this game on the xbox

Spoiler for Hiden:

the end of game boss was a complete bitch,reversing your gamerpad button assignements while playing or turning them upsidedown,i didnt/couldn't defeat the boss..still a great game though

when is number 2 out?

[Teggy]

I'll know by the end of the weekend if I'll be joining as I have to decide whether I'll be hooking up my PS2 again or not (darn non-BC PS3). My PC is good enough to run Deus Ex, but not this (Dell notebook circa 2002).

[warning]

I'm in!  I'll be snagging the PC version from Steam.  I already played this through on the PS2 and loved it.  It's one of my all-time favorite games.

[ROTC1983]

I will jump in and order it on the PC.

[Scraper]

Started the game about an hour into it. Two words so far: Fart Boots.

This game is a gem.

[biggercup]

I am pretty sure I have this game somewhere in my house. I don't even remember which system I have it for.
I am going to check all my collection boxes to find the game over the weekend.

[Teggy]

OK, I hooked up my PS2 so I am in. I didn't realize the game had a progressive scan mode so I guess I could have hooked it up to the hdtv, but no matter. Is this whole game letterboxed or do I have my PS2 set up wrong? I don't recall from the other time I played.

[warning]

Running it just fine in Windows 7.  At 1680x1050 it looks good but the widescreen is a bit stretched.  I don't think there's a way to correct it but I can live with it.  it barks at me that my graphic card drivers are not up-to-date but I just click okay and it lets me play.  I've got the settings maxed except AA is off and I checked "Manual Compatibility" and all of the options are checked except for HW Vertex and W buffer.  That took care of the slight flickering I was having.

Now that I'm up and running I'm at the Mamago Garage.  I love those Rhinos and their reggae.

[Canuck]

How long is this game, anyone know? I'm disappointed that it won't run well on my PC and I'm trying to decide whether I ought to buy it from Steam and play it on my regular laptop (which would mean sitting at my desk rather than on my comfortable bed)

[JSL]

BG&E is a wondeful game and I fully intend to play it again since I bought the Cube version not that long ago for a steal! Unfortunately, this is not the month for replaying it. I hope that #2 is available on the Wii, otherwise I will probably miss it.

[jersoc]

How long is this game, anyone know? I'm disappointed that it won't run well on my PC and I'm trying to decide whether I ought to buy it from Steam and play it on my regular laptop (which would mean sitting at my desk rather than on my comfortable bed)

About 10 hours or so IIRC.

[kronovan]

Running it just fine in Windows 7.  At 1680x1050 it looks good but the widescreen is a bit stretched.  I don't think there's a way to correct it but I can live with it. 

The game doesn't support a 16:9 or 16:10 aspect so there's no way of avoiding the stretching. After the multitude of PC games I've encountered that don't support widescreen -especially multiplatform games-  I'm just glad it supports any widescreen resolutions at all.

[Misguided]

Will be playing PS2 version on PS3. Hope I can make the time to keep up with you folks.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Great to see so many people jumping in. I think I've got everyone who has signed up so far onto the list of participants, but if I missed you, please let me know.

I'm hoping my game arrives soon, but in the meantime I'm think I might just set up a retro gaming station downstairs with our SNES, PS2, and XBox. We have an older TV that we don't use anymore, which would be perfect.

[Kagath]

Looks like I should be able to use my bro's Xbox to get in on this so I should start this sometime here soon.

[Dreamshadow]

I'll boot this up on the PS2 tonight!   I'm in!

[warning]

I'd like to maybe post some screenshots along the way but I don't want to spoil things for people who haven't already played it once.  What do you guys think?  Hide them behind spoiler tags?

[jersoc]

Im in for PC version.

[vizionblind]

great game , got it on STEAM last night.

Also, if you have any graphical issues with this game on XP or Vista, check this: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/ayubx003/dividebyzero/2008/08/23/how_to_fix_beyond_good_evil_bg.html

[Godzilla Blitz]

I'd like to maybe post some screenshots along the way but I don't want to spoil things for people who haven't already played it once.  What do you guys think?  Hide them behind spoiler tags?

I think screenshots are a great idea, but yes, it might be a good idea any that give too much away with spoiler tags. I would think that many of them won't give that much away, though. Heck, before I'll buy a game I'll look a couple of dozen screenshots to get an idea for what the game looks like. What do others think?

[Scraper]

Generally screen shots arent spoilers. One picture usually can't give away too much.

[kronovan]

great game , got it on STEAM last night.

Also, if you have any graphical issues with this game on XP or Vista, check this: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/ayubx003/dividebyzero/2008/08/23/how_to_fix_beyond_good_evil_bg.html

I downloaded it on gametap today and I must say I'm impressed with how well it runs on my PC. I've also been surprised at the visual improvement of the PC version over the XBox and the sound for some reason seems better too. I'm running it on my HDTV so the The stretching is there for widescreen, but I'm not really noticing or being distracted by it. I haven't played with the advanced settings you gave the link for, but I did have Aniso set to 8x and AA at 4x in my Nvidea control panel and didn't have any problems. So maybe I won't bother with the advanced settings.

[Homard]

I bought this and a bunch of other games at the local Movie Gallery at xmas time when they were selling most everything for $4.  PS2 version.  I think I'll have to give it a go now.  I probably won't make it through the whole thing, but this is as good a chance as any.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Homard,
Welcome to the forums! Glad to have you on board.

My PS2 game just arrived in the mail. I got a quick shipper; got here in four days. Nice.

I'll see if I can find all the cords and pieces for my PS2 late tonight. With luck, I should be able to get in an hour or so before sleep.

[Briko]

I will also play on the PC. I should be starting on Sunday.

Briko

[jersoc]

so I was playing about 45 mins or so before work(which im stuck at now, blah) and I completely forgot how awesome the music is and how helps set the mood. I know lots of people always get stuck on graphics drawing you in, but I'm more of a music and sound person.

The opening sequence is a great example. Especially when it cuts to the slow mo part.

[warning]

I just got to the Akuda Bar.  I gotta say mouse/keyboard control is pretty wonky but otherwise this game is just as much fun as I remember.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Dusted off the PS2, hooked everything up, and played for about an hour tonight.

Just kind of feeling my way through things right now (I'm in the Ancient Mine), but so far I like it. It's an interesting mix of adventure and action. The photography element is kind of neat, but I keep forgetting to take photos of things that are trying to kill me.

I agree about the music. The color, the art, and the music all give the game a mellow touch. Very relaxing.

I haven't really struggled with any part of the game yet. Combat has been easy, and the puzzles have been straightforward. I did get stuck at one spot for a few minutes before I realized what I was supposed to do.