 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| I am TOTALLY freaked the fuck out right now (Beyond good & Evil) by Mischief Maker 03/19/2006, 1:31pm PST | ||||
 |
 |
|||
| Just finished the game and... what the fuck?
It didn't help that as I was headed for the computer I passed my mom watching a show called extreme makeover. It's a reality show about makeovers, obviously, but these aren't "new haircut, wardrobe, and makeup" makeovers. They're not even "3 months with a beutician and a personal trainer" makeovers. These sad motherfuckers are going under the knife and "changing their pathetic lives" via complete plastic surgery makeovers. Liposuction, face slits, implants, botox, the works. I saw the "before" of a guy who wouldn't look like hell if he'd lose a few pounds and comb his hair, then the "after" of him waving to the crowd and smiling with a face barely capable of movement. Then it went to a plain but not really ugly couple who would look fine if they took a half hour every day to take care of themselves, talking about the surgical alterations they want for their 15 minutes of fame. Mildly overweight guy: "I wanna lose my boobs." Skinny chick who's never heard of the wonder bra: "And I wanna gain them." *shudder* Let me be clear, this game is very good. I have a dark secret behind my gaming hobby: I don't want to play difficult games. Challenging, fine, but not hard games where I have to learn 500 different moves and keystrokes to be competent (except when there's some sort of good tutorial or equivalent to ease me into it, like TTT's "gain a new combo or two each level with your earned XPs") and even then one slip-up will ruin an hour's work. This is one of the things I love about Beyond Good and Evil. It takes the good bits from a variety of genres: stealth, hand to hand combat, racing, space shooters, and strips them of any unnecessary bullshit to keep only the good parts. Jump puzzles without bottomless insta-death chasm fuckups? There. Stealth without moving at a snail's pace where getting spotted doesn't ruin the entire level? There. Zelda puzzle solving without menu-item-switching and block pushing bullshit? There. Adventure game obstacles whose solutions make sense? There. For $20 you get the sampler platter af everything that's good about console games with none of the little annoyances that traditionally go with them. There's 2 complaints to be made about the game. 1: It's on the short side and except for stealth, which I got my fill of, you'll wish there was more of every other element in the game. 2: With an interface that's completely on your side, it's pretty easy. You could probably beat it in a weekend, but for the price I paid, I'm not bent out of shape over the length. I will not talk about the plot because it really is one you should go into as cold as possible. Get a familiarity with the controls from the manual then burn it. I will say one thing about it, this game is very french/not japanese which is a good thing. I'll be vague about why the game freaked me out in the end in regular text, then spoil it with exact details in invisible text. If you think there's the remotest chance you will play the game, leave the black spot unhighlighted, you'll thank me. One thing this game made me realize is the importance of context in making creepy things really creepy. Watching Hellraiser, a dak and grotesque movie from the very start, I was prepared for the cenobites and wasn't really that put out by them. But in the cutesy Secret of Mana, filled with bright colors and chirpy music, the first time you set foot into that evil temple with the zombie people and find yourself hearing creepy music, exploring dark architecture (relatively) and fighting the walking dead in place of the rabites, I got on edge as no other 16-bit age game ever managed. In LOTR, a movie trilogy filled with hideous monsters and all-out gore, the one scene that freaked me out was the scene in idyllic Rivendell where our once-hero, now sweet kindly father-figure Bilbo suddenly goes RAAAAGH! for the ring. I was so not prepared for that, I jumped in my seat. Beyond good and evil is like that as its art direction is very similar to the beautiful and fanciful Rayman 2... with the exception of the gigeresque DomZ. Normally Giger is a yawning cliche that we've seen a million times before, but in this game's context, it's horrible, particularly the scene where the DomZ capture some children and you see the kids struggling inside their transparent chambers before losing their strength and going limp. In this game's art direction, it's creepy, creepy stuff. Give it a try, you'll probably like it. I did. Okay what the FUCK is up with that ending? Specifically PeyJ getting infected by the DomZ after the credits. I see two explanations: one lame and one freaky for the sheer balsiness of it all. The lame one is that the DomZ priest Jade supposedly defeated managed to infect PeyJ before dying and through PeyJ he'll return in the sequel. The freaky one... well let's just say as the credits were rolling, I was wondering why the game was called "Beyond Good and Evil" as it was pretty clear cut that pretty=good and ugly=evil. But as we saw in the ending, Jade realized her true power and took control of the DomZ back from the priest. SO... if she was in control of the DomZ, did she infect PeyJ on purpose? Because the awakened power within her changed our passionate heroine into... something else, with no lasting feelings toward her former loved ones and a moral code beyond good and evil? If that's the case, I take back all the cracks I was going to make about the Alpha Section being able to avoid the revolution by explaining that their trade in human flesh was good for the economy and instead congratulate the game creator for a video game ending twist comparable to Planescape's |
||||
 |
 |
|||
|
