Few Words About Beyond Good & Evil

So, I’ve almost completed Playstation 2 classic Beyond Good & Evil. All I have left to do is the final part, but I’m too lazy to collect missing orbs to unlock last level so… To be honest, I don’t know if I’ll be up for that task for a while if ever. But that doesn’t mean that the game is bad in any way, quite the opposite: Beyond Good & Evil is probably one of my favourite games on PS2 and showed me what console game can offer on its best.

Beyond Good & Evil is a beautiful game for its time – it is hard to believe that it is released in 2003! Sure, there are some horrible frame rates and textures, but most of the time game is stunning, especially on outside areas. Character models are not as high detailed but art style helps with that. Art style works perfectly and captures this otherworldly yet familiar vibe of the game world. Locations are mostly interesting and surprisingly detailed and on so many occasions I'd just take a break from action and looked around, just enjoying the feeling of ''being there''. This game really takes you away from the real world at times.

Photo: The 100 Reviews

Gameplay is fine. There’s not too much fighting, and it’s pretty straight forward. Jade moves where you want most of the time, though there are moments when camera does its own things – which is kinda irritating. Using allies is fun and gives depth to the gameplay. Unfortunately age of the game shows in controls and action may get little bit clunky. Previously mentioned frame rates might drop during the most intense battles which might be also fault of the old hardware – I noticed that on PS2 slim game runs terrible compared to the ''fat'' version.

And that is what I think of Beyond Good & Evil. I don't really want to say too much about the story, even though it's two decades old game – some things are better to not be spoiled. That said, I really recommend that you try it if you haven't yet, especially if you are able to emulate it on more modern hardware with better frame rates. Such a great game.

Revisiting Half-Life: Uplink

Photo: halflifeuplink.com

It's been over a decade since I last played Half-Life: Uplink and even then I didn't finish it. Times were different - I still remember being scared as hell in a dim lighted room, playing on old monitor and bad speakers. There's something that made the experience so terrifying for younger version of me. If I remember right this demo came on a CD with few other demos for games like Turok, Worms and maybe even Beyond Good & Evil, though I'm not really sure about the last one. Anyway, this game was my introduction to PC gaming and FPS genre in general. And to Half-Life, of course, which led me to the road I'm still walking on.

I think Uplink is still a great demo though it didn't have the same magic as it use to. But that's how nostalgy works in the end! It's still pretty challenging at the times (but that could be all because my HL skills are rusty) and atmosphere is what you'd expect from Half-life experience. Especially old-schools sounds made this revisit feel like coming home after a long, long journey - there's something special about those sound effects in original Half-Life. And the soda machine can still kill you!

I remember how scared I was of the first zombie you encounter because I had never in my life experienced anything like that. Now, as I'm older and played a lot of HL and zombie games in general, that spooky feeling wasn't unfortunately there anymore. I knew what to do and how to fight those things now too well. And that's sad in a way. There are only a few games that can give that brand new feeling of unknown, at least for me, and the fact that I'm pretty familiar with the engine and game making in general also has a big impact on how I approach games and enemies. 13-15 years ago I had no idea what I was doing on FPS games - now they are hardwired into my blood (hey, I'm using words!). 

And that's why I almost hope that I didn't revisit Uplink. I loved that hazy memory of my time with it. Is it ruined now or do I appreciate it more? We'll see.

Ps. I also recorded a gameplay video with my commentary while playing Uplink, but I don't know if that will ever become public. You'll just have to wait and see...