{"id":279,"date":"2008-12-29T12:00:42","date_gmt":"2008-12-29T18:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lungfishopolis.com\/?p=279"},"modified":"2008-12-13T13:28:50","modified_gmt":"2008-12-13T19:28:50","slug":"bge2-thoughts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greghowley.com\/lungfish\/2008\/12\/bge2-thoughts\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on Beyond Good and Evil 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

$\"\"$ <\/p>\n

When Michel Ancel announced that he was working on a sequel to what may be my favorite game of all time, I was ecstatic. But upon seeing the hyperrealistic look of the teaser trailer<\/a>, I became a bit uncertain. This game might have been a better fit for the Wii than for the XBox 360 and Playstation 3. But I’ve already touched on my thoughts on photorealism in games<\/a>, and now I’d like to discuss my feelings about Beyond Good and Evil 2 specifically.<\/p>\n

I acknowledge that there’s a very real possibility that this game will fall drastically short of my very high expectations, especially given the fact that Ubisoft has announced its intent to make the sequel easier in an attempt to appeal to more casual gamers<\/a>. My fear is that in doing this they’ll lose the core gamer crowd, and not actually pick up as many of the casual gamers as they want. Beyond Good and Evil was a fantastic game, and the demographic for any sequel should be those people who were fans of the original. If Ubisoft abandons the factors that made Beyond Good and Evil great, they might as well start up a new IP.<\/p>\n

Beyond Good and Evil was originally intended to be the first in a trilogy of games. Hopefully that can continue – I’d love to see a continuation and conclusion to the story, as long as it’s done right<\/em>. That’s the key.<\/p>\n

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To me, the number one thing that the sequel needs if it’s going to be a suitable match to its laudable predecessor is good storytelling. I look forward to intrigue. Likewise, the story needs scenes that make you fall in love with the characters, and it needs characters that you can love. A big part of this is the voice acting, and so I strongly believe that Beyond Good and Evil 2 needs to hire the same voice actors who performed in the original – at the very least, Jade and Pey’j, although it would be nice to have Secundo the hologram back.<\/p>\n

I also think that the story should remain linear. Games that are strongly focused on story don’t usually have branching plots. Consider games like Syberia, Planescape: Torment, and Metal Gear Solid. They have excellent plots that wouldn’t work nearly as well if the storyline branched. Games like Knights of the Old Republic and Fallout had branches, and they both had good story. It’s just that I don’t think that style would work as well with a game like Beyond Good and Evil 2, which I’m hoping has a plot similar in tone to the first.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite parts of Beyond Good and Evil was the stealth gameplay. To me, this is core. If they make the sequel without including well-designed stealth gameplay, I’m out. Similarly, Jade is a photographer, and I’d like to see more of the camera-based quests and sidequests. With luck, there will be new additions to this mechanic that make it even better.<\/p>\n

The original Beyond Good and Evil had cinematics the likes of which I’ve not seen outside of a God of War<\/em> game. During certain scenes, the camera would be fixed. Sometimes from directly above, and once during a chase scene, you even ended up running directly towards<\/em> the camera. And it worked. If Beyond Good and Evil 2 goes for techniques like this, it will only do the game credit.<\/p>\n

I don’t doubt that if they’re shooting for a casual market, Beyond Good and Evil 2 will include a number of minigames, preferably ones better than the original’s simple shell game. I just hope that these don’t come at the cost of all the game’s other side missions. I loved tracking down every pearl hidden away in remote caves, photographing every animal, winning the game’s hovercraft races, and as much as I cursed those damned looter caves, I enjoyed those too. Rather than omitting all difficulty from the game in hopes of reaching a more casual audience, perhaps the game’s most difficult parts can be purely optional, such that you can complete the game without having passed the more difficult missions. That was the case in the original, and as much as I agree that overly difficult games are more of a problem than games that are too easy nowadays, I still hope that Beyond Good and Evil 2 isn’t too much of a cakewalk.<\/p>\n

I’ve heard that Christophe Heral will be back to write the new game’s musical score, which is good news. I have the original game’s soundtrack<\/a> on my mp3 player. I think I’ll listen to it right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"