Slashdot Mirror
Why Beyond Good and Evil Tanked
Via Joystiq, a post on the JumpButton blog talking with a PR manager at Ubisoft about the title Beyond Good and Evil. Despite critical acclaim and crackerjack gameplay, the title just didn't do very well commercially. The rep explains why it did so badly in the stores, and what that means for future quality game titles. From the article: "When BG&E was released in 2003, it was competing against some of the strongest franchises in gaming. Like a weak wolf cub in a litter, it was forced to fight its siblings for attention and nurturing. Strong brands such as Tom Clancy and the reinvented Prince of Persia were the favourite sons that year. While XIII, a stylish FPS based on an obscure Belgian graphic novel, almost suffered a similar fate to BG&E, but sales in European territories still managed to qualify that game for Sony's best-seller Platinum label. It was only late in the piece that IGN.com managed to arm us with a majestic and summarizing quote for the difficult BG&E: 'Zelda for grown-ups.'"
The quality of the game isn't that bad, the graphics were nice, sounds as well.
Sturdy gameplay, but too much competition.
I did hate the dutch localised version though, but I hate all dubs.
This is the sig that says NI (again)
haven't played the game, but saw the trailer for the game with my prince of persia game and i can tell you it looked boring as anything, was quite surprised that it was actually critically acclaimed from the article, perhaps most of the audience was put off by the trailer like i was.
After hearing a lot of critical praise for BG&E, including from people I used to work with in the games magazine business, I decided to pick up the GC version (second-hand) and give it a try.
I'd heard it was something to do with a photojournalist fighting a conspiracy in a sci-fi/fantasy world, so that aspect of the game was expected. What I didn't expect was the heroine's sidekick to be a talking cartoon pig, along with a host of other characters who looked like refugees from Banjo-Kazooie. Kind of a 'WTF?' moment that threw me out of the game to begin with. And I bet I wasn't the only one.
I got past it, though, and started to enjoy the game as it opened up. Unfortunately, then my GC's memory card crapped out on me and lost my saved game, and I just couldn't face playing through the whole thing again. So I guess I'll never know how the story turned out. Shame.
You must think in Russian.
...until I got stuck by one of the game's several game-destroying bugs and couldn't get any further. After that I was afraid to play it again in case it happened again.
Or maybe the game just didn't have what it takes?
I enjoyed the beginning of th game. It was interesting, it had a story, it had talking animals... But after a while, there were fewer talking animals, the story got down to heroine-against-the-evil-corporation cliche crap, and it had pretty standard gameplay.
Trying to take pics of all the diff bugs/animals was amusing, but I doubt people cared.
And so I stopped playing about halfway through. I read the plot outline later and it didn't get any better. It apparently even had the standard evil corp moon base or something. -yawn-
So in the end, it wasn't competition that killed it, but general lack of excellence and innovation.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
XIII is one of the most known and appreciated "graphic novel" in Europe. In the US they have comics, in Europe we have graphic novels. XIII has sold hundreds of thousands of copies. It's been adapted in a TV show, not to mention the game. It's been translated to 5 languages other than the original french version.
I find it ironic that a game designer claiming his game didn't do well because it compete with high-profile franchises don't know the slightest about an other video game from the same publisher that suffered exactly the same fate than his.
As subject says. It was a good game, but a bit too short, and definitely too girly (for mainstream).
Having said that, I stayed up for 3 nights in a row and finished it faster than most games I've played - it was definitely fun, quite playable, and i liked the slight quirkyness, but i'm probably not your average player.
_
\\/ are accustomed' - First Lensman
I bought the game (for PC) when it was discounted in the sale, as I'd heard it was meant to be quite good.
I enjoyed playing it, and have recomended it to friends. It was a nice change to play something that wasn't yet another FPS/RTS/whatever that was just the same as all the rest.
About the only bad thing I would say is that it did get a bit too easy towards the end.
I always assumed it didn't do too well because people looked at it and thought, "What? I'm a photographer? and I take pictures of things? F%$& that." without bothering to try it out.
Or to put it another way (too long for the slashdot subject header) each individual part of the game was great on its own, but when added together somehow came up with something less than the sum of it's parts.
Now, don't get me wrong. I certainly think it's a great game, and I'm glad I played it, and I would certainly recommend it on story, dialogue, voice work, and cinematic craft alone. It's polished well beyond most games, and while I've heard of bugs on the GameCube version, I didn't experience any going through it myself. However, all that polish couldn't hide the gaping holes that were found, mostly in the "free roaming world" portion. While it seems big enough when you're only using the little hovercraft to shuttle around in, once you upgrade to the flying machine, the limitations become very obvious. It only took some 20 seconds to fly across the entire available "massive world". There was only a single area that was unreachable without the flying machine, and 99% of the locations you could get to were pointless to explore, because they looked crappy to fly near and were ridiculously out of scale. I realize there are limitations on space in the console universe, but when everything is was obviously slashed to fit, it just felt like I was let down. If they had created a bigger Hillys than the one we're given to tool around in, with more extra stuff to do, then I think it would really have lived up to it's potential, but sadly it's just not the case.