My Childhood Videogame

“Expose the Conspiracy. Capture the Truth.
For centuries, the planet Hillys has been locked in conflict with a race of relentless alien invaders.
Wary of her government's promises to repel the aliens for good, a rebellious action reporter named Jade sets out to capture the truth behind the prolonged war.
Armed with her camera, dai-jo staff, and fierce determination, Jade soon finds herself inside the jaws of a horrific conspiracy, and face to face with an evil she cannot possibly fathom.
In a world where deception is the deadliest weapon of all, will Jade's discoveries be enough to free her people?”

The above text is a brief summary of the storyline of my favourite (under-rated)video game, ‘Beyond Good and Evil’ by Ubisoft. BG&E is an action-adventure game that was available on Play Station 2, PC, Game Cube and the original Xbox formats. I myself played the game on an Xbox. Back then, video games were still being developed for the Xbox format. Nowadays, considering very few people have an Xbox console, no game companies are willing to develop a game for it, which I accept, as the company does have to make some sort of profit. It is very disappointing though.

I first bought the game about five years ago, but when I first played the game I actually didn’t like it. Well, I guess I wasn’t giving the game a fair chance when I think about it now. I just gave up when I got stuck and impatient. Although, my opinion of this fabulous game was about to dramatically change.

My friend came to my house one afternoon and we both decided to play videogames. We played a couple on my Xbox, but she kept on wanting to try ‘Beyond Good and Evil’. So I gave in and popped in the disk. From the very beginning of the game, my friend was intrigued, and when we put both our heads together, we were able to get further. I discovered that day that in BG&E the main character, Jade was capable of using a camera to take pictures and she could fight badass; you could drive a hovercraft all over Hillys (the planet) and we managed to get ourselves half-way into our first mission.

That’s all it took to get me hooked. I was driven by the storyline, the graphics were fantastic and characters were absolutely lovable. Especially Jade. She had this really attractive simplicity about her and a tomboyish appearance with feminine charm. Her personality was beautiful to. She was ambitious, brave, confident, yet sensitive and very caring.

The missions caused you to explore, use logic and the game really packed a punch in my emotions with the plot. The music? My God, the music was exceptional! You grew to love the characters and just have fun. Two friends and I played that game. They both bought it and we played it to the very end. Thus, BG&E has a very sentimental value to all three of us, and I go so far as to say it’s part of my childhood. Without my friends in the equation, it wouldn’t have been the same.

Beyond Good and Evil website:
http://www.beyondgoodevil.com/us/main.php