Your Hot Cup of Rant

Consider this: historically speaking, if a video game/franchise has the capability to “matter” beyond its period of release, it will generally fall into one of five distinct categories:

1.) It will be hailed as a historically significant achievement purely based on how good/pervasive it was (Half-Life, Pokemon, Tetris),

2.) It will be recognized as something that was special at the time but has since fallen into “overrated” status because it has not held up (Donkey Kong Country, Final Fantasy VII according to some),

3.) It will be recognized as something that, while it didn’t turn many heads at the time, has since progressed into something loved by the niche gamer for what it did, either in terms of gameplay or artistic vision (REZ, Suikoden II),

4.) It will be forever remembered for being an abomination of God and man (Superman 64, Bubsy 3D, 75% of the Jaguar library), or

5.) It will be hailed as an unappreciated gem of its time that was scored well, that people will forever hope will generate a sequel at some point in the future because of how awesome the original was, even if no one played it (Panzer Dragoon Saga, Earthbound, Valkyrie Profile).

You will note that I bolded the last entry. There is a reason for this.

The game media, as a collective whole, is hated by many for many different reasons. Some hate them because they are inherently corrupt at their very core (I’m looking at you, Dave; I liked you when you were E-Storm, but Play Magazine scores almost every game on Earth as 90% and you need to stop that). Some hate them because the vast majority of people within it are, well, dicks (*cough1UP.comhack*). Some hate them because they shit on games that really don’t deserve it for no really obvious reason (I have no specific example to offer here, but you’ve probably seen it before).

I hate them because they are single-mindedly intent upon turning Beyond Good and Evil into a #5.

So, yes, I’m flogging a dead horse. To whit:

“So, yeah, seeing the same game pop up A MONTH LATER as a “missed gem”, once again, rubs me the wrong way. Stepping over a pile of dog loaf does not a “missed gem” make. It’s $10 used; if people aren’t buying it now, they’re not GOING to. You can walk into your local EBGames and count the used copies of the damn thing in the store on BOTH HANDS. People have played it, hated it, and deemed it insufficiently worthy of keeping. There’s a reason for this: THE GAME IS LAME. SHUT UP ABOUT IT ALREADY.” - Me, Playing the Lame vol. 6, in relation to “Beyond Good and Evil”, 02/23/06.

Now, here’s the thing: go to your local magazine shop and look through a mag, or if it’s shrink-wrapped, buy it and take it home. Thumb through it. Odds are one in five you will see BG&E SOMEWHERE in the magazine. I swear this to you, because I have seen it, and it is horrible. It’s like these people, somehow, have come to some sort of universal mental conclusion that if they shill this game enough, that people will accept it when, years later, they try to induct this into the public lexicon of games that are “deserving of ‘iconic’ status”, despite its being unworthy of such a lofty goal. Now, I get it when fans of the game express their love:

“They (Ubisoft) better get to making Beyond Good and Evil 2.” - random poster on Gamespot.com, saying this presumably because he’s looking forward to watching another mediocre game crash and burn under the weight of all its hype and unreasonably and inexplicably high scores.

because, I mean, they’re fans. Of COURSE they love it. They are not (presumably) paid shills, and they do not have something better to do with their lives. They can comment that they love a game, and that’s really about all of the thought that needs to go into the situation.

The game media, on the other hand, have no such excuses.

“Question 10: Have you ever played Beyond Good and Evil?

A.) Yes, that game rules!

B.) No. I have shamed myself, my father and my father’s father.

Correct answer: A.” - Game Informer, thus taking their status as “a magazine no one would read if Gamestop didn’t give it away for free” and wearing it as a badge of honor, July of ‘07.

“Yet another amazing vision of design, Beyond Good & Evil is an original property designed by Michel Ancel, creator of Rayman, and lead player in such titles as King Kong, and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Beyond Good & Evil is a total sleeper classic offering gameplay strikingly similar to Zelda, but in a world (and design) all its own. Shortly after its initial release, the game dropped to $10 and then slowly began to rise again once production went up. This is one of those games players will forget to grab, and then make a mad rush for on E-bay years later. Why not pick it up now, enjoy the hell out of it, and then mock those who didn’t later? Sounds good to us! Beyond Good & Evil is, without a doubt, one of the best games on GameCube.

Other games influenced by Beyond Good & Evil: None specifically. BG&E takes heavy influence from the Legend of Zelda series.” - IGN, documenting why BG&E is one of the greatest games ever for the Gamecube, 03/07.

“Unusual, quirky and endearing, Ubisoft’s Beyond Good and Evil is familiar in some respects, but entirely different than any other action-adventure game. Like any developer intent on creating a 3D adventure title, Michel Ancel and his team in Montpellier, France, borrowed liberally from the book of Zelda. Only Beyond Good and Evil is really one of the first “activist” games, starring Jade, a woman of color photographer, as the lead character.

The story is well told, the graphics are artfully handled, and the sound is outstanding. The narrative is unique to gaming. Jade is recruited to help IRIS, an underground organization working to prove that the Alpha Sections are not at all what they seem, to expose a massive conspiracy. She and IRIS try to counter the Alpha Sections’s propaganda, spread by a corrupt media, by disseminating evidence of the truth. Her handy camera grabs photos, naturally, but also scans data that uncovers information relevant to the story, a central part of the game’s attraction. The charmingly gruff Pey’j, a half-human, half-pig works in tandem with Jade to solve problems and defeat bosses and becomes one of the most endearing characters in the game. How? Through carefully handled dialogue and smart editing. The use of logic and physical puzzles and a nice range of vehicles round out the game, which is presented and told with craft and skill.” - IGN, documenting why BG&E is one of the greatest games ever for the Xbox, because jerking off on the game once just wasn’t enough, 03/07.

Understand this: BG&E is not Suikoden 2. It is not Valkyrie Profile. It is not Panzer Dragoon Saga, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, or any one of a million other games no one loved except for the hardcore.

There are a million copies of BG&E available for retail purchase. You can walk into any store that sells used video games and buy a copy. You could probably buy two or three. You can find multiple copies on Ebay that cost about one half to one quarter of what something like REZ costs. Okami is of greater value because, even though it is fundamentally ALSO a Zelda rip-off (something NO ONE can deny, as the bolding above notes) it is a BETTER Zelda ripoff that ALSO sold poorly, and there are LESS copies of Okami then there are BG&E. You could probably build a house out of all of the copies of BG&E that exist in the US at this point. It was a huge release with a huge marketing campaign behind it, and it failed miserably. It was NOT a ‘niche’ title, it was MAINSTREAM. And it was a MAINSTREAM FLOP.

Alright, look: let’s take some of this shit and look it over for a second:

“Yet another amazing vision of design, Beyond Good & Evil is an original property”? Ripping off Zelda is not “original”. Okay? Okami is KIND OF original, purely through its presentation and artistic style; BG&E rips its visual style from Don Bluth and its gameplay from Ocarina of Time and Metal Gear Solid. Fuck, let’s spell this out: it’s The Mark of Kri with a less interesting control scheme and no blood.

“Shortly after its initial release, the game dropped to $10 and then slowly began to rise again once production went up.” You can get it used for $8 from EBGames.com. That’s not “rising” by any mathematically accurate definition I’ve ever heard.

“This is one of those games players will forget to grab, and then make a mad rush for on E-bay years later.” No, not really; the print run on the title was astronomical. Only games that have small print runs tend to be worth anything substantial. This is why REZ is worth $50, Gitaroo Man was at one point worth as much as $100 (no, I swear), and Disgaea averages for around $50 or more: low print runs combined with fan interest equals high prices. No one is going to be flipping out trying to buy a Zelda knock-off that had a humongous print run; you’re more likely to see Psychonauts or Okami or Godhand fetching $50 on Ebay than BG&E.

“Why not pick it up now, enjoy the hell out of it, and then mock those who didn’t later? Sounds good to us! Beyond Good & Evil is, without a doubt, one of the best games on GameCube.” Considering in the entirety of the entry, you failed to point out one single reason why anyone would want to own the goddamn thing, I rather doubt this.

“Other games influenced by Beyond Good & Evil: None specifically. BG&E takes heavy influence from the Legend of Zelda series.“ And yet Zelda as a franchise makes shitloads of money and this does not. Anyone wonder why that is?

“Unusual, quirky and endearing, Ubisoft’s Beyond Good and Evil is familiar in some respects, but entirely different than any other action-adventure game.” People who make $50K a year to write this bullshit should be acquainted enough with the English language to know that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS DIFFERENT FUCKING THAN. IT IS DIFFERENT FUCKING FROM.

Also, Jamaican Rhinos are not “quirky and endearing”. There is no purpose to a Jamaican subculture in a universe that IS NOT OURS. Imaginary universes have IMAGINARY cultures, not the same ones, okay? This is why Star Wars and Star Trek, bad as they CAN be, are millions of years ahead of Michel motherfucking Ancel. If you cannot be bothered to spend an hour thinking up ORIGINAL concepts for your talking animals, why should we care about the product? Fuck you.

“Only Beyond Good and Evil is really one of the first “activist” games, starring Jade, a woman of color photographer, as the lead character.” This sentence is confusing for two reasons. First, what does “woman of color” mean in context? Does is mean she is a woman of color? Because she looks pretty white to me. Look:

At best, she’s Asian. Like, Korean or something. That’s not exactly “of color”. Alternatively, it’s meant to say “a woman color photographer”, which is equally stupid, so I’m going to have to assume that the cockmongers at IGN apparently believe that Jade is, in fact, a proud representation of some race that most likely does not, in fact, exist in the game universe. Very confusing. And second, “activist” games? Who really wanted to play video games based on being an activist of ANYTHING? Was there this massive outcry for activist games in the bowels of Gamefaqs that I was unaware of? How is this a positive fucking selling point? IT’S ZELDA. THAT’S IT. This “activist” bullshit is meant to convey additional “pretend importance” upon a product that IS STILL FUCKING ZELDA.

“The narrative is unique to gaming. Jade is recruited to help IRIS, an underground organization working to prove that the Alpha Sections are not at all what they seem, to expose a massive conspiracy.” Um, dude, Deus Ex. Perhaps you’ve heard of it; the sequel came out AT THE SAME TIME AS THIS FUCKING GAME.

“Her handy camera grabs photos, naturally, but also scans data that uncovers information relevant to the story, a central part of the game’s attraction.” Um, dude, Metroid Prime. Came out a year before BG&E, honest. I swear.

“The use of logic and physical puzzles and a nice range of vehicles round out the game, which is presented and told with craft and skill.” First, “logic and physical puzzles” are not new. 7th Guest, Myst, et cetera. Second, the game is physically appealing, aurally pleasant, and plays okay, absolutely.

But the plot is only “well crafted” if one has never seen a Pixar film in their lives and does not regularly read books that are above a fifth grade reading level. The gameplay is unique and unusual only if one has not, in fact, played a video game in the past, oh, decade. Beyond Good and Evil is, at BEST, “above average”, and at worst, “a cheap rehash of other, better games”.

Please, stop this. There are THOUSANDS of better games to spend your time felating. Many of them have come out in the past two or three years, even. Michel Ancel will forever have a job and does not need you crying to the heavens to support him in his ventures, okay? He helped create Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. He will forever have a job SOMEWHERE until he becomes the next Peter Moleyneux, only less interesting. Clover Studios, meanwhile, have been dissolved, as have Black Isle Studios and Ion Storm, among others. UbiSoft is not going to follow them into oblivion, so please, do us and everyone else a favor and shut up about Beyond Good and Fucking Evil. Mainstream failures created by high profile companies do not need your support when the little guys are sleeping in the streets fighting over crumbs.

And if UbiSoft does somehow go under, good. Fuck them. That shitty TMNT game they made was a billion times worse than any of the Konami ones.

And in conclusion, the world needs an enema.