Virtual Bargain Bin: Beyond Good & Evil

Posted Oct 17th 2008 4:00PM by David Craddock
Filed under: Features, Action, Adventure, Opinion

Congratulations, soldier: you've survived another week. It's Friday afternoon, and instead of going out partying with your friends, you're anxious to get home, sit down at your computer, and play some new games. Sounds fun! Too bad you're broke. Lucky for you, PC gaming has an impressive library of classic games that are available online for cheap. Hang out with us every Friday so we can take you on a guided tour of some of the greatest bargains available throughout the many tubes of the Internet.

Welcome Big Download's Virtual Bargain Bin, the cure for your weekend gaming woes. This week's classic: Beyond Good & Evil.

Beyond Good & Evil
Price: $9.99
Availability: Steam

Some of the industry's hottest franchises such as Resident Evil strive to evolve with each new iteration, to stay relevant in an era of motion control, pretty graphics, and promises from every publisher that their development studios are working on the Next Big Thing. Upon release, Beyond Good & Evil was set to compete against some of the best games ever released. The PS2, GameCube, and Xbox were all going strong, and the PC, despite eulogies delivered by many developers eager to write games for the lucrative console market, has never hurt for compelling software.

Beyond Good & Evil was something new, and to those who played it, it wasn't beyond evil -- it was beyond good, period. Female protagonist Jade made for an unorthodox lead character, one who armed herself with wits and a camera rather than brute force and guns or a big sword.

Admittedly, Jade does wield a staff, but you know the old saying: walk softly and carry a big stick. Gamers who were looking for something beyond typical action fare found an adventure reliant upon stealth, brains, and yes, plenty of combat.

The semi-recent announcement of Beyond Good & Evil 2 makes now the perfect time to experience Jade's debut adventure. Will BG&E become another soulless franchise dependent on regurgitation instead of originality? Unfortunately, that's always a possibility. But no matter the hitherto unknown fate of the anticipated sequel, the original will always stand as a shining example of creativity in a rather bland video gaming world.

Tags: beyond-good-and-evil, beyond-good-and-evil-2, featured, joystiqfeatures, virtual-bargain-bin

1 Comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

But its only available in the US. I'd have bought it off steam years ago if it was available over here...

Anyone know if its on any download sites that work outside the US?

(legal ones of course... though its frustrating that the publishers make it impossible to buy it, but i know its 3 clicks away...) sigh. Posted at 1:21AM on Oct 20th 2008 by t_m

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