Ubisoft Announces Beyond Good & Evil 2

Gamespot is one of many to report that Ubisoft has announced a sequel to their action-adventure game "Beyond Good & Evil." "The teaser gave no details as to platforms or release date. However, as part of the company's earnings report last week, Ubisoft did say that it had a pair of unannounced sequels in existing franchises set for release by the end of March. Released in November of 2003, Beyond Good & Evil won critical acclaim for its mix of traditional action adventure elements with stealth segments, a picture-taking gameplay mechanic, and an engaging story of a young woman pulled into a rebel faction to blow the lid off of an interstellar government conspiracy. "

The original rocks

[hansamurai]

Honestly, Beyond Good and Evil is a great game. I'm really excited for the game even if the trailer makes things a little too realistic looking. The original seemed to have a few more filters running through it giving it a unique look, but of course this is an early video of the game. As long as the story continues from the last game's cliffhanger, I'll be happy.

I can't see any obvious links to the trailer on Gamespot's website, so here's a link to it:

http://kotaku.com/5011404/ubisoft-officially-announces-beyond-good--evil-2 [kotaku.com]

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[Bieeanda]

As long as the last phase of the final fight isn't a clumsy quicktime event, I'll be happy.

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[blofeld9999]

I agree. If you like Zelda type games, and are looking for something different than the usual shooter or sports game - definitely try out the original on the PS2/NGC/XBox. More stealth, not as much combat - but beautiful environments and level design. Too bad the game took less than 10 hours to complete.

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[Dachannien]

There was also a PC port. It's not being published anymore, but GameTap is currently carrying it for subscribers.

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[sseaman]

It's also available on Steam.

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[SanityInAnarchy]

The PC port was hilarious at times -- I think it didn't quite always grasp CPU scaling. It'd detect the CPU speed as being slow, then it'd start actually using CPU, so the CPU would clock up -- and the game would be insanely fast.

Still, very good game.

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[Rastignac]

The PC version can still be found at a very low cost (at least in France).

The only problem with the PC version is the lack of joystick/joypad support ! The console version came first, but they totally remove the joy inputs for the PC port (why ?). What a mistake ! With a good joypad, the game is far more playable...

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[Vectronic]

"Too bad the game took less than 10 hours to complete."

Well first of all, I havent played it...

But is it re-playable? I finished SOFII in a few hours, but in the last 8 years or whatever, I have re-played it probably 20 times... (and far more in multiplayer) same goes for the original Half-Life...

And stuff like FarCry, there's a couple levels I can play over and over again... however, im somewhat of a perfectionist, which is why I generally stick to racing games.

Personally I think a game that has a high rep

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[Chris Burke]

But is it re-playable? I finished SOFII in a few hours, but in the last 8 years or whatever, I have re-played it probably 20 times... (and far more in multiplayer) same goes for the original Half-Life...

Well, I think it's pretty replayable, but that's me. If you have replayed Ocarina of Time, or any other Zelda game, I think you would easily find this one replayable. On the other hand, it's not that hard to beat it 100% getting all the secrets and collectibles and what not the first time. So if that's wh

Especially since

[Sycraft-fu]

Long games are often long by virtue of having you do a lot of boring shit, like retrace the same level over and over. It's expensive and time consuming to really do things well and thus the games often aren't as long as you'd like, especially since you are having fun. Call of Duty 4 is a great example. The quality is just top notch. The levels are extremely varied both in terms of different settings and in terms of the level itself. Well, this costs a lot more to develop than a bunch of samey semi-dark tunn

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[hansamurai]

Personally, I've owned it for years and never replayed it after I beat it the first time. It's tough to say if that's because it doesn't have replayability or that I just like to move from game to game. It's great fun though and I'll probably play it again before the next one comes out.

I actually like short games, I'm pretty much sick of RPGs that take forever. I used to be able to play them, in high school and even a bit in college, but life has interfered too much now.

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[KDR_11k]

I'd rather look into Okami, BG&E wasn't much like Zelda (especially due to the large amount of stealth, way too much for my liking and sometimes it wasn't even possible to snipe the guards).

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[sqlrob]

Considering that the screenshot I saw shows a bandage on his hand, it probably does follow the story.

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[hiryuu]

As long as the story continues from the last game's cliffhanger, I'll be happy.

Agreed - I really liked the first one, saw the cliffhanger, and found myself particularly concerned that it was going to be left out there to dry with no continuation. (In a similar previous situation, the first Drakan [wikipedia.org] game, released on PC, ended with something of a cliffhanger; the semi-sequel on PlayStation2 didn't really address what happened after the first game.)

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[newsdee]

I didn't feel it was a cliffhanger more than a rushed ending. It was a really nice ride until the very last level where suddenly a lot happens without any previous hint to it. I loved the game, but I couldn't help feeling they could have done a better job if they took the time to expand the last half a bit more to allow for smoother storytelling.

To be fair though, it's not the first nor the last game that suffers from production pressures to get it out of the door. I rather get a game with gret start and a

Loved the first one

[Chris Burke]

The first game was awesome. It was in a great many ways a better Zelda than Zelda, in particular its contemporary Wind Waker. The different game play elements were all well done, none of them tedious or annoying. The 'dungeons' were more involved and tightly integrated than Zelda's, seeming to be more of a real place than just a series of rooms with puzzles in them. The story was, for this type of game at least, very good. The only knock against the game I can make is that it's fairly short, but there's a hidden point of praise in there: They didn't decide to jack up the hour count excessively, just allowing it to be a shorter game where you were having fun the whole time, rather than a fun game most of the time, with a long boring part right before the finale.

So, here's hoping the second one is as good as the first. I just, uh, hope there fly-snorting isn't a major game play mechanic.

Well, it looks like the IGN Wii guys were wrong.

[pizzach]

But regardless of that, I don't know if this was important enough news for slashdot. Street Fight was at least more relevent.

Hopefully ...

[cab15625]

Hopefully this doesn't go the way of Full Throttle II. I loved the first Beyond Good and Evil. I really hope the do a good job on the sequel and actually manage to get it released.

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[badboy_tw2002]

I saw FT II at E3 - trust me, you didn't want it to be released. Just pretend they never tried to make it and love the original.

Beyond Good & Evil 2?

[SpanishInquisition0]

I didn't know Nietzsche was planning to write a sequel.

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[chromatic]

He did it out of love.

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[maino82]

I hope it's better than "Thus Spake Zarathustra 2: The Autopsy."

Zarathustra: God is still dead! But we got the autopsy results back and unfortunately I misspoke before. He did not, in fact, die of pity for man. He was murdered!

Nietzsche totally sold out when he decided to bring in Angela Lansbury's character from "Murder, She Wrote" in to solve the murder.

Comics?

[denzacar]

Yeah, but comics and movies based on the original were at least somewhat entertaining.

Just because the last movie kinda flopped - that is no reason to write off such an iconic character.

Thus spoke Nietzsche...

[myowntrueself]

words that every male geek reading slashdot should read and absorb:

Man is, for woman, a means. The end is always a child.

This is inspiration to finish the first one...

[SwordFishData]

I just picked up the first one for the PS2 a few weeks ago, and it might not say much for my action-gaming skills that I'm at about 12 hours, and by my estimate I'm about 60% of the way through the game. This lack of skill might be why I normally lose interest in such games VERY quickly; BGaE has managed to hold my attention regardless. I'm really looking forward to the end of the first one, and the 2nd one!

I just finished Psychonauts

[denttford]

And was disappointed. Impossible camera angles with twitchy controls on a platformer != difficulty. That's just annoying. The meat circus (last level) was a joke of level design - blind platform jumping, but the the final battle was over in under two minutes. Throughout the game - which excels in character development, dialogue, and art (though the music and voices would grate at times) - I couldn't help but compare (unfavorably) it to BG&E. Needless to say, I'm looking foward to a sequel - but I hope the combat system is improved - I didn't like the "context" based access to the dai-jo (weapon) or the button mashing based fighting. I loved the non fighting aspects though, such as racing and photography. Hmm. I was about to delete Psychonauts; maybe I should dig but BG&E again. I hope I get more of the same from BG&E2, with a handful of improvements and a strong story. I'll be very happy with that.

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[demonlapin]

You know, I'm glad to see someone else bothered by that aspect of Psychonauts. It's a neat game, but modern games should never have a jump-miss-die-repeat play scheme, especially when the perspective keeps changing. It's difficult without being fun.

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[ShadowsHawk]

It bothered just about everyone. We just choose to overlook it since the rest of the game is fantastic.

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[HiVizDiver]

Yeah, I rate Psychonauts in my top 10 (probably top 5) of all time, and I've been playing games for 20 years. But the Meat Circus level? Peh. Thanks Tim, you jackass. ;-)

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[SanityInAnarchy]

I didn't like the "context" based access to the dai-jo (weapon)

Agreed. I like it in theory -- no reason to let me whack every wall pointlessly, looking for the one that's secretly fragile, or other equally pointless things. But it's annoying to have my stance alter suddenly because there's an enemy nearby, and it just feels wrong to not be able to swing it whenever I want.

or the button mashing based fighting.

That, I actually liked quite a lot, especially because there was so little fighting at all.

I would say, more of the same. No qualifiers -- the story was weird and felt like it had pieces missing, an

Wicked!

[Quiet_Desperation]

That game owned. And Jade had way much amounts of Teh Sexy.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v221/gameaholica/TGH/character%20article/JadeBeyondGoodandEvil.jpg [photobucket.com]

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[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Games need more of that kind of sexy and less of the Lara Croft kind of sexy.

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[Chris Burke]

Amen to that.

PS3 & 360

[TimboJones]

According to an interview with Michael Ansel [kotaku.com] BG&E2 will release on PS3 and XBox 360.

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[ShadowsHawk]

I will be very unhappy if that turns out to be true..

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[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

No PC? Bastards!