2014 Game Completed Comics, #25 – Beyond Good & Evil HD

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Every videogame that I complete in 2014 will now get its very own wee comic here on Grinding Down. It’s about time I fused my art with my unprofessional games journalism. I can’t guarantee that these comics will be funny or even attempt to be funny. Or look the same from one to another. Some might even aim for thoughtfulness. Comics are a versatile form, so expect the unexpected.

Removed two more games from my Xbox 360

The title of this post says it all: Beyond Good and Evil HD and Torchlight got removed from my Xbox 360’s hard-drive space to help make room for future games and content I’ve already paid for, such as the remainder of Telltale’s second season of The Walking Dead, if they ever get around to releasing another episode. I think I ended up freeing around 2 GB of space, but I plan to tackle some more arcade titles I have sitting untouched for awhile to see if I can polish them off enough for me to consider to removable. Previously, I polished off Shadow Complex and then immediately uninstalled it. We can all blame this on my neurotic nature to use every oodle of storage space I have to its full potential.

For Torchlight, though I had long beaten the game back in 2011, I was sitting pretty at 11 out of 12 Achievements. The last one to unlock was called “Superstar” and requires you to “achieve maximum fame.” You mostly earn fame by defeating unique enemies in dungeons, and you can always tell these apart from regular grunts because they have names like Moggath the Dragonkicker and Sh’gorl the Darkstink. In short, you probably need to kill around 200+ unique monsters to hit this target, and my saved game showed that I had only killed, at that point, around 125. And so I grinded, which was not the most exciting task, but it was mindless enough, and I had plenty of potions and healing spells to keep me going. Only took a few hours of going at it and ignoring picking up new weapons, enchanting gear, and worrying about what skills to enhance and so on.

This also served to remind me that Torchlight II is much better than Torchlight, especially because I built a range character there with the ability to create random chaos whenever making a critical hit. It was much more taxing to grind as a melee character for the “Superstar” Achievement because it meant getting in close and taking more HP hits. Though I do like the idea of these “clicky” action RPGs on consoles; maybe I should look into Diablo III one of these days.

Next, I moved on to Beyond Good & Evil HD. Now, I played and completed the original Beyond Good & Evil on the PlayStation 2 a long time ago; in fact, it’s one of the first games I wrote about back when I got into writing about entertainment media on the side, over at my stupidly named Blogger site Game Beliefs. In 2011, a Cyber Monday sale for XBLA had the HD version of the game priced at $3.00, and I happily paid for it a second time, fondly remembering how many photos of strange wildlife I snapped during Jade’s journey to stop the DomZ from stealing away the inhabitants of Hillys. I played a little bit of the game then, and then nearly finished the whole thing a second time in June 2012 when I was permanently stuck on the couch for an entire weekend with really bad back pain. I got all the way to the end section and…well, just stopped. Not really sure why, but I guess my back got better and I was so excited to leave the couch that I just dropped everything off my plate and went elsewhere.

Anyways, the last section of Beyond Good & Evil HD basically involves some “reflect this light properly to open the door” puzzles, a spat or two of direct combat, some flying-but-on-rails ship battle, and a surprisingly difficult final boss. I don’t remember the final fight being so difficult last time, but I suspect the fact that I went into the fight with only a small number of health-healing items played a major part in its difficulty. Without spoiling what happens, the controls for Jade during combat get reversed, and you basically have a split second to hit the boss and/or dodge out of the way, and the reversed controls take some time to get used to. Took me several attempts, but I did it; I saved Hillys all over again. I missed unlocking four Achievements, but they didn’t seem like any fun–more grinding, and not in a do-able, mindless way–so I just watched the credits, appreciated the soundtrack once more, and removed the game entirely. Oh well. Bring on Beyond Good & Evil 2; that was a joke, by the way. That game is never becoming a real thing.

So that’s three games now played and polished off enough for me to feel okay with uninstalling and never looking back. I’ve got more to go after, but for now I at least have enough room for the next episode of The Walking Dead, which I think drops sometime in March. Whew.

Men in distress, and the women who save them

Have y’all been keeping up with Anita Sarkeesian’s Damsel in Distress video series, which “explores how the damsel in distress became one of the most widely used gendered clichés in the history of gaming and why the trope has been core to the popularization and development of the medium itself.” The second episode was just released yesterday, and it covers violence against women in videogames within the previously mentioned trope. Sarkeesian’s analysis is very interesting and well-executed (save for one moment where she breaks professionalism for a snarky jab of Bionic Commando‘s main dude’s arm), but be warned, there are graphic scenes of violence against women used throughout, and spoilers are an unconcerned thing of the past, for games both new (Pandora’s Tower) and old (Breath of Fire IV).

I do hope that Sarkeesian eventually examines that games that do–or try to–steer away from the blatant damsel in distress trope, whether successfully or not. I agree fully with her point that you can like and love something immensely while at the same time also be critical of its problematic parts. Heck, take Fallout: New Vegas, a game that literally freezes or glitches out every time I play it, but I just enjoy the world so much that I keep coming back. That said, I also think there is something beneficial to be gained from praising the games that try to go a different route.

Before we get going, let me come clean. I am a writer and an artist, a creator if you will, and some of my previously published work might possibly have hints of the damsel in distress. I say hints as I don’t believe I have it exactly on the nose, often using the trope as a base and then spinning it so that the damsel ends up saving herself. Most importantly is The Stolen Lovelight, a short graphic novel that I wrote and my wife Tara Abbamondi drew. It is about a young woman named Arisia Randir who is trapped in a terrible relationship. With seemingly no way out, she ends up paying for her own kidnapping. Men and men-like things will try to save her from further trouble, but she’d rather handle things on her own and find a new place to call home. And that’s my pitch, I guess.

Originally, I tried to come up with some kind of cute, whimsical title to counter the whole damsel in distress thing (like Distressed Dudes), but my short analysis is better served with a straightforward approach, and so listed below are a few videogames that I’m aware of where you play as a woman, and you’re off to rescue a man…a man in distress.

Beyond Good & Evil

One of the earlier missions in Beyond Good & Evil has green-lipped, photo-snapping Jade sneaking into a DomZ facility to rescue Double H, a heavily built IRIS operative who has been kidnapped and tortured to the point of incompetence. His physical appearance against Jade is striking, what with him fully decked out in a knight’s suit of armor. I suspect that Michel Ancel was having some fun here, as now you are the knight in metaphorically shining armor in this scenario, plucking him from harm’s way to get him on your team. Later on, Pey’j, the father figure in Jade’s life, also gets kidnapped, giving you a reason to fly to the moon.

Primal

Man, I really love Primal, and yet it’s a game I’ve never completed. Grrr. It’s on my wishlist for 2013, but we’re almost halfway through the year, and I’ve made zero progress on putting the game’s disc in my PlayStation 2. Granted, I am working on Chrono Cross at the moment, so there’s at least that. Anyways, in Primal, you play as Jennifer Tate, a 21-year-old woman who has to travel through various demonic realms to retrieve her stolen boyfriend. Lewis is in a band, but a bunch of demons believe that they need him to…uh, create chaos. So he is abducted, and Jen is hospitalized. A tiny gargoyle helps her on her path to saving her boyfriend and, ultimately, the world.

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest

Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest has the evil pirate Kaptain K. Rool nabbing the titular hero of the first game. You know who I speak of. Turns out, despite being a crocodile, he really loves his fruit, and won’t hand Donkey Kong back over unless Diddy returns his previously stolen hoard of bananas. More importantly, you can play as Dixie Kong, Diddy’s girlfriend, who can use her ponytail as both a weapon and way to glide across large gaps.

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I know it’s only three examples, but those are all I can think of at the moment where the man is in distress, and you play as the woman (er, female monkey in Dixie’s case) rescuing him.

Can y’all think of any others? Inform me in the comments section below.

Achievements of the Week – The Gambling Rear Entry Escape Edition

Weed, soup, faux air hockey, and Zombine attacks. That about sums up my week on the Xbox 360, but for further clarification, let’s take a look at some Achievements that popped. I’m getting close to 30,000 Gamerscore, which is exciting to nobody but me, and that means I will have to try really hard to get it to land on 30,000 exactly for blogging purposes. You may all start waiting in anticipation starting…now!

Okay, let’s do this.

From L.A. Noire…

So, back duringthose tempting Black Friday sales, I purchased some Microsoft Points and downloaded the remaining two DLC cases I’ve yet to play so far for L.A. Noire. Namely, they are Reefer Madness and A Slip of the Tongue. As always, they were enjoyable and strongly plotted, but far too short again. I finished both in one sitting. I guess, ultimately, this is the type of game I just want more, more, and more of. Sigh…

Femme Imbécile (20G): Correctly branch every question in the interview with Jean Archer.

On my first try, too, without even knowing this Achievement existed! Love that.

Forcible Rear Entry (20G): Enter the Las Palmas stash house via the back door and kill Juan Garcia Cruz.

NO COMMENT.

Soup in the Pot (20G): Open both soup cans in Juan Garcia Cruz’s stash room.

My OCD to check everything lead to this popping. Mental sickness for the win!

From Beyond Good & Evil HD…

Gamble King 2 (15G): Win 3 times in the pellet game against Francis

I think I built this minigame in my mind to be tougher than it actually was. Haven’t played it in so long, and I do remember a lot of grumbling at one point. From me, that is. Francis was loving winning all of Jade’s money back then. But beating Francis three times in 2011 did not take long, just persistence and a keen awareness of where all the pellets are at any given time. Will need to play again later though to win his pearl, but that’s for later.

From Half-Life 2: Episode One…

After Half-Life 2 glitched out on me and ruined all my progress, I said “frak it” to no one in particular and moved on to the next game in the series, which is more of a bite-size experience, but still fun since the gravity gun mechanics remain pivotal to surviving.

Citizen Escort (15G): Don’t let any citizens die when escorting them to the escape train.

Only had to reload a few times due to this one silly citizen constantly getting stuck on a ladder and getting a chest full of bullets for it. Silly citizens.

Escape from City 17 (20G): Escape City 17 with Alyx.

On to Half-Life 2: Episode Two…soonish! I swears it.

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How did y’all do this week? If you don’t tell me in the comments section below, I’ll never know.

To infinity and Beyond Good & Evil HD once again

Beyond Good & Evil was one of the first videogames I wrote about publicly during my first attempt at videogame journalism. That was…about four years ago. And the game itself came out in late 2003. So, like eight years later, thanks to a crazy good Cyber Monday sale, I happily tossed down $3.00 for Beyond Good & Evil HD, which is the same game that I played on the PlayStation 2 back in 2007, but now with a shiny coating of high definition. To me, it kinda looks the same, but that’s probably because I don’t have an HD TV and therefore can’t pinpoint the differences.

Well, there is Achievements now. Here’s the two I’ve popped so far:

Hovercraft (5G): Power up the hovercraft

Gamble King 1 (5G): Win 3 times in the coconut shell game against Peepers

I kind of forgot how much I loved this game. I love the short musical cues that play when you enter the lighthouse or when you discover a new item; I love how Latino AI Segundo pronounces Jade’s name as Yade; I love collecting photos of strange Hillys wildlife and earning money for them; I love getting emails on the fly; I love the Star Wars vibe that a culture of homo sapiens, rhino people, and sharkfaces can live in mutual harmony; I love the give-and-take relationship that is Jade and Pey’j. I love lots here.

That said, some parts haven’t aged well–such as mouth movements not being synched to spoken dialogue–but it’s easy to overlook this kind of stuff when the game is so welcoming and enchanting. It starts fast, and really doesn’t slow down unless you want it to. There’s races to win, looters to chase down, photos to take, and security buildings to infiltrate. I paused last night before starting the mission to rescue Double H and find out what went wrong on his last mission for the IRIS Network. That starts the sneaking stuff, which is a blast, but Tara and I had to give LEGO Harry Potter, Years 5-7 some attention for a bit. To further hit home how much I love me some Beyond Good & Evil, I was wishing the entire time LEGO Mr. Weasley and LEGO Tonks were putting out LEGO fire that I was back on Hillys, snapping photos and skipping across glimmering water.

However, I’m not looking forward to winning the pellet game against Francis for his Pearl. Not one bit.

But yeah, $3.00 for a game I already own and paid over $20.00 on years ago…yeah, it’s love. Shame on you if you didn’t pick this up on Cyber Monday. Shame, shame, shame.

Beyond Good & Evil 2 rumored to be canceled

Rumors are spreading across the Interwebz that Michel Ancel, the man behind Beyond Good and Evil 2, left Ubisoft along with a “star developer” to form another studio in France. This would mean that the game is either in a state of purgatory or most likely canceled. Which, either way, is a shame.

Beyond Good and Evil is one of the few games I reviewed a long time back on my first attempt at a videogame blog. It’s one of those rare cases where a seriously great game went unnoticed. Thankfully, it built up a solid cult following, slowly turning that unnoticed into noticed, and a sequel was announced with the above screenshot to wet our collective snouts. You can’t not love that piggy uncle.

Under The Bad section of my review of the first game, I wrote this:

The game’s ending leaves things open for a possible sequel. Why is this in The Bad? Because a sequel will never happen. Not now, not tomorrow, not ever. And that’s just sad.

I seriously hope BG&E2 is not canned because the first game had so many wonderfully implemented features that they would only naturally get better as the game jumped to current consoles. Photographing, boat racing, action adventure, sneaking around, betrayal, cool characters, and more. Still, Beyond Good and Evil was a retail failure, and I’m sure there’s a lot of reluctancy floating around the project, but still…I want it. And I think a good number of other gamers do too.