Liam Dynes

Though I’m sure I could disseminate this particular piece of information to the entirety of the people in my life who I know would care by turning my head and opening my mouth, I feel the need to spread it electronically, because it’s pretty cool.

Beyond Good And Evil has a sequel!

This particular piece of gaming delight was a game that absolutely no one but Beth and I (and a few game journalists who all bestowed it with ‘best game no one played’ awards) played. Vaguely Zelda/Metroid/adventurish (Ed. note: Beth is right, Half-Life 2-lite is a much more apt comparison — see comments), but starring a green-haired, sexy photojournalist dame on an alien world where animals could talk and evil alien robot hybrids were out to enslave everyone. You kicked ass with a bowstaff and took pictures of exotic animals for extra credit. The end credits featured a killer cliffhang moment that screamed sequel, but with sales figures that I could probably count on one hand, that sequel looked unlikely.

Guess I have to give Ubisoft more credit than I thought. They knew they had a great franchise, by a pretty good designer, and with the laudits the original got, plus the shifting of franchises such as this over from the Nintendos and Sonys, Xbox could be a great home to get adventure games played by a wider audience. I look very much forward to searching the game for the last animal to photograph for precious Xbox achievements.

Damn, who’da thought a couple years ago that I’d be pimping a Microsoft console over my beloved Nintendo for great adventure games. I guess after seeing shovelware take over the Wii for more than 18 months, I’m just happy to have more games I’m actually looking forward to playing.

Now all I need is a sequel to Psychonauts, or Grim Fandango or Monkey Island, and I’ll be a forever happy boy — Tim Schafer and Double Fine, I’m looking in your direction. Though I suppose this will do in the meantime. Barely.