I finished up Beyond Good & Evil tonight by finally heading to the moon, after a last bit of shopping for some health replenishment items.
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I started off today’s Beyond Good & Evil session with some more collection of animal photos, cash, and pearls, including another Alpha Section storehouse where I found three pearls. I also found Looter Cavern 3, which was another obstacle course like the first, but much more annoying. There was one turn that I had a bit of trouble with and missed the last door as a result, about four times in a row. And then when I finally completed it, the game crashed. Fortunately I was able to do it again the first time after reloading.

I did the third hovercraft race and took the partly-blocked exit in order to get in to the slaughterhouse, and the first part of it was a whole bunch of hovercraft obstacle courses, including evading various attacks from a giant robot and dodging or triggering mines with metal crates.

The main part of the slaughterhouse was split into three different parts that I could do in any order, each of which resulted in a photograph of how the kidnapped citizens were being loaded into unmarked shuttles and sent to the moon. There wasn’t much combat here, it was primarily sneaking around, avoiding guards, and triggering the right switches and doors. Luckily, I managed to avoid an infamous bug in this area that makes it impossible to proceed any further.

Upon returning to the resistance HQ, I was introduced to the governor that had been helping us with breaking door codes, and a radio call suddenly came in from Pey’j. It was revealed that he was also the secret leader of the resistance, and it was a surprise to everyone since they had been working in anonymous cells.

The governor gave me a key which opened up another Alpha Section storehouse area, which consisted entirely of sneaking around a fairly densely guarded area, and resulted in another 10 pearls. I was discovered by the leader of the Alpha Section at the end, and it kicked off a fairly cinematic escape sequence, with me controlling Jade as she ran like crazy, jumping from rooftop to rooftop and around tight corners while blaster fire was nipping at her heels, before being rescued by Double-H after one last, big leap.

I also went back to the lighthouse and discovered that it had been destroyed and the kids had been kidnapped, leading to the requisite emotional scene and stirring speech by Double-H, and a bit of combat with some flying Alpha Section troops that I had to knock down with the disc launcher. I also unlocked the area leading to the Beluga, Pey’j’s space ship, using the codes that turned out to be printed on the bottom of Pey’j’s jet shoes that I had picked up earlier.

After fixing up the Beluga, I could then fly up to the volcano treasure on the north side of the map, and got 15 more pearls in the cave there. With those, I had enough pearls to buy the space engine needed to get to the moon, and no longer need any more, thank goodness. I’m not sure I could do the final looter’s cavern, fourth hovercraft race, or the shuffleboard game again…

And then to close out the day, I briefly popped into space to take the last animal photo, completing the collection. All I got for it was a disc that I can use to view the pictures I took again, though.

Back in Beyond Good & Evil, I proceeded to the upper halls of the factory, where it turned primarily into a stealth mission. The stealth system isn’t too complex or precise; I could kick a guard in the back, have him see me running away, and then 30 seconds later he’d declare that it must have been a false alarm… But, it works well enough.

I investigated an area with conveyer belts carrying boxes, and an x-ray machine revealed that there were people inside. On the way out of there, Pey’j got captured by the guards. He had given me a disc that talked about a spaceship hidden away at the lighthouse that he had been working on, and a bit more about Jade’s childhood (he was raising her after losing her parents, somehow), but I still need some codes to get to the ship.

I met Double-H again, and we helped each other out a few times as we snuck around, and it was mainly just a matter of not getting caught until reaching the final room, where there was a boss fight. It was another fairly easy one though, as Double-H and I just had to hit the legs simultaneously to knock it down and then fire a disc at the inner chamber to damage it while it was down. I wasn’t able to catch Pey’j in time though, and he got loaded into a crate and sent off to the old slaughterhouses.

I then had to escort Double-H back to the resistance hideout within a time limit, but that was easy enough. After that I earned some more pearls by doing another hovercraft race, beating a shark-guy in some kind of shuffleboard game (which was really frustrating since it felt like it depended too much on luck, and took a good half-dozen tries), and by infiltrating an Alpha Sections warehouse in the city.

I had more than enough pearls now and bought the jump kit for the hovercraft, which it was implied will be necessary for getting into the slaughterhouse, as part of an off-course excursion during the third hovercraft race, and that’s where I left off for now.

I did a bit more shopping in Beyond Good & Evil, including getting a Neutralizing Cannon, since it’s about the only thing that costs pearls that I can afford right now. I found an area in the city with a bunch of conveyer belts and force fields, but not much came of it aside from earning a pearl. I also found a place called the Vorax Lair, where there were a couple simple puzzles and a monster carrying another pearl.

After that I finally headed to the factory, using the Neutralizing Cannon to get rid of the guard robot that had prevented the hovercraft from approaching it before. I’ll have to remember to go back and use it on them in a few other places, too. In the factory, the main goal is to photograph a few specific areas, but so far I’ve found a ranged weapon, rescued a resistance agent named Double-H, and fought a boss monster called a Reaper. It was a fairly easy fight though, since as long as I was ready to nail it with the ranged weapon as soon as he finished leaping around, he never got a chance to counterattack.

I then got the main elevator working, so I can head to the upper floors, but that’ll wait for tomorrow.

I spent a bit of time just exploring around in Beyond Good & Evil, but the area I can roam in is limited by barriers at the moment. I still managed to photograph a few more animals, found some ‘cash’ in crates, won a hovercraft race, and found a ‘looter cavern’ where I had to pursue a thief’s hovercraft through an obstacle course, winning some more cash and a pearl at the end.

After that I went to the bar to meet with the resistance guy, who challenged me to a game of Three Coconut Monty, and gave me a room key for winning. In there, I found the resistance HQ, where they explained about how people are being kidnapped by the Alpha Section agents and sent through a factory, slaughterhouse, and then off to the moon, and they want me to help investigate what’s actually happening to the people.

So, next I’m supposed to be off to the factory, but I also got a city pass that opens up a few new areas. I stopped in a shop and bought a few more health upgrades for myself and the hovercraft, and I’ll have to do a bit more exploring.

Next up will be Beyond Good & Evil, a game that I started playing on the PS2, but repurchased for the PC when it came out on Steam recently (I hadn’t gotten very far anyway). It took a bit of experimenting to get it to run well on Vista, but it seems to be stable now. (For anyone else having similar troubles, the trick is to turn off “HW Vertex Processing” in the config program.)

It’s an action-adventure in the Zelda vein, where you play a female photojournalist named Jade on an alien planet, getting caught up in some kind of conspiracy about the aggressive DomZ that are constantly attacking the planet, and the Alpha Section troops that are protecting the population from them. Or are they… A resistance group seems to think something fishy’s going on. It’s a colourful world, both literally in the fairly bright colour schemes all over the place and in the various characters around, like Pey’j, the gruff pig-guy assistant of yours, or the Jamaican-sounding rhino-like black market parts dealers.

I’ve played the first ‘dungeon’ so far, and although there was some combat, it’s mostly exploration, puzzle-solving, and photography. Yes, your career as a photojournalist does really matter, and taking pictures of the various animal species, including a lot that are off the beaten path or in the middle of attacking you, can net a lot of cash and bonus equipment. You can also capture maps with it, and I’m sure there will be other uses later on. Pey’j also follows you around and helps out in combat and in some of the puzzles.

There’s also an open world element to it, where you can just roam around the world in your hovercraft. It’s not exactly GTA-ish in its breadth or size, but next up I’ll probably do a bit of exploration and see if I can find any interesting secrets or more animals to photograph before continuing on with the story.

The only annoying things so far are some interface quirks, like how it asks what language you want every single time you start it (what, in case I suddenly go multilingual between sessions?), and how the default controls are split up so that you have to use the keyboard to move the menu cursor and the mouse button to select, not just one or the other.