Kotaku highlight an interesting video, discovered from French site Eversonic. It’s what appears to be concept footage from Beyond Good & Evil 2. It’s obviously hard to be sure, but it certainly looks like Jade, and matches the style of the screenshots and video we’ve seen before. Even the music is right. If this concept is anything like how the game is going to look and play, then crikey, there’s even more reasons to look forward to it. A lot appears to be inspired by Mirror’s Edge movement, and you could argue quite extensively that it runs like an ME mod. Well, see what you make of it – it’s below.
Thanks to The Poisoned Sponge for the tip.
Related Stories:
Random thought, likely of no interest to anyone:
I wonder if they’ll be using the lovely Assassin’s Creed engine.
elmuerte: Well, it’s a sequel – they’re no Schafer when it comes to commitment to originality. I do hope that it’s a bit more different that that short clip showed, as hiding from bullets in foreignland is something that we see in a lot of games. Plus, goatpeople and walruspeople are sadly lacking from modern India.
Doesn’t look very BG&E-ish to me.
Looks wonderful. And for the sceptics: if this is BG&E2, it’t won’t all be as hectic as this. There will be sneaking, adventuring, hovercraft races and photography. It wouldn’t be Beyond Good and Evil without those.
Crimson Skies had planes with props on the back too and nobody complained about that!
Well, why should we.:)
As for this footage. It looks lovely. As others have mentioned, a slightly more cartoony look would be welcome, but in the end it still looks to be enough in the vein of the first game, as far as I’m concerned.
So, Beyond Assassins & Princes? :P It seems like Ubisoft are forcing another game into its parkour wannabe gamestyle. This may work, but I’m not holding my breath (mainly due to my distaste for AssCreed and PoP). Also, if this is ingame… horrible camera!
azwipe said:
Um, look again? The props were facing up as it was hovering and turned to face forward as it started to zoom away. There was nothing inconsistent going on.
There have been several real life planes with props on the back, as well as props in the front and back.
There’s some similar concept work for the last Prince of Persia game here (skip to 2:20 and then compare to actual gameplay). I guess the Ubisoft art department just has a thing for impressive but unplayable concepts.
“Uhh, what happened to the BG&E universe? Guns? All Humans? Photorealism? Bad.Bad.Bad.
Don’t change it Ubisoft :[”
Exactly. Yeah that video looks nice and all – but that’s no BGE. If that’s really what they’re aiming for, they completely missed the point. It’s not supposed to be a 3rd person action game. It’s an adventure.
Yes there’s pusher planes, it’s just that in the video the rotors would’ve had to reverse their spin to start forward flight. It was pushing air down to hover, but when the engines flipped it would’ve been pushing air forward and thus pushing the craft backwards. They rotors don’t appear to stop or sputter or anything to suggest they changed rotation during the transition.
But yeah they’re just trying to be alien and different for the sake of it. Why someone would even need a craft that switches from VTOL to forward flight in a city is suspect, the only advantage is increased range and possibly speed, and the design drawbacks are many. But maybe it’s carrier-based or.. yeah I’m overthinking this, massively.
It’s okay John, I read what you’re saying.
Aso: Flippin’ crikey.
just got the hype itch for the first time in a long time
Wowww, I loved the style there. Hopefully it’ll be sort of like Final Fantasy XII’s integration of lots of different species within a city. I loved all the shouting voices in the trailer, and motions made it feel very, very kinetic. The bit where she barged into the house was lovely too, although I doubt they can make the AI that great in the real game.
Still, colour me interested.
Maybe the reason the video shows nothing but humans is a plot point… Racism and segregation making it into BG&E2? Given the themes of the original that’s not too far a leap.
@Stromko Or maybe it needs to land on and island… possibly one with a lighthouse on it?
People, the thing is 1 minute long and runs at a crazed pace. You can’t decide based on that glimpse alone that the entire city, of which we know nothing, is not multi-racial enough for BG&E.
I think you missed the point. ;)
The first game had plenty of action sequences too. But because we’ve now seen one such sequence from the sequel, you assume that the entire game is one long actioney chase scene?
And it’s funny, I think it looked very much like BG&E. Less exaggerated of course, closer to realism, but still stylized, and still far from “real”. It looks pretty much like I’d want or expect BG&E2 to look given the more powerful computers available today. I think for once, they actually got it right. The graphics capture the essence of BG&E, without trying to stick by the first game’s graphics. Perhaps the overly cartoony look of the first game was just a way to work around the graphical limitations of the time. And of course, remember that this is just one action sequence in one location. It may not exactly be representative of the art style in the game as a whole.
As for the all humans bit, how sure are we even of this? The faces weren’t exactly clear. Perhaps these are just human-shaped? The original game had plenty of animals with basically human bodies, after all. Alternatively, it could be a plot point, as suggested above.
I’m with jalf on the art direction front. Deffo looks how they would have intended it to if they had the same technology all those years ago.
Erm. If those were pusher props, then sure it could have moved forward.
Now ask yourself how it could have hovered if that were the case.
Someone’s been watching Banlieue 13!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTyWfbvX0xQ
Rather than all the comparisons above, this world reminded me more of the down to earth scifi of Cowboy Bebop or Firefly.
Which I think is a good thing.
This is simply amazing, the action, the setting, the style, everthing is awesome.
Go Michel Ancel!!!
Could it not be Mirror’s Edge 2?
It looks (and sounds) like Jade, she’s even dressed seemingly just like in the teaser trailer, and the music seems very BG&E’ey.
And I doubt they’d change the visual style that much from ME to ME2. It looks pretty bg&e’ey to me, and *nothing* like Mirror’s Edge’s visuals.
But yeah, it *could* be.
It’s awesome. It is a departure from the original game, but imagine a full town like this. This could be epic :P
I think it’s excellent, and agree with Ashurbanipal’s point about it being either a plot point or merely anthropomorphism in body shape that makes the NPCs you’re flying past all look human. Alternatively, it could just be that it’s a PROOF OF CONCEPT video and, thus, they didn’t want to waste resources modeling a bunch of intricate animal models that wouldn’t have looked good on the first go-round anyway.
Still excited.
Still not too keen on the more realistic bent the game has taken, but I’m still hopeful for a fun game and more Rastafarian rip-off merchant Rhinomen.
@ Stromko: It seems rather silly to nit-pick over the wee tilt-rotor craft when its design as a whole doesn’t strike me as being remotely feasible.
With regards to the rotor tilting into a pusher configuration, it’s possible you could cope with that by reversing the prop pitch rather than the prop-shaft rotation. But then selecting an aerofoil for such a task would be a right bastard and you’ve also got the problem of the rotor producing negative lift during the final stages of transistion (which in reality requires the tilt-rotor to have some forward speed, unless you want to transition while diving).
that is definitely looking like assassin’s creed, especially when she was crawling up the building, had the exact same type of overhangs
In any case, even if the rotors did work, there’s no way that a rhino or pig, animals without opposable thumbs or a basic understanding of heavy machinery, could ever fix one of them. The whole game is just a sham.
When one could argue that the whole of Assassin’s Creed AND Mirror’s Edge evolved from the two or three “flee” moments from the first Beyond Good & Evil, this is just the natural progression. And I LIKE it. Cinematic but with a feel of control.
It really looks like a reskinned Assassins Creed. With helicopters.
Yeah, I’m not sure they are all human characters. The guy on the toilet for example, or a cop right after that (the helmet is a bit too oval for human, might be a pig head in there)
Fairy nuff.
Looks fantastic. Now, if they can apply that same technical genius to apply an inverted y axis then I’ll laughing, although obviously I still won’t be able to play the original… Pah.
Wow. That looks like Mirror’s Edge. I wonder if it’s real gameplay or just a trailer.
: D
Sorry, John – couldn’t resist it…
@ Mr Gap Generator: I draw your attention to Exhibit A: This example of Rhinoceros Sapiens is quite clearly holding a hose, ergo it must be utilising an opposable thumb.
Witness also Exhibit B: This inscrutable specimen of Sus Sapiens is quite clearly grasping his Space Taco (colloquially known as a ‘Starkos’) with a third opposable digit.
Or yeah, what I should have typed was that it’s pointless nit-picking the tilt-rotor because the universe is clearly a tad fantastical (see also Space Whales).
Were the words to Akuda House Propoganda (The song in the bar) ever determined to be a real language, a made-up language, or simple gibberish?
Reply to Finch
Well Slaughter House Blues was a wee bit like a Mexican on amphetamines stuck in a bin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufLA8ZqjeeQ
What now for Man Raised By Puffins, who misses my irony?
Well, it looks great and exciting and everything, but what I really liked about BG&E was the art style and the world. I’m not against it being less cartoony, but I really hope they aren’t ditching all the wackiness and certainly not the whalrus-sapiens!
that looked more like assassins creed than mirrors edge to me.
“Actually, if this is prerendered its very badly done.
Theres a alot of repeated animation (running into the wall on the stairs, clambering onto the ledges) ”
Really? The problem I see with most target gameplay videos is how over-reaching they are. When animations repeat (as they might as part of an animation state machine), that’s a good thing. It’s the special cases and one-offs which terrify me in terms of implementation, because they always feel so tacked on and inconsistent as far as mechanics go.
@ Gap Gen: Hush you! ¬_¬
Actually, I re-read that and I think there might be some kind of fractal irony in there. I won’t anger Professor Bee any further.
Looked like an Assassin’s Creed/Mirror’s Edge mashup. If you can’t come up with something fresh, mix a whole bunch of other shit together.
Also, yeah definitely did look like a pre-visualization rather than gameplay. Similar to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfur9D7loeQ
*Sigh* If only Dawn of War 2 did look like how it was envisioned.
The way she jumps seems closer to the Hulk than Mirror’s Edge. The movement looks to have a lovely sense of weight and momentum to it. You can bust into toilet cubicals. There’s nothing in this footage I don’t love.
Seeing this inspired me to start replaying the original this weekend. A weekend well wasted ;)
Unspired? ;)
I want to play the first game but I can’t on my vista machine……….. so annoying…… is it a long game? is it worth dual booting XP?