Beyond Good and Evil

If you ever need an argument to reinforce the idea that games are art, the works of Michel Ancel are a pretty good place to start looking. One of the game industry's most recognizable developers, the energetic 39-year-old has been the driving force behind the quirky Rayman games, the stunning-for-its time adaptation of Peter Jackson's King Kong remake, and the subversive, critically acclaimed commercial failure Beyond Good & Evil. His latest creation, Rayman Origins, appears to fit neatly into Ancel's rebel oeuvre: it's unapologetically 2D, brilliantly animated, endearingly goofy and fun in an old-school, friends-on-the-couch way. In other words, potentially amazing, but something of a gamble at retail.

When we played Origins back in August, we had a rare opportunity to visit Ancel's Montpelier studio – and more importantly, to sit down with Ancel and his collaborator Gabrielle Shrager for a conversation about Rayman, Beyond Good & Evil (and its sequel), and Ancel's thoughts on the current state of the industry...

We started this week by counting down overlooked games, so why not close it out with one of the most criminally overlooked (and, later, almost impossible to avoid) games of the past decade? Beyond Good & Evil's dismal sales in late 2003 ensured it a top spot on every critic's list of must-play games that nobody did, and for good reason: it was an amazing production, with a deeply involving photojournalist-against-the-state plot and some of the best, most varied action-exploration gameplay this side of Zelda. It also had an incredible soundtrack, as today's selection capably demonstrates...

Pac-Man and Mario owned the 1980s. Sonic, Lara and Snake took over for the 1990s. Their games are considered classics. Their names are timeless and iconic. Their images are burned into the memory of every gamer, even those who were born after the characters themselves.

Now we have another ten years worth of heroes, villains, sidekicks and love interests to occupy our imagination. Which, however, will remain there?

The biggest news of the recent Ubidays 2008 press event held last week in Paris turned out to be a teaser trailer for the sequel to 2003’s Beyond Good & Evil. It’s safe to say that no one saw this coming. The original game tanked at the cash register in competition with familiar names and faces released at about the same time including Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, so