Xbox Live Recommendation Of The Week: Beyond Good And Evil HD

This game developed by Ubisoft and Rayman creator Michael Ancel may have not been successful during its initial release, but it won many awards and has been voted in many lists as one of the greatest games ever created. Now available in digitally remastered, High Definition format.

A combination of action-adventure, puzzle solving, and “stealth gaming”, this “noughties” classic centers around Jade, a photographer and journalist who becomes caught in an intergalactic conspiracy and must uncover the truth to save her world... The plot is intriguing, the characters are likeable and fun, and the world itself is large, and beautiful.

There are many mini-games to play including racing and of course there is the ongoing task of trying to capture every animal species on the planet on camera inside this impressively large game, which equals to lots of hours of varied gameplay. Achievement hunters will find some of the tasks quite difficult to complete, but once you complete them, you know that score is really earned.

The graphics have been impressively reproduced from the original, it is almost exactly the same, simply with more clarity. Characters and locations are now smooth rather than pixelised and even the soundtrack has been re-recorded rather than re-mastered, so fans of the original should be very, very pleased with this new version.

A comparison of the visuals for the original (below) and the HD remastered edition (above).

This is a critically acclaimed, multi award winning and award nominated game that went mostly unnoticed back then, but with a long overdue sequel currently in development (watch the teaser trailer above) for the next generation of consoles (Playstation 4, Wii-U and the successor to the Xbox 360), now is a good time to try the original game and see what all the fuss is about. And, with a "12+" rating, this is an action adventure that is suitable for almost the whole family to enjoy.

The game is available to download for trial or purchase from the Xbox website or from the Games Marketplace on your Dashboard for 800 MSP. Alternatively, Ubisoft have released a 'Beyond Good & Evil HD Collection' on disc featuring this game and two others which RRPs at around £20 but you can usually pick it up for £10.