Metascore
87

Generally favorable reviews - based on 40 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 38 out of 40
  2. Negative: 0 out of 40
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  1. Edge Magazine
    70
    It's an 'experience' as much as a game, meaning that it will leave as many people cold as it grabs by the right half of the brain. Beyond good, then, but not quite excellent. [Christmas 2003, p.104]
  2. 70
    Some of the puzzles in BG&E will have you tearing your hair out, though their solutions are tangible and never obscure.

Awards & Rankings

19
50
#50 Most Discussed Xbox Game of 2003
16
#16 Most Shared Xbox Game of 2003
User Score
8.3

Generally favorable reviews- based on 32 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 32
  2. Negative: 3 out of 32
  1. MaricaR.
    Jan 28, 2006
    10
    One of the greatest games I ever played. Great experience. Real adventure, great plot, great involvement. Cool characters. Buy it, play it.
  2. Alx
    Nov 11, 2005
    10
    Dammmmmn this game kicked serious ass... make a sequel!
  3. Feb 10, 2018
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view. So back in 2012 we bought a refurbished XBOX and slowly been getting cheap console exclusives. In many cases cheaper than online distribution services and even when not I don't like everything tied to the internet. Anyway played and Almost (we'll get there) finished. Beyond Good and Evil and yeah I can see why it got a cult follow it's Wind Waker but in Space, seriously though the picture quest was much better integrated. And things where going good until the Slaughterhouse; Stealth Sections are cow poop. You do not have instant kills mazes + twitchy AI + non-linear progression. No joke I soft-locked my first play-though because you can in fact going into the section in the wrong order, which as a reminder has been fine for most of this game. So you have to go though the door that you cannot stealth because you where supposed to go the other way. What didn't you read the developers mind? oh well make a new save. My playtime was 2 hours and 10 up to that point, when I was finally done with the Slaughterhouse it was 7 hours 10 and the (almost) finally clock was 8 hours. I'm going to guess the Developer's did this to pad the run time because the developers couldn't release a game that was 4hrs long in 2003. The ending level was nice, cinematic and easy, For a moment I remembered why I liked this game, Then the Final stage of the Final Boss happened to throw it all away, becoming a trinity of pure bovine excrement.
    Visual information and reaction time slows, annoying but for the Final Boss fine.
    Reversing the controller inputs, personal pet peeve but fine.
    Have to do things in a rapid sequence or else it fails, actual not a pet peeve.
    All At Once, however is toxic so I watched the ending online. Yeah that ending no wonder this games got people still calling for a sequel to this day. So I'm going to complete the photo gallery from an earlier save, then I'm done. Final rating 6/10 stars the good parts are good but they are not the actual playing part of the game, which is serviceable at best. However the Beyond Good & Evil lives not in cut-scenes but in an audio sphere that makes this world feel alive, in a way that even most cinematic AAA game can't match today adding to peoples nostalgia.
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