Zone of the Enders

"Falls way short of expectations"

The first time I ever heard of Zone of the Enders was when I was reading a Metal Gear Solid 2 article. When I read that a MGS2 demo was going to be included with the game, my interest was spiked. I didn't want to spend $50 just for a demo, so I started looking into ZOE. When I saw that it was made by the same guy who made the Metal Gear games, I was getting pretty excited. I thought that ZOE would be another great game that could provide as much excitement as the Metal Gear games. Then when I started hearing that it could be the most impressive PS2 game yet, I made up my mind. I was going to buy the game not just for the MGS2 demo, but also for the game itself. And so I did.
ZOE is set in the near future where humans no longer live on just the earth. now, the entire solar system has been populated. So that's going to be the solution to the population explosion. Anyway, the hero of the game is a young 13 or 14 year old kid named Leo. He is a civilian living in a space station just outside of Jupiter. One day, suddenly a number of giant mechs attack the place in search of some item. Leo sees his friends get killed, but is too terrified to do anything. As he tries to escape, he accidentaly stumbles upon a mech called Jehuty, which is apparently what the attackers were looking for. He is asked by a mysterious person to return the Jehuty where it belongs and he eventually agrees.
At first glance, ZOE looks very impressive. With beautiful graphics and fast action sequences, I though at first that the game could live up to the expectations. But, eventually I realized that this was just a side project that Hideo Kojima decided to do while taking a break from Metal Gear.
The first thing that turned me off about this game is that the main character is a 13 year old kid. I hate having to assume the role of a kid, especially in an action game. No offense to all the 13 and 14 year olds out there, but kids that age aren't supposed to be able to instantly control a futuristic war machine the first time they see it. Also, in the opening video, they show him to be a terrified and vulnerable little kid who is really frightened by the mechs. But within 5 minutes of sitting in the mech, he is able to control it perfectly and he even loses all his fear and starts playing a superhero by going from town to town and rescuing civilians. It just doesn't sit well with me.
But thats not even the main reason why I don't like this game. The story is boring and uninteresting. Most of the time I didn't know what was going on and I didn't really care. Most of the missions were pretty boring and very repititve too. They usually involved going to different places and fighting other mechs and the occassional boss and recovering an item. Even though the fight scenes are pretty good, the repitive missions didn't keep me interested too long. On top of that I had to keep hearing the on board computer repeating instructions to me.
The fight sequences in ZOE are pretty well done. Even though, you don't have many moves at your disposal, they are quite fun. The control is pretty smooth and moving throughout the 3D world is pretty easy. however, the lack of variations eventually takes its toll. Almost all the fights can be one using the same one or two moves. Even though its fun for a while, it gets boring soon.
Overall, ZOE ends up being a victim of its own expectations. Besides its not good when the thing you get free with an item is more interesting than the actual item.

Graphics: 10.
The best part about the game is its graphics. Everything is very beautiful and the animations are superb. There is no slowdown even when there are multiple enemies on the screen.

Sound: 5.
The voice acting is pretty bad and the fact that you have to keep hearing a whiny kid's voice all the time makes it worse. It is just annoying to hear a kid trying to sound tough.

Gameplay: 6.
Even though the contols are pretty good, there is not enough variation to keep it interesting. you do get a bunch of weapons, but usually using the normal attacks is more than enough.

Replay Value: 5.
The game is pretty short. There are supposed to be multiple endings, but I didn't bother to see them all. Also, you can unlock a multiplayer mode where you can fight one on one against a friend. Its okay.

Overall: 6.
If it was a game not made by Hideo Kojima, maybe the expectations would have been lower. But, due to the high expectations and the fact that it is still a mediocre game, it recieves a low score.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 03/29/01, Updated 03/29/01