EOE: Eve of Extinction

"Great Bang For Buck Ratio"

I went into EB the other day looking for Vampire Nights, the one that actually included the Guncon. Too bad they were out of stock...or maybe it was a good thing. I browsed the shelves afterwards and the one thing that caught my eye was EoE, and for $29.99 of our worthless Canadian currency, I thought, ''Why the hell not?''

Why the hell not indeed. For three days I kicked some serious ass and solved some puzzles that would've stumped the greatest of minds...when they were three or so...but I'll get into that later...

Graphics - 9/10
The visuals are quite appealing. They're all the same throughout the game. The cut scenes use the same polygons as when you're kicking agent ass. Everything is neat and tidy and unless you're paying really close attention, you're not going to notice the jaggies. Some of the hair looks kinda 2D, but that isn't really a big problem. As long as they don't have seven foot spikes, it's all good with me. I didn't care much for the lack of blood, but then again, some people don't care much for the abundance of it. I would like to see some gore after hitting someone with a 200lbs axe though...

Audio - 9/10
Voice acting was done really well. The only thing I don't like about it was the fact that Josh says, ''Give me a break!'' way too much. I haven't noticed any lip sync problems, but that could be because I didn't pay a lot of attention to it. The battle sounds are great as well, weapons smacking into the skull of the opponent produce a satisfying sound depending on the weapon.

The music consists of several high pace tracks. Nothing really special, but done well nonetheless. I'll be searching for the soundtrack soon.

Story - 10/10
I don't want to spoil anything, but I really liked the story. Basically, you play Josh, a guy who got caught trying to escape from a company, Wisdom, after discovering it's clandestine plan to take over the world. Yeah, it's been done before, but then it gets more original.

Josh's girlfriend, Eliel was used to create a weapon called Legacy. This weapon can change shape depending on the weapon crystal inserted into it. Eliel's soul was used to make the weapon more powerful. She's still conscious and can still communicate with Josh (and offers many [annoying] hints during the course of the game) but she has no body. She can, however, create a hologram which she uses occasionally.

Josh hunts down Agla, the president of Wisdom to return Eliel to her body. The rest you'll have to find out when you play.

Gameplay - 10/10
There hasn't been a good beat 'em up since Devil May Cry of last year. Basically what you do is kick ass, but you can do it like a moron with a single weapon doing the same attacks over and over, or you can do it like a bad ass and combo your attacks with different weapons. My personal favorite is to open up with the sword and switch into the rod to finish them off, knocking them back and inflicting some nice damage.

There's also the ''action cut scenes'' to play around with. Basically, you watch a cut scene and push the button that appears on the screen to avoid damage. You can't die if you miss, but it's kinda hard to beat a boss when you're health is basically zero. For those of you that've played Die Hard: Arcade, this is the same system that's in there. Now there's a use for those DDR honed reflexes!

Replay Value - 9/10
You can go through the game again on a higher (or lower) difficulty level if you want. The level of your weapons from the previous game will be carried over, and you get a new kick ass weapon as well, but I'll let you find out what it is...or if you're lazy, just head over to the codes section, it's there.

Plus it's always fun to beat things senseless, so why the hell not?

Final Comments
Even if this game weren't dirt cheap, I still would've gotten it. It's a great game to let off some steam (GTA3 is still the best for that though) and Eliel is cool.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/06/02, Updated 10/06/02