EOE: Eve of Extinction

"The Epitome of Mediocrity, but still better than some"

I’ll make one thing pretty clear. This game can be fun. In fact, it is quite fun in some areas, but the fact still stands that it trips and falls on its face with alarming frequency. It sometimes tries too hard to be versatile and complex, and other times doesn’t try hard enough. You could either have a fair amount of fun with this game, or just be completely bored and annoyed by it. Hopefully, this review will assist you in determining which of those two categories this game falls into for you.

First and foremost, this isn’t really an action game. All the levels save the first couple are pretty linear, and even in the expansive earlier levels there is very little to do in any place the game does not intend for you to go. It also doesn’t feel very much like an action game. The first level takes place in a large city, and aside from you and the enemies no one is there. It feels very devoid and empty; very much suffering from Fighting Force syndrome. Speaking of Fighting Force, the sound and general atmosphere aren’t too different between these games. This works pretty well as a 3D Beat ‘em up type of game in that regard. You really do little aside from running around and beating the snot out of whoever you happen to run into. Completely and utterly void of character interaction, it is. You can also collect little data disks and such that add to the story, but those are more like easter eggs that were thrown in at the last minute. They aren’t important to completing the game at all. This game is also quite short, and I doubt it will take any skilled player longer than a few hours to beat. The only thing that doesn’t make it a flat out Beat ‘em up is the variance in environment that demand for experimentation with your weapons in order to progress further. That will be discussed more in depth later on with the control system, however.

The game design is bland and looks rather amateur throughout the entire ordeal. The main character is very plain and uninteresting to behold, almost every single grunt enemy looks like an Agent Smith rip off save a few unique ones, and the scenery is very much a mixed bag. For instance, the environment is very well done in a level featuring a rocky canyon within a large forested area, but other places are just exorbitantly mundane. The insides of buildings are gray, gray, and more gray. Perhaps with an occasional painting on the wall or a potted plant, but that is it. And you will have to go through many buildings throughout the game and almost all of them will feel like the same place. The city level is just as plain and uninteresting to behold. Indeed, sometimes it seems like the only burst of color on the screen at all comes from the glow of the legacy weapons you employ the use of.

On top of that, the ho hum textures are amplified by the not-so-smooth, jagged graphics used on Josh and some of the landscape. It looks rather artificial and makes the game that much less engrossing. Even the menus are quite blah, featuring a dark beige, gray, and black. It also takes quite a while for the menu to load, which can be a bit annoying.

Overall this game’s aesthetics are prosaic at best.

Then comes the sound. Nothing sounds terribly interesting either. The voice acting comes across as either robotic or muffled. Also, in the few sparse samples of voice acting used it is often some drab old one liner. I think I remember once counting the main character saying “Gimme a break…” in his obnoxious nasally voice at least eight times throughout the brevity of the game. The music does nothing to support the atmosphere and feels like filler. You hardly even notice it is there except for the combat music that starts up whenever you get within a certain proximity of an enemy, which will likely get on your nerves. Then, the sound effects are little more than muffled hits, light thuds, and the bizarre clacking the main character’s shoes make as he runs. Some of the legacy drives have nice sound effects, but that is the only exception.

The overall sound is barely par.

If there is anything interesting, it is the artillery you are equipped with. You have a single small cylindrical tube that can be utilized to form energy beams/structures in the shapes of various weapons, with more weapon programs being able to be learned as you progress through the game. These include but are not limited to a sword, a staff, a bow, and a giant ax. Each weapon possesses its own strengths and weaknesses, but the move set is small and uninteresting. Just a series of hits that chain off of the weak hit button and a single attack from the strong hit button. You can command the legacy weapon to switch to different forms in the middle of the weak chains, resulting in a different ending blow or in increased speed for the end of your combo, but even that has a not limited usage and more often than not the results are lackluster at best and never spectacular.

Each weapon also has its own special function. One of the most useful ones in the staff’s ability to allow to jump higher in a vaulting sort of manner. There are many areas of the game where you simply can’t advance unless you employ it, however, and due to the linear nature of the game it doesn’t really allow for extra exploring. It just forces the use of it on you. Then, for the other weapons like the sword, all you do is a quick back flip in the air while standing in place. What the hell is that for? I’ve found no real use for it inside or outside of combat; it doesn’t even work very well as a means to avoiding enemy attacks (assuming that is its function).

Then, we have legacy drives. They are the most powerful techniques in the game and act like magic, draining from a specific meter that you allocate power from in order to use the drives. However, the game will demand you to use these often in order to unlock paths and you may often find that in actual combat you never have the energy you need to perform them since you couldn’t advance any farther without using it to activate some door. Even then I wouldn’t recommend using them in combat, as they require you to perform a directional input that is quite sensitive to error. It also usually leaves you open for attack if you screw up. Not too mention that most of the enemies you encounter will not present you with enough of a challenge that you will need to use them any ways.

To top it all off, the enemy AI is incredibly bad. Most enemies will not see you until you are virtually on top of them. The ones with guns can’t even shout straight most of the time, and even if they do the bullets travel through the air so slowly that you ought not have trouble dodging them any ways. The bosses can be annoying since almost all of them are programmed to attempt to mash you into some sort of trap and then pummel you to death with strong attacks, but once you figure out how to get out of the trap it is almost impossible for them to hurt you and you may mash their brains in with ease. General strategy overall is not necessary. You also need not worry about death. This is one of those games where you get unlimited continues. You may continue to play until you get frustrated, which likely won’t happen since you may die three times at most; likely none at all. You can even save part of the way through and return to it later. However, this game is so much like a Beat ‘em up that you may never need to use the save feature and just mope on through the game within the very same day. The game also hosts an event feature where if you have good timing and hit an assigned button at the right moment in time, you can avoid an explosion/attack of some sort and thus avoid damage. However, these button assignments never change, and so on the second play through (if you even bother) you ought not to have any trouble hitting them all. They should have made it a random direction or button, in my opinion. It would have been a decent attempt to at least make this game seem more exciting and interesting.

As a final note, navigating the terrain and regions of the game may have provided some challenge if it weren’t for the fact that the game practically tells you how to get around all obstacles once you reach them. Where’s the fun in that? Can’t I figure out anything for myself? It truly does strip away whatever puzzle element there could have been in EOE.

The gameplay starts out interesting, but within the first twenty minutes it will likely begin to feel trite and repetitive.

Last but not least, the story. Essentially, you are Mister Average Joe, out to fight the evil corporation lead by a rich nutcase who wants to control the world. This has probably been done about a thousand times over, but for the sake of giving the game at least some benefit of a doubt we will ignore that for now. You are an employee of this company and must avoid its grasp as they figure you out. You girlfriend's soul is taken from her body and used to make one of the legacy weapons, which you just so happen to obtain early on in the game. I’ll also add that almost nothing of interest occurs in the story all the way through, and the ending is short, dull, and nothing you would not come to expect. The enemies and bosses you fight are strictly enemies you beat up save Raven, who actually has some scantily composed line of story. All the others are just there. They seem to have no purpose other than to mindlessly fight for Mr. Big Boss. Now, normally I won’t have a problem with this but in this game an actual story line is attempted to be made, and they use voice acting through good portions of it… why not at least take the time to give the bosses some more story? Or at least a speaking line. Several of them don’t even speak to you, and the first boss is as silent as a mute. There are true Beat ‘em ups out there with a better constructed story line.

The story is vastly stereotypical, and the development is minimal at best. Even the main character hardly gets any mention or development, let alone the enemies you must face.

In conclusion, take a moment now to go back and read all my bolded statements. You see now where the tagline comes from? EOE truly is the epitome of all that is flat and average. It feels like it really tries to be interesting and absorbing in some places, but it can’t pull it off due to the many errors and the apparently simplistic design of the game at the aggregate. I will admit, however, that it wasn’t all bad. Despite all the flaws EOE can be mildly entertaining and even fun. It just doesn’t last. Everything is so tasteless and colorless that it will just bore you given the right amount of time. If you are the kind of person that can live with simple gameplay and minimal storyline than you might take this game for a spin. People who like Beat ‘em ups should at least give it one run as it does work fairly well as a 3D Beat ‘em up. Better than Fighting Force did, at least. Rent is recommended above actual purchase.

For those of you who love absorbing stories, a challenge, and high variance in gameplay and control, do not look here. This game will simply bore you to tears and leave you with nothing of interest to work with. If it weren’t for the fact that I managed to squeeze out some form of entertainment from this game in the course of playing it, the score would certainly be lower. For those who love a good challenging FPS or RPG above all else you will not be able to derive any amusement from this game at all. You have been warned.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 02/11/04