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Playstation 2 |
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Plot. In Z.O.E. you are a boy who lives on an orbiting space station above Jupiter. Your home is suddenly attacked by a bunch of marauding mecha for some nefarious purpose. Anyway, as you are fleeing, you somehow wander into a secret research facility, where a super advanced mech sits primed and ready for someone to use. (The door wasnt even locked.) So you get into the mech and start fighting off the attacking mecha. Your mech has a talking computer that tells you what you need to do, and gives you a brief tutorial on the controls. You then proceed to run about the city fighting off and killing all the invading mechs. The plot is fairly linear. Basically it involves flying into a sector of the city, which in spatial and game terms is a medium sized boxed area with a bit of terrain and/or buildings. You then proceed to kill everything in the room, then you leave and repeat. You do have various tasks, but you in essence, just go into a room, kill everything, activate something, then move on. It is rather dull.Graphics. Z.O.E. is a 1st generation Playstation 2 game, but sadly, though, the graphics arent much better than those of the last batches of PS1 games. The landscape, at least as far as I played, is rather bland. There will be some structures, some uninspired looking enemies, and lots of open space. Its not ALL like that. There are some nice looking landscapes, and some of the graphics are cool. The cinema scenes are also like those of a PS1. Nice, but Ive seen better.
Sound. Lots of sound effects, lots of talking, mostly you and the computer
talking, also some radio stuff. My favorite line was you talking to the computer. Gameplay. When you get your mech, the computer gives you a tutorial on all movements and attacking, which is very helpful. The style of play is like Zelda/Zelda 64. You are a 3 dimensional character, in a three dimensional world. You maneuver around and can whack or shoot things, and also dodge, etc. Like Zelda64, there are never hordes of enemies on the screen at a time. Also like in Zelda, you can lock onto a target and move relative to it. You have 2 types of attacks: shooting, or hitting with your sword. You can do power hits of both, and also collect various other shooting weapons that have different effects, such as stunning, accuracy, of rapid faire saturation. After you have the controls down, you move back and forth between areas, fight some enemies, activate something or other, and move on. There are other small side missions you can do. Occasionally, some district of the city will send out an S.O.S. You can, if you want, go to that sector, and try to save the people there. You must destroy some attacking mechs before they kill any innocent people or buildings in the area. This is usually fairly tricky, and I was never completely successful. I always lost some buildings, and sometimes some survivors. After you save the people, its back to doing whatever you were doing before. In the first part of the game, you are trying to fight your way to the other end of the station to escape from the landing bay. All in all, its kinda linear. Difficulty. I was playing on Easy. It was Easy. Only the one boss I fought gave me any trouble. According to my friend Frank, whose game I was playing, the bosses can be rather tricky. The normal guys you fight, however, are not. Running from area to area, you end up fighting lots of normal guys, but never very many at any one time. Another difficult/annoying thing about the game is that apart from whats in front, behind, and beside you, you also have to deal with whats above and below you. Getting to the correct height can be annoying, as you have no way of telling how high you are other than whats relative to you, and even that can be a challenge. For example, when I was trying to shoot this hovering little thing in front of me that I couldnt lock on to. I went through 200 rounds of ammunition before I managed to hit the thing. Replay Value. This game has no multi-player, and I would think that after you beat it once, unless there are some good hidden features, playing again wouldnt be much fun, as the game has no puzzles to solve, other than an effective way to kill each boss. Niftyness. The game runs a lot like Zelda, which is a game Ive always liked. Another cool thing is that you constantly find new programs to update your mech with. One cool thing I got was a device that allowed me to control an unmanned enemy mech by remote control.
Final Ratings:
Graphics: 7.5 Sound: 8.5 Gameplay: 8.5 Difficulty: 7.0 Replay: 5.0 Niftyness: 7.0 Overall: 6.214
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