Zone of the Enders

PlayStation 2 (Konami 2001)

The big G-S-G-S-G

General opinion: Fun snack between serious games
Story: Ok
Graphics: Not bad
Sound: Ok, though music can get a little monotonous
Gameplay: Pretty good, for most parts

Total:

The Review

Zone of the Enders is a sci-fi action game inspired by Japanese mecha anime. The basics are pretty simple: you bash and shoot your enemies to bits with your humanoid fighting machine. Depending on the way it's done, this could be either really dull or pretty cool. Zone of the Enders lies somewhere in between.

The first thing most hard-core gamers will note is that the game is produced by none other than Hideo Kojima, the legendary creator of the Metal Gear series. It is clear that Kojima's main attention was on Metal Gear Solid 2, which he was directing at the same time, as the depth, quality and originality of this game is nowhere near that masterpiece. Still, there are elements in the structure and storyline of the game that do bring MGS into mind...

The story is pretty simple, but enough to keep your interest for a little while, with one or two good twists as well. Enemies invade a space colony orbiting Jupiter. A teenager called Leo stumbles upon an "Orbital Frame" called Jehuty and is forced to pilot it. Jehuty is an important factor in the war, and is what the enemy is after. Your objective is to escape from the space colony, protecting civilians and shooting down enemies as you go along. One could see an almost striking similarity between Leo and Shinji from the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime series: he comes from an unhappy home, believes he is an unwanted child; he is very reluctant to pilot Jehuty at first, but gradually comes to accept it, because he, for the first time, feels needed...

Gameplay is pretty straightforward. You attack by shooting or bashing with a blade (one button, the function varies according to range). Hitting the "dash-button" while attacking makes a boosted attack. As you go along, you collect various sub-weapons you can use, but I never really got the feel for them. In most cases the basic boosted sword slash felt most efficient. Because of an automatic lock-on function you don't need to worry much about targeting, just start bashing! The biggest technical problem occurs when you need more careful movement and targeting, for example to shoot at an unmoving target (which you need to do on several occasions). Ordinary movement with the left analogue stick is pretty fast with sharp turns, so you'll need to use the right stick for fine targeting (which can be a little awkward if you also need to fire using the right hand buttons)... The sharp turns and camera adjustments can occasionally make navigation a little hard as well. Luckily there is a map you can look at.

Other than these problems with movement and targeting, the technical side of the game is pretty good. Graphics are quite good, keeping in mind that this is one of the earlier PS2 games. Stage design is pretty cool (the little buildings and roads really make you feel you're in a huge machine), but it gets pretty repetitive soon. The machines look good, although there aren't very many types of enemies. Human characters look a little more awkward, but still ok. Sound is ok, although (for me) the mainly techno-oriented soundtrack gets a little dull after a while. Music changes according to situation, getting faster when you're in battle. Bosses are pretty fun and look good, although there aren't a great deal of them. The final boss wasn't all that impressive, though. I kept waiting for something bigger and more challenging, but the game just ended. Which brings us to our final point...

One thing about the game which is both good and bad is that it's really short. It took me about five hours to finish it (playing on easy difficulty). If it was much longer, it would undoubtedly get rather boring quite soon. However, the action-packed gameplay is fun enough to keep you interested for this long, and shorter games are always easier to play again... Bottom line, I wouldn't pay a lot of money for this game, but second-hand it can be a pretty fun snack between serious games, if you like action games and mecha shows.

Ben B. Bainton, 23 June 2005