Zone of the Enders Z.O.E

Giant Robots and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty... WHO COULD ASK FOR MORE?!? The real game is great, and the demo disk is too! You get to fly all over the place blowing up bad guys, and if your shots miss, buildings! This is one of those many, many games that proves that PS2 is a console MASTERPIECE! When you have the money, go out and buy this!

Yeah, "Zone of the Enders" excels in just about every single category that I can think of. Gameplay, graphics, control, and the best thing about this game: its story. I admit that when I first heard of this game, I didn't pay much attention to it, but after listening to what my friend told me about it and reading several reviews, I decided to rent it from Blockbuster Video. "Zone of the Enders" takes place in the far future when Earth has set up a colony called Antilla that's orbiting Jupiter. A 14-year old boy named Leo, who after witnessing the deaths of several of his closest friends during an enemy invasion, hops into Jehuty, a giant mechanized robot and sets out to defend what is left of his home.

This game totally blew me away. Not just the beautiful graphics, but its amazing storyline. You can actually care for not just the game's young star, but for the enemies as well, the human enemies I mean. The "orbital frames" are stunningly animated and are pretty tight looking. The game's ending, which I won't dare reveal, leads to the possibility of a sequel. I really like the way that Jehuty can actually be "upgraded". All right, throughout the game, these "servers", which are usually in heavily guarded areas, you can actually download a weapons program into Jehuty's mainframe and then use them. The only problem with that is that as the game progresses and you learn to control Jehuty and use its weapons, is that the enemies actually start to become smarter as well and it can sometimes be frustrating especially if no Metatron Ore(health power-up) is present.

Complaints, of course since no game is perfect. First, the voice actors suck. You can tell just by the way the characters read their lines, that they're just reading the script and aren't really voice-acting. Second, the game is just too short because it can be beaten inside of five hours. Third, the one thing that especially seems to p*** me off, is that some people have bought this game just for the "Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty" demo disc that's included with it. Nothing against MGS2, but what I mean to say is that since Hideo Kojima is a genius and all, I'm sure he put forth a lot of time and effort into making "Zone of the Enders" and "Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty" the games that they are.

"Zone of the Enders" gets a 9/10

The game is still enjoyable and offers a unique gameplay experience. The soundtrack is good as well. Sometimes, enemy types feel redundant, but the boss battles manage to freshen up the gameplay significantly.

I rented the recently released 'Zone of the Enders - HD Collection' a couple of days ago for my Playstation 3. I'd heard a lot about it, and I am a big fan of Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear series and thought I'd give it a go. Maybe my expectations were a little too high with a name like Kojima and the promise of 'high-speed robot action', but overall, the name felt pretty... hollow.

Don't get me wrong, mind. Speaking from a technical viewpoint, the game excels - for a thirteen-year-old Playstation 2 launch title, the graphics, physics engine and fluid controls still hold up very well against the games of today. The colours, textures, polygons and pre- rendered cutscenes all look great, especially with this high-definition remaster, and I'm sure it would have astonished gamers back in 2000.

But the game has a few too many shortcomings. The story is fairly generic and forgettable, and I found myself skipping many cutscenes, combined with the awful voice acting. The player character is a young boy called Leo, who does nothing but whine and cry. Obviously the writers were trying to get the player to sympathise with the character, but we don't - it's just very, very annoying, and whenever I heard his terrible voice actor start to wail I'd attack the start button. Overall, the story made little sense and seemed like an interesting premise that could have been done very well - a boy is the only person left able to guide a mecha back to where it is needed and has to battle through a war zone to get there - but unfortunately, the writer(s) haven't pulled this off very well.

In terms of gameplay - most of the time it's fairly fun, simply button- mashing robot fighting that's a tad on the easy side, which occasionally dabbles into repetition (there are only TWO varieties of enemy - that's right - TWO) but isn't too bad. The boss fights are fun but nothing special. On a number of occasions, I had to resort to using walkthroughs, as sometimes it's too hard to figure out where to go or what to do. There is a lot of backtracking, which is very cheap and annoying, in order to obtain passcodes so you can use new weapons which you need to beat bosses to advance through the game. It's simple and fairly effective, but far from great.

Also, it's very, very short. I beat it in about five hours (I got it on the Friday night and had finished by late Saturday afternoon), and it just felt like... nothing. There wasn't an awful lot of variation to gameplay, and it just felt as if it had been over in an instant.

The controls are very, very good - fluid, responsive and not too simple and not too complex. The game gives you a very nice tutorial to show you how to use them - fast and easy to learn.

Music is where it gets tricky. The overworld theme is great - very dreamy, reminds me of old sci-fi animes from my childhood - but a couple of the levels have very droney and repetitive tunes throughout that just stick in your head. But for the most part the music was very good, especially if you're into techno, like me. So it's a mixed bag there.

Concerning the HD edition, it's pretty great. I haven't played the original PS2 version, so I can't compare them, but it looks excellent on my HDTV. The menus and design are all well-presented and flawless - plus, you get the second game (which I have not yet played and hope is better than this one) and a fabulous demo for the upcoming Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Whether it is worth the price tag is up to you, I have not yet played the sequel so I do not know. But apparently, like the first game, it is short, so I'd recommend a rental as I'm not loaded enough to shell out £30 on a game collection I won't spend more than 10 hours on.

Overall, ZOE is an OK game, not particularly good but not really bad.

Final score: 6.8/10

First things first...there is a sort of trinity as far as game designers go, the three of which are Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto, Sega's Yu Suzuki, and Konami's Hideo Kojima. Miyamoto is the master of fantasy worlds, Suzuki the master of realism, Kojima the master of cinematics. And it is his mastery of this which shines in this game.

The graphics are incredible, with anime stylings althroughout (not hard to see, as co-creator Nobuyoshi Nishimura is responsible for "Gundam X"). The emotion on the faces in the cutscenes is like watching an animated feature, while the mecha design is first-rate, sort of a cross between the "Gundam" and "Brain Powerd" (yes, that's how it's spelled) styles. To see so many mecha-based games graphically excel in some areas and falter in others, it's a breath of fresh air to see this one's eye candy deliver so consistently. I especially like the effect of the "veins" on the mecha's exterior, it's creepy in a way, but that makes it look that much cooler.

The control, to put it bluntly...perfect. This is the first time I have ever picked up a game with so many things you can do with the character, and become a master at the controls after one run through the training session. On top of that, the responsiveness is nice and tight, allowing you to switch directions and/or targets with the greatest of ease. The fact that there is one main attack button can make it kind of rough in some spots, but I'll explain that next.

The goal of the game is to drive enemy forces from your home colony. Now, these said forces do pull some very ruthless tactics, and kill very many civilians. The survivors are hiding in buildings in some missions, and those buildings are clearly marked so you don't destroy them, but it's rough achieving 100% when there's three or so (or more!) mecha (called Orbital Frames in the game) breathing down your neck. So don't expect perfect performance unless your name just happens to be Luke Skywalker.

Overall, this game rocks. Truth be told, I got it for the "Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty" demo, but I found that "Z.O.E." is a worthy game in itself. Hideo Kojima knows how to get you to look, then to try, then to buy, then to play to death. And you'll love every minute of it, too.