[NOTE: the following review assumes that you are familiar with the
creators of "D", Kenji Eno and the folks at Warp of Japan; if you're not
familiar with the history behind these guys and their games, I'd strongly
suggest you read my reader review of "D" on this site so you'll be
familiar with the nuisances of the madness about to unfold before your
eyes. You have been warned!]Through the miracle of internet
journalism (not to mention the money that would have gone toward a better
server for seganet.com; sorry Fernando!) I was able to gather together at
a secret and undisclosed location two of videogame's most controversial
and well-known developers: Working Design's Victor Ireland (the "Lunar"
series), and Warp's Kenji Eno (the "D" series). The reason? I
wanted these gentlemen, who at one point in their past lives were
acquainted with one another (pretend, please??!!), to share their opinions
on the sleeper Saturn-exclusive game "Enemy Zero" for a Reader Review; we
spare no expenses at seganet.com to make our reader's reviews the best
they can be (yeah right! :-P). A spiritual-sequel of sorts to "D"
(both games feature Warp's trademark digital actress, blonde and
impressionable Laura Lewis), "EO" is a FMV action/puzzle game that
recreates (or steals, if you want to be candid about it) the plot and
atmosphere of Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi classic "Alien". Laura
awakens from her cryogenic sleep after the huge space station where she
resides, along with several other crew members, activates its defense
mechanisms. An unidentified object has crashed against a sector of
the station, and apparently it's up to no good because Laura witnesses
(via the ship's internal communications monitors) the violent death of a
crew member at the hands (paws?) of a mysterious alien presence.
Unable to establish contact with other crew members, Laura dons a special
earpiece to allow the tracking of the invisible alien, and ventures
outside her room and goes into the desolate hallways of the station.
It's up to you, the player, to get Laura through the three CD's (four if
you count the tutorial/training CD) that make this tough puzzle adventure
game that features a unique and very "Doom"-like action segment; this
definitely ain't your father's typical puzzle/action game.
It bombed at retail, as did most of Saturn's Q4 line-up in 1997, and
can now be found at bargain prices in most stores (usually around
$25). What do "EO" creator Kenji Eno and outspoken industry pundit
Victor Ireland have to say about the game, and each other?
VIC = Victor
Ireland
ENO = Kenji Eno MACK = yours
truly's secret identity
MACK: Mr. Ireland, Mr. Eno, welcome to seganet.com's reader review
segment; pleasure to have you with us this evening.
ENO: My
pleasure!
VIC: Coolies... now where's the buffet table you promised?
MACK: We'll get there after the interview Mr. Ireland. Now
gentlemen, is it true you were college roommates at Harvard
University?
ENO: Yeah, we were there for the film program...
VIC: I
remember... Al Gore and Tommy Jones were down the hall From our dorm,
remember Kenji?
ENO: True.
MACK: For real? Vice-President Al Gore
and actor Tommy Lee-Jones, who were Harvard college roommates in
real-life, were down the hall from you guys?
ENO: Yep. Those uptight
losers were always cramming and never had time to party on the
weekends. Every Thursday and Friday night, Victor would walk up to
Gore and take his beer...
VIC: And Kenji would drink Jones'
(censored)... ha ha!
MACK: So you guys are telling me that the reason
those two are so thin is...
ENO/VIC: (simultaneously)... we drank all
the beer!
(laughs)
MACK: My goodness!
VIC: We still carry the
vestiges of them wild drinking binges... Kenji, wanna do a sumo match? You
know, like...
ENO: ... like when we were in the showers as towel boys,
picking up the loose bars of soap on the floor right after the football
team...
MACK: GENTLEMEN, PLEASE! I want to have babies someday, for
heaven's sake!
ENO: Sorry!
VIC: Boo hoo!
MACK: Speaking of babies
Mr. Eno...
GRAPHICS / VISUALS: B+
------------------
MACK(cont): ... your heroine from "D" and "D2", Laura Lewis, is back in
a totally different game called "Enemy Zero". Let's talk
graphics...
VIC: Can I go to the bathroom? I gotta pee!
MACK: here's
an unopened can of Cherry Coke Mr. Ireland.
VIC: Cool. I can put it
back in the machine after filling it up and nobody would notice.
MACK:
OK (eyes rolling upward). As I was saying Mr. Eno, the graphics in "EO"
are a considerable improvement over those featured in "D".
ENO: You're
absolutely correct. After the financial success of "D", which we
rendered on Amiga workstations, we upgraded to SGI workstations which we
used to render all the CG cinemas in "EO" and eventually "D2"; it's a
shame we had to compress the video considerably to make it fit into the
Saturn without the MPEG card...
MACK: Is that why the game is
letterboxed?
ENO: That was both a technical and an artistic
decision. By showing less of the screen we tax the hardware less,
allow it to display better colors for the CG cinemas and we give the game
an "artsy" look that is more cinematic and, therefore, beneficial to the
immersion-factor of "EO".
VIC: Mack, realize that Eno is a frustrated
Japanese director that, when he realized the best he could do was a
direct-to-video "Godzilla" sequel, turned to videogames and CG animation
to escape the creative curse of animation.
ENO: That's not true... I'm
a good movie director (sobbing)
VIC: Is that why you're like 400
pounds and always dressed in black? Because you want to be the
freaking Japanese equivalent of Orson Welles?
ENO: At least "EO" has
plenty of cinematic camera angles, techniques, pans, zooms and every
directorial trick in the book Vic; you dropped out of the freaking film
program without doing a single noteworthy...
VIC: Shut up Eno! My
daddy didn't name me after the great "Gone With the Wind" director Victor
Fleming for nothing. I did direct something noteworthy (winking like
a maniac).
ENO: Oh yeah! The maggot porno flick, I forgot!
MACK: A
what? A porno flick with maggots??!! VIC: We got drunk the night we
had the cameras signed up, so we had to sneak into the science lab and
connect a Hi8 camera to a microscope, and let the maggots go at it; at
least catering food with this cast was not a problem...
ENO: (laughs)
Vic pulled a William Defoe-like stunt like in "Speed 2", and placed the
maggots in his belly so they could feast on the...
MACK: I think I got
the visual idea Kenji, thanks!
MUSIC / SOUND EFFECTS: B-
---------------------
MACK: Vic, are you OK?
VIC: Just trying to bite this blister out of
my big toe with my teeth... it's too hard to reach...
ENO: Especially
when your hairpiece keeps falling off the top of your head as you lean
over!
VIC: Kenji, you malnourished only child. I will shove this copy
of Atlus' "Lunacy" so far up your a...
MACK: Gentlemen, please!
Mr. Eno, how hard was it to get the chick from Luscious Jackson to do
Laura's voice?
VIC: I was with Eno when we found her. She was
drunk and passed out at a gig in New Orleans; I grabbed her hand, made it
sign a contract, and when she woke up she had no choice but to actually do
Laura's voice. Stollar never acknowledged my help in getting her,
which is the real reason I dumped Saturn development faster than Monica
Lewisnky spitting/swallowing.
ENO: We're making news for you Mack.
MACK: OK, but Laura's dialogue in "EO" is very limited.
ENO: I
wish that she had done more voices to warrant Sega putting her name on the
freaking cover of the game's case. People may have bought the game
expecting to hear loads of voice samples from the Luscious Jackson chick,
but in the end she just utters a line here and there. Marketing stunt.
MACK: will you use her again, if possible, for "D2"?
ENO:
Depends... have you seen the scene in "There's Something About Mary" where
she puts what looks like moose on her hair, but it isn't really moose?
MACK: Yes??!!
VIC: If the Luscious Jackson bitch is willing to
squeze the moose out of both of our tubes...
MACK: GENTLEMEN, PLEASE!
Geeks and nerds are reading this; don't go about raising their hopes too
high about something like this ever happening to them in real life.
ENO/VIC: (simultaneously) Sorry!
MACK: Let's get back to the
game's music and sound effects.
VIC: Eno just rented a copy of "Alien"
and put a tape recorder next to the speaker and...
ENO: Shut up, Rob
Reiner look-alike. Marv Albert's rug is more believable than your
release dates for "Rayearth", you...
MACK: Ouch! Touche Vic, now keep
quiet plase!
ENO: I'm proud of the atmospheric sound effects in "EO"
Mack. We spent a good amount of yen giving every door, every footstep
Laura takes and every beeper from the special earpiece used to track the
alien an eerie and scary feel of desolation.
MACK: Lots of echoes and
futuristic sound effects I noticed when playing the game myself.
ENO:
the echoes are just as atmospheric as those in "D", and the variety in the
background noises and tunes are due to the increase in horsepower afforded
by the Saturn's Twin-Hitachi chips. With "D" we were limited to the
3DO settings.
MACK: Any lessons learned, audiowise, from "EO" that you
put to good use for either "D2" or the audio-only game released by Warp in
Japan (for the Saturn)?
ENO: "D2" employs every technique we learned
from "EO" plus lots more stuff we've learned to do with the
Dreamcast. As for the audio-only game, it was supposed to have a
kick-ass graphical interface but Victor botched the programming.
VIC:
You abandoned me Eno, I had no help whatsoever from you...
ENO: That's
what you get for becoming a localizer/publisher of Japanese games Victor;
when will Working Designs program a REAL game for a change, instead of
stealing someone else's work?
VIC: Why you little bitch, I will shove
this used copy of "Vay" so far down your throat that the anus where the...
MACK: GENTLEMEN, PLEASE!
GAMEPLAY / FUN FACTOR: B
---------------------
MACK: There are two engines in "EO" Kenji; one resembles "D" in that
you move with the cursor the direction to which you want to move, and then
the movie of the movement plays itself out. The other one is a
first-person corridor engine where Laura walks around the station, from
room to tower to elevators to storage facilites. Technically tough
to pull from the Saturn, or a piece of cake for you guys at Warp?
VIC:
don't mention cake in front of Kenji.
ENO: Would you shut up
Victor? I'm the star of this Reader Review, I'm the guy who wrote
and programmed the damn game. "EO" is my obsession, my baby...
VIC:
And that baby is selling like gangbusters, right Kenji? It was like
50 cents per brand-new copy the last time I checked at my local charity...
I mean, Sega store.
ENO: Yep, it's right there next to the mountain of
returned "Raystorm", "Albert Odyssey" and "Shining Wisdom" copies...
MACK: Victor, Kenji, STOP IT! You're both 'auteurs' and both of you
have had hits and misses. Answer my question Mr. Eno, how hard was
it to program "EO"?
ENO: we improved the "D" interface and made the
transition between points faster and smoother, which was the most frequent
complaint we got from fans. The corridor segments were harder to pull off,
and we had to reduce the depth and visibility in order to keep it fast in
both closed locations like the basement and open hallways.
VIC: Still
a hell of a lot better than freaking "Robotica" if you ask me... which I
feel you will... not do. Corner, I know!
MACK: is the game dark
and depressing in order to accomodate the engine, or viceversa?
ENO:
(laughs) A little bit of both.
MACK: Is the 'T' rating appropriate for
a game like "EO"?
ENO: Ask the guys at Lobotomy, who also had their
Saturn port of "Quake" rated 'T' despite the satanic look and feel of the
game. We like 'T', but would have been just as happy with a
controversial 'M'.
MACK: Tell us about the control. ENO: When Laura is
exploring rooms and picking up objects, you'll only need the d-pad and the
'select' button...
MACK: Like when Laura walks into Parker's room, or
when she picks up body parts to activate panels in other rooms?
ENO:
Exactly, there is no chance of Laura dying so we relax the control and set
it back into the "D" mold, if you will. But on the hallways and
specific rooms, when you're on your own with a gun and the earpiece, we
give the player the control over Laura he/she needs to avoid and kill the
alien. You can strafe left/right, aim up/down, walk or run
fast/slow, etc; that's the meat and potatoes of "EO" in my humble
opinion. What other game lets you experience the fear and scare of
turning around a corner and not knowing what horrible and painful
experience is awaiting you.
VIC: have you ever played "Fantastic Four"
Kenji?
ENO: Yes I... OK, touche! You win, I'm an a**hole, sorry.
MACK: Score one for Vic. Is the monster invisible to add
atmosphere and freight to the game, or did you decide that to keep the
"Doom"-like engine fast you had to alter the game's concept to accomodate
the technical limitation?
ENO: (smiles) No comment! Compromises
between what technology allows and what our vision is are commonplace.
MACK: why four CD's?
VIC: (smiles) I got them for Kenji from a
well-known developer that shall remain nameless. They had all their
2D games rejected by Sony when Bernie Stollar ran the place. Right
after the CD's were burned and couldn't be re-used for newer PSX games, I
got me a huge amount of used CD's and, with Warp, provided the CD's for
"EO".
MACK: Touching!
VIC: That poor 2D-crazy PSX developer lost
more money than the poor saps at Warp that put all their initial
next-generation eggs on the M2 basket.
ENO: Not as much money as you
will lose when you dump "Rayearth" into a dead Saturn market later this
year.
OVERALL: B
-------
MACK: It would be fair to say that fans of graphic adventures, "D" nuts
and anyone aching for a hard-as-nails game where you can't see the enemy
will love "EO". Right Mr. Eno?
ENO: It's made for anyone willing
to read the manual and ready to try new experiences...
VIC: sexual
experiences, Kenji?
ENO: for Pete's sake Vic, save your racially and
sexually-charged opinions for the butchering of your next PSX RPG's and
leave me alone.
MACK: Easy Vic, we're almost done. How long will
it take the average player to finish "EO", and what pointers would you
give players to make completing the game more enjoyable?
ENO:
Practice, practice, and then keep practicing that Training level on Disc 0
until you can identify those bleeps and their meaning like if it were
second-nature. I'd say it would take between 6-10 hours for the
persistent player, and a little bit more for casual gamers.
MACK: Not
a lot of replay value for that gaming buck, is there Kenji?
ENO: What?
"EO" is selling for more than 99 cents? Lordy, lordy, we're having
biscuits tonight!
VIC: Yippe!
MACK: Guys, thanks for your time and
good luck in whatever future projects you get involved with.
ENO: I'm
a Sega guy all the way with the Dreamcast; they treat me so well.
VIC:
Sony is where the profits are, and the PSX is here to stay for the longest
possible time span; they also treat me so well.
ENO: Sony people are
fascists, censorship-supporting zealots.
VIC: Sega people have their
head so far up their ass they can still taste 4th of July leftovers...
MACK: And on that upbeat and patriotic note, it's time to say
goodnight and give "EO" serious thought as a purchase if you like the
genre and can afford to collect it as a reminder of Warp's Saturn
legacy. Bye bye.[NOTE: Of course all of the above was totally false
and made-up. Any similarity between what the fake Eno and Ireland
said in this work of fiction and what the real Eno and Ireland might be
saying in usenet groups and Japanese trade shows is purely
coincidence. My nickname "Mack" comes from Nickelodeon's "The Secret
World of Alex Mack", a TV show very few people saw but that will be fondly
remembered by the fanatical few still watching the year-old reruns; can
the Saturn faithful relate?]
