Project Eden  

by Eidos  Reviewed by: Mike David  

Overview

All is not well in the Garden of Eden (both literally and figuratively). After the population grossly exceeds the area of land on which to live, city engineers have started creating buildings that go up and up into the sky. With the richest and most affluent being allowed to purchase the dwellings closest to the sun and the clean air, the scourge of society dwells in the lowest regions of the cityscape where the downtrodden and diseased live. Your team of Urban Protection Agency members (UPA) descends toward one of the lower levels in order to investigate missing technicians who were sent to repair the malfunctioning equipment at the "Real Meat" company.

But what starts out as a routine missing person's investigation makes a wild turn down the unpredictable hallway of hell. You see, it’s been awhile since anyone has been down this far and strange things have been happening...

Gameplay, Controls, Interface

Not too many years ago, Eidos Entertainment burst on to the scene with a little game called Tomb Raider. The game was a marvel, with its killer controls, beautiful graphics, and stunning atmosphere and of course, the character Lara Croft. Well, Eidos has had a lot to live up to, with its flashes of brilliance (Fear Effect 2, Commandos, Deus Ex) and its dismal failures (Tomb Raider 3, Akuji: The Heartless). Now we are given another third person perspective adventure game, only this time you control the four members of an UPA squad, hell bent on getting themselves out of the mess they’re in.

Once the game is booted up, you are treated to a pretty decent intro where you will see one of society's wealthier children accidentally drop her teddy bear off an observation deck. Down, down, down it goes falling deeper into the older buildings. As the teddy falls you can see the conditions worsen and the sun getting dimmer and dimmer until, finally, it hits the bottom. There, a half-mechanical/half-god-only-knows hand grabs the bear. This intro is what I like to call “foreshadowing” (your key to quality gaming), as this hand is obviously there to bring about a sense of dread. Well, from that scene I can honestly say I was pretty pumped about the game. The whole idea of an upper utopian society and a lower disturbed society isn’t a new concept. Just look at the Judge Dredd comic books and you can practically see where the game designers got their idea. Not that this is a bad thing, mind you; it’s definitely a cool and novel direction.

Starting off, you can select which member of the squad you would like to control. There’s Carter, the leader, Minoko, the computer whiz, Andre, the engineer and mechanic and Amber, the 90% cyborg, strong woman. As you may suspect being a team of highly trained specialist will come in quite handy. More than once, Minoko will need to access a computer or Amber walk through a hazardous material laden area. Part of the appeal of the game is that you can select any member of your team and either sends them off into different areas or lead the whole lot through the maze of corridors. Plus, when a gunfight breaks out, all the characters that you are not controlling will automatically start shooting at bad guys. Albeit, the bad guys always seem to want to kill the character you are controlling first.

Speaking of gunfights, combat in this game was a bit lackluster. Essentially, after having selected your weapon from a slightly annoying menu interface, you must use a free-floating Heads Up Display (HUD) to target your enemies. This HUD is controlled by the right analog stick and can be a bit strange to get used to, as there is usually a lot going on in front of you. All four characters start out with a Pulse gun but will eventually find other weapons of destruction. Thankfully so, since the locals you run into get progressively meaner and more difficult to deal with. Personally, I thought there should have been a wider range of initial weapons. Amber is this hulking monster of a cyborg; it would have been cool if she started with something a bit more beefy, like a mini-gun or howitzer (note: neither of the previously mentioned weapons are in the game, I just wished they were). Yes, the introduction of sentry guns was a nice touch but I guess I just wished for more. This is an Eidos game -- I’ve been spoiled with cool weaponry in the past and it has been something I count on from them.

While adventuring, the aforementioned HUD is also used to access items, doors, locks, etc. That’s good because it helps get the player into a groove sort of thing regarding the characters' movements and usage. But what I need to address is the fact that sometimes the clues or other critical points in the game are so minute that it can be a real pain in the butt to figure out what to do next. In some cases, it’s too hard and will leave you feeling frustrated. Some people would call this a challenging game. Well, there is a difference between challenging and too precise, which is exactly what happens. More than once I ran around a relatively small area not being able to figure out what the hell to do next when by some act of mere luck, my HUD pops up because I happen to be positioned in the perfect place to now access a lock that I had stood in front of nine times previously. People who take anger management classes would do well to not play this game. Project Eden is not the worst to control that I have played, but it’s far from the best. Nothing brings a game score down faster then unfriendly control schematics and menus.

Multiplayer

One of the coolest aspects of this game is that you can rig up your PS2 so that four people can play. Each pick a character, and you attempt to play through the entire game in a type of co-op adventure. Only problem is that the screen then becomes divided by four and the clues become that much harder to find. It would help if you owned a 65-inch projection TV, as that is what I would consider an appropriate size for split screen action. There is also a death match mode you can play, but I found this too bland and no fun at all, almost as if the game makers were told to add it in because “death match” games are in. Pfffffttt, play the co-op mode, that’s where the multiplayer fun is at.

Graphics

Well, Eidos isn’t afraid of an explosion, that’s for sure. The trademark higher quality graphics are apparent and I really enjoyed the cut-scenes a lot. Characters look a little too predictable, although I thought Amber looked pretty cool with her streamlined android “bullet” look. Other NPCs that you talk to are a bit drab, but the mutants and other baddies look effective enough. Some are more threatening looking than others, but still a good-looking monster is so much more fun to shoot at than a stupid one. I think the graphic standout of this game is the environments. I personally enjoyed the seedier side of the slums. Things look bad and get worse, which is exactly what I had hoped for. Sadly, I must report that this game suffered from the dreaded “lag” problem occasionally when things got too busy on screen.

Audio

The voice acting in the cut-scenes was just okay; nothing to write home about. As for the ambient music and weapon sounds during playtime, they were a bit better. I enjoy hearing sounds coming out of my surround sound system and this game gave those rear speakers a little fun. Nothing quite like HALO, mind you, but still, the fact that this game is even pumping noise to all five speakers is a testament to what can and should be done in action games.

Bottom Line

I’ve been hit with the one-two punch. Twice in a row now, I have been given games that had all the potential in the world to be really cool, but failed -- Batman Vengeance and this one. A neat idea having a city where the socio-economics are broken down so structurally. With nasty goings on occurring in the recesses of the city, I honestly wanted to love this game. But, it really didn’t live up to what I thought Eidos should have made. If you read our scoring breakdown, you will see that games in the 70s are usually genre specific. Well, this game is not only genre specific, but it’s also a disappointment. Some will play this game and want to start a cult based on it; others will wonder why I scored it so nicely. Rent this one first or wait a year and pick it up for $9.99.

Review Posted On 26 November 2001.