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Originally, this review began with the following line: "This game really sucks." After much consideration, I have decided to be more professional and have reworded my initial opening comment ... Enemy Zero sucks--really. That's a shame because this game had the potential to be a minor classic, but it falls short in numerous categories due to an abundance of niggling problems. Enemy Zero first saw life two years ago as a console game on the late Sega Saturn system. The history of console-to-PC conversions is spotty at best, and Enemy Zero does zilch to improve that image. It is your typical dumbed-down console mentality with Tomb Raider-type puzzles (use a key card, punch in a code number, etc.) and endless, mindless mazes that must be traversed with gun drawn (any complaints regarding my description of console adventure games should be directed to Craig White at cwhite22@mac.com). [Ed. note: Randy can now say goodbye to his Christmas bonus.] Enemy Zero's plot is a rehash of countless Alien movies and video games (though there is one interesting twist I will talk about later). Your character, Laura Lewis, is in deep slumber aboard the space vehicle Aki. Unbeknownst to you, the ship has been invaded by a hostile alien life-form. The aliens have, of course, savagely attacked and killed--or will soon kill--every member of the crew until only you survive to encounter the mother of all aliens face-to-face. Unfortunately, there are not any twists to this plot. You plod along from point A to B until the final confrontation. What is interesting, though, is the character of Laura Lewis. Some of you may remember her from Knji Eno's previous adventure game, D. As many of you may remember, the biggest fault of D was that Laura moved slower than someone who had just swigged an entire bottle of Pepto-Bismol. Thankfully, that problem has been corrected. Plus, it is an innovative move on Mr. Eno's part to use a recurring character in games that are not sequels. I just wish he would hire a competent writer who could complement his vivid imagination. Plot of Enemy Zero: D. The majority of the graphics of Enemy Zero consist of endless corridors, storage rooms, bay areas, etc., that are really nothing more than mazes seen from a first-person perspective. As such, there is a repetitiveness and wash of color that becomes mind-numbing. An auto-mapping feature would have been a welcome blessing. Yes, I could have drawn my own maps, but you would think that the advanced technology of the ship would allow you print a map. As it is, you can access a map via onboard computers anytime you are in a crew member's room, but this can be frustrating when you are running down one of the numerous corridors attempting to escape an alien and remember the location of a haven of safety at the same time. The cut scenes are seen from a third-person perspective and are by far the most impressive part of the game. I was, though, shocked at the graininess of some of the graphics. This is truly a game that is showing its age. This PC version has full D3D support, but even with my Voodoo 1 card, the graphics are far from stunning. Most bothersome, though, is that the first time you enter some rooms and grasp the extent of the bloody carnage, your character gasps in shock and fear as her eyes scan across the room; this in itself would be a nice touch except it also happens every single time you enter those same rooms during the course of the game. This laziness on the part of the programmers has the overall effect of adding an air of silliness to what was supposed to have been a tense atmosphere. Enemy Zero graphics: C. As previously mentioned, the puzzles in Enemy Zero are the garden variety "which way should I turn" and "where is that charger for the gun?" Oh yes, the gun. When you finally do find the gun at the end of the first disc (there are four discs to this game, and the first one is numbered 0--how quaint), you can't use the damn thing until you backtrack to a charger you wandered across earlier in the game. There is one puzzle that is pure magic (please do not read the following unless you don't mind having a puzzle solution ruined). One of the crew members rooms has a door that can only be opened by using a DNA code from the occupant's fingerprints. In a scene that induces goosebumps, you must find the severed fingers of the crew member and then press the bloody stumps against the reader. Using the gun is an exercise in frustration. You must charge your gun before you fire it. The problem with this is that you cannot see the aliens--that's right, they are invisible--but you can hear them coming via a series of beeps emitted from a device in your ear. Now this could have been great if you could just whip around and fire your gun in the direction of the beeps, but no, first you must charge it, then you must aim it, and by that time I was usually watching one of the unimpressive death scenes. Enemy Zero puzzles: D+. You would think that a game that relies on sound to track the aliens would have great sound effects and voices, but it does not. In fact, I came to dread the different tones of the VPS (the device that allows you to locate the aliens). The voice of Laura Lewis is supplied by Jill Cunniff, the lead singer of an all-female rock group called Luscious Jackson. While it is great to have a strong, self-reliant female character take charge in the game, there is so little voice acting that it could have been performed by anyone. The music, which actually is quite good at times, was composed by Michael Nyman--he composed the music for the Academy Award-winning The Piano--but the music alone is not sufficient to maintain the fear quotient when so many other factors have destroyed the illusion. Enemy Zero sound effects and music: B-. My biggest single fault with Enemy Zero is that it ran on DirectX 5.0. I was at the time playing another game that ran on DirectX 6.0 (Half-Life if you must know), and every time I played Enemy Zero it overwrote my DirectX 6.0 of its own accord and I had to constantly reinstall version 6.0. What a major pain. It wasn't worth the 50 MB of space it occupied on my hard drive. I disliked this game so much, especially after anxiously looking forward to its release, that I began to wonder if the problem was not with the game but with me. I visited some video game web sites and looked at some past issues of gaming magazines to see what other reviewers thought. I ran across such quotes as "best adventure game I have ever played," and "sets new standards in adventure gaming." Was I missing something integral? Finally, after much soul-searching, it dawned on me: these other reviews, however well-intentioned, were written by a generation of console players who have probably never had the wonderful experience of playing a "true" adventure game such as Zork or one of the King's Quests. Their misguided idea of an adventure is the Lara Croft pull-a-lever or find-the-secret-exit puzzle. So maybe this is the best adventure game to ever appear on a console, but in the history-laden world of PC adventures, Enemy Zero is fodder for the bargain bin. Final Grade: D+ System
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