Preview: Project Eden
Project Eden
Developer: Core
Publisher: Eidos UK
Platform: PS2
Genre: Action/Adventure/Strategy
Projected Release Dates: PC/Dreamcast Q4 2000; PS2 Q1 2001
Each time that I read about Project Eden, I discover more information (some fact, some guesses) about the genre of the game. When I first noticed the title, the article said that the game would be an adventure. Then I read that the game would be an action-shooter. My most current opinion is right from the mouths of the sages and magicians at Core and Eidos UK and straight to your eyes: Project Eden will be “an action-adventure-puzzle solving game with a radical combination of the action/adventure components featuring interchangeable first and third person viewpoints.” And last but not least, Project Eden is being developed by the experienced team that gave you the original Tomb Raider.
You, the player, will have command of four protagonists, and game play will revolve around the interactions of these characters and the environment in which they exist. The drama can be single-player (cooperative) or two- to four-player (network). Project Eden will be driven by all-new engines and will include the latest advances in mapping, character skinning and skeletal design, animation, and morphing.
In my opinion, the storyline is rather unique (in gameplay) but perilously close to the state of our world today. The theme is overpopulation. Does that sound familiar? According to Core and Eidos, the planet’s diameter is increasing from the weight of mega-cities and ever-increasing population. “Buildings are growing upward, interconnected by roads and walkways. Only the affluent who live in the upper reaches are able to see or feel the sun.”
As citizens descend into the malevolent depths of the planet, their conditions rapidly turn into slums and squalor. And below the slums the conditions are even worse. The lowest of these areas are visited only by structural engineering teams whose job is to strengthen all that they see so that further elevations can be added to these towering, manmade hills of Babel.
Soon you will meet the Project Eden Urban Protection Team (UPT for short). They are employed to deal with any urgent city emergencies or otherwise difficult situations. Now they are assigned to investigate a strange situation at the Real Meat factory. What a name. Machinery there has begun to malfunction, and the maintenance team who went in to repair the defects has not been heard from for quite some time. But the UPT may have a hidden agenda, and it might be wise not to take them at face value. Then again, perhaps they are just what they seem to be–do-gooders on a mission for their city government. What are their guidelines and instructions? Do they exist to benefit mankind, or do they cloak their deeds in secrecy? You will find answers to all of the plot twists as you play the game.
A few other main features of Project Eden are “four-player control and interaction where you can switch view and control between characters at any time; 11 stages, mission based; command and view can be switched from the characters to remotely operated equipment; and a dark and atmospheric world, filled with sinister inhabitants.”
If a mixture of action/adventure in a world gone wrong interests you, you may want to give Project Eden a trial run. Just don’t get lost forever in the lowest levels of the city. That is not a nice place to be …
