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 [email protected]). [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
Requirements: Windows 95 or 98
Pentium 133

50 MB of hard drive space
4X CD-ROM Drive
SVGA with 256 colors
DirectX
5 compatible sound card
DirectX 5 compatible mouse and keyboard