I rented the recently released 'Zone of the Enders - HD Collection' a couple of days ago for my Playstation 3. I'd heard a lot about it, and I am a big fan of Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear series and thought I'd give it a go. Maybe my expectations were a little too high with a name like Kojima and the promise of 'high-speed robot action', but overall, the name felt pretty... hollow.
Don't get me wrong, mind. Speaking from a technical viewpoint, the game excels - for a thirteen-year-old Playstation 2 launch title, the graphics, physics engine and fluid controls still hold up very well against the games of today. The colours, textures, polygons and pre- rendered cutscenes all look great, especially with this high-definition remaster, and I'm sure it would have astonished gamers back in 2000.
But the game has a few too many shortcomings. The story is fairly generic and forgettable, and I found myself skipping many cutscenes, combined with the awful voice acting. The player character is a young boy called Leo, who does nothing but whine and cry. Obviously the writers were trying to get the player to sympathise with the character, but we don't - it's just very, very annoying, and whenever I heard his terrible voice actor start to wail I'd attack the start button. Overall, the story made little sense and seemed like an interesting premise that could have been done very well - a boy is the only person left able to guide a mecha back to where it is needed and has to battle through a war zone to get there - but unfortunately, the writer(s) haven't pulled this off very well.
In terms of gameplay - most of the time it's fairly fun, simply button- mashing robot fighting that's a tad on the easy side, which occasionally dabbles into repetition (there are only TWO varieties of enemy - that's right - TWO) but isn't too bad. The boss fights are fun but nothing special. On a number of occasions, I had to resort to using walkthroughs, as sometimes it's too hard to figure out where to go or what to do. There is a lot of backtracking, which is very cheap and annoying, in order to obtain passcodes so you can use new weapons which you need to beat bosses to advance through the game. It's simple and fairly effective, but far from great.
Also, it's very, very short. I beat it in about five hours (I got it on the Friday night and had finished by late Saturday afternoon), and it just felt like... nothing. There wasn't an awful lot of variation to gameplay, and it just felt as if it had been over in an instant.
The controls are very, very good - fluid, responsive and not too simple and not too complex. The game gives you a very nice tutorial to show you how to use them - fast and easy to learn.
Music is where it gets tricky. The overworld theme is great - very dreamy, reminds me of old sci-fi animes from my childhood - but a couple of the levels have very droney and repetitive tunes throughout that just stick in your head. But for the most part the music was very good, especially if you're into techno, like me. So it's a mixed bag there.
Concerning the HD edition, it's pretty great. I haven't played the original PS2 version, so I can't compare them, but it looks excellent on my HDTV. The menus and design are all well-presented and flawless - plus, you get the second game (which I have not yet played and hope is better than this one) and a fabulous demo for the upcoming Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Whether it is worth the price tag is up to you, I have not yet played the sequel so I do not know. But apparently, like the first game, it is short, so I'd recommend a rental as I'm not loaded enough to shell out £30 on a game collection I won't spend more than 10 hours on.
Overall, ZOE is an OK game, not particularly good but not really bad.
Final score: 6.8/10
