[Note from Jake: As I expand the stable of A Capital Wasteland writers, I introduce the affable, all-seeing Austin Lucas!]
In 2001, a demo
for the highly anticipated Metal Gear
Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was released. Oh, and a game came with the demo… Zone of the Enders, a self-described “mecha
anime simulator featuring never-before-seen aerial gameplay.” After the breakout success of Metal Gear Solid, creator Hideo Kojima’s status
as one of gaming’s great icons was solidified. Not to diminish from his earlier forays into the medium, but things were forever changed after MGS. So when Kojima was set to produce
a new non-Metal Gear game, people took
notice. The inclusion of a demo for a
new MGS really grabbed attention
though and would drive sales for Zone of
the Enders. I was just a Kojima
neophyte at the time, so clearly my purchase can be attributed to an
infatuation with giant robots.
High Speed Robot Action
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| Don't worry you'll get to play as Snake too |
Gameplay-wise, Zone of the Enders was on the cutting
edge as much as the titular Enders were at the end of inhabited space. Z.O.E. was fast, and it was fast before
the party really started getting crazy later that year with Devil May Cry. Altitude control, another
unique feature, might have seemed unnecessary when you could simply lock-on to
enemies. However, it is a key part of
the aesthetic of the game and one that works in conjunction with Z.O.E.’s high speed to give a true sense
of movement and a degree of energy to the combat, which stylistically fits in
with the sleek mechanical designs of artist Yoji Shinkawa.
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| FOXHOUND |
Instead of a
game and a demo, those who purchased Zone
of the Enders really just got two demo discs. One for the previously mentioned MGS2 and one for the yet to be announced
Zone of the Enders 2. It doesn’t take a thorough examination, a
moderately quick glance will suffice, to determine that Z.O.E. is essentially nothing more than a proof of concept for
future iterations of the franchise. That
might be overly critical of Z.O.E.
but anyone who has managed to make it through the final boss encounter can
probably attest to this. It is not that
the game is incredibly unpolished or that there are glaring issues that need to
addressed, but instead that Z.O.E. as
a standalone game just seems to be a taste of things to come. Despite playtime being padded by cutscenes, Z.O.E. still manages to be a rather
short experience, even with a bit a backtracking. The anticlimactic manner in which the final
fight plays out doesn’t help Z.O.E.’s case either.
