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by Eidos

Bare_handed_02_jpg-01.jpg (5240 bytes)Hack, slash, yawn. Hack, slash, yawn. Watch cinema sequence. Hack, slash, yawn. Attempt frustratingly difficult platform jumping section. Hack, slash, yawn. This just about covers the gameplay in Eve of Extinction. Lots of beating people up and annoying platform jumping. Eve of Extinction could have been a great game, but the final product is annoying instead of fun.

Katar_02_jpg-01.jpg (5631 bytes)The story is of the all too common evil- corporation- who- wants- to- take- over- the- world variety. Gone are the days of mad scientists or evil super villains as the antagonists in video games. Now we have to face giant, power hungry corporations in a virtual display of capitalism gone horribly wrong. In Eve of Extinction, the Wisdom Corporation has been developing weapons of massive destructive power -- Legacy weapons, a fusion of special metal found only in the lost city of Atlantis and human souls. Wisdom employee Josh Calloway and his girlfriend Eliel discover the secret behind the Legacy weapons and try to escape, but they fail. They are captured and Eliel’s nervous system is wired into the newest Legacy weapon, code named EOE. Josh escapes along with the EOE and sets out to disrupt Wisdom’s nefarious plan for world domination.

BroadSword_01_jpg-01.jpg (5850 bytes)The gameplay in Eve of Extinction is repetitive and rather boring. Using Legacy weapons that you find along the way, you beat your way through hundreds of guys in suits. The guys in suits do not react to your presence at all and merely sit back and let you beat the crap out of them until they disappear in a puff of smoke. Even if there are four or five enemies around you, they wait patiently for you to defeat them one by one. Some enemies have guns, and they will take a couple pot shots at you, but it is as if the A.I. isn’t even trying in this game. Even more annoying than the hideous A.I. are the jumping sections spread throughout the game -- platform jumping sections where you are required to jump from building to building across seemingly enormous gaps, and the much more annoying tiny box to tiny box jumping which has plagued many 3-D adventure games in the past.

Sword_00_jpg-01.jpg (6105 bytes)The gameplay is made even more annoying due to the horrible camera. You constantly have to keep track of it and press R2 to keep it behind your character. It wouldn’t be so bad if you had more control over the camera, but all you can do is center the camera behind your character. This makes the jumping sections much more difficult than they should be because you can never get the camera in the right place. Combat is also made more difficult due to the camera because it becomes a chore to actually locate the enemy, especially inside of buildings where blind corners and other obstructions abound. Luckily, the enemy won’t attack you very often so you have the luxury of a few seconds to orient yourself.

Puzzle_Dragon_jpg-01.jpg (6513 bytes)The Legacy weapons themselves are mildly interesting, but I don’t see how they can be so powerful as to allow the Wisdom Corporation to take over the world. The EOE is basically a lightsaber; it even hums like it came straight out of Star Wars. Of course, it takes 25 strikes to take down an enemy, so the similarity to Star Wars ends there. It makes you wonder how a sword made out of concentrated light can make a sound like a baseball bat when it hits an enemy, but Eve of Extinction tries to get away with that, too. Other weapons include a staff that shoots lightning and a weapon called a Snake Sword that is exactly like Ivy’s weapon in Soul Calibur. There are ten weapons in all, some better than others, but all equipped with super attacks called Legacy Drive. In order to perform a Legacy Drive, you have to collect two Ley Seeds to power the weapon up. Collecting these is usually where the annoying platform jumping comes in. Once you are powered up and ready to unleash the fury, you push down R3 and a pattern appears on the screen. You have to trace this pattern with the right analog stick, and more times than not you’ll mess it up and have to try again. It seemed like an almost random occurrence when I got the patterns right. Annoyances aside, one interesting thing you can do with the Legacy weapons is to switch weapons mid attack to make some impressive looking combos.

Rod_00_jpg-01.jpg (7322 bytes)Graphically, Eve of Extinction is great in some areas and not so great in others. The characters are all superbly detailed and very clear. There are also some nice looking textures scattered around on billboards and posters and things of that nature. Also, the lighting is very well done. Each of your Legacy weapons emits a bright neon glow that can light up an entire room. However, the enemy characters are rather bland looking and there is very little variety in the enemies you fight. They are all just guys in suits. The levels themselves are bland, too. When you are out in the streets, I admit that the game looks pretty good. But when you go inside, you are either fighting in small gray hallways or big gray rooms. A little variety would have been nice here. The sound is barely noticeable. The music is boring and forgettable and the sound effects are pretty much limited to the hum from your Legacy weapon and the grunts, groans, and thuds of combat.

Katar_00_jpg-01.jpg (5782 bytes)Eve of Extinction is one of the few games that I have ever found to be annoying enough that I don’t want to play it anymore. The controls are fine, other than when performing the Legacy Drive actions, but the camera makes doing just about anything in this game a chore. I really don’t enjoy this game, but I will say that there is one thing that I like. The box art is awesome looking. Too bad the product inside of the box isn’t as impressive as the picture on the cover.

Eric Qualls   (04/02/2002)

Snapshot

Ups: Some graphical highpoints; cool combos.

Downs: Obnoxious camera; hack storyline; annoying platform jumping.

Platform: PlayStation 2