Enemy Zero was the second game to star the digital character Laura Lewis—the first being D. In E0, gameplay sequences alternate between interactive FMV and real time exploration, both from a first person perspective. The interactive FMV component uses gameplay identical to an earlier Warp game, D. The real time component of E0 is unique. Enemies are invisible, and location is only possible through the use of sound, with notes of different pitch helping the player find the distance and direction of enemies. Additionally, every gun in the game must be charged up immediately before each shot, and charging a shot for too long will cause the charge to dissipate, after which the charging must start over. Since all available guns have very limited range, this makes timing crucial; beginning to charge the gun too late or too soon will allow the enemy to reach Laura, resulting in an immediate game over. In Enemy Zero, reloading the gun and moving the character around are mechanics that have been made intentionally slow,[4] which stimulates players to avoid combat and direct contact with the alien enemies as much as possible. In the early segments of the game, avoiding detection is not only recommended; it is required, since the player has no means to defend him or herself without a gun. Enemy Zero is an example of a game containing stealth elements[5] roughly two years before the release of Metal Gear Solid popularized the genre worldwide, though ten years after Metal Gear started the genre in 1987.
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A second game in the D "trilogy", Enemy Zero is another "interactive movie" from Kenji Eno, this time for Sega Saturn.
It's probably the game out of the trilogy I've enjoyed the least. First of all, let's talk about the whole "interactive movie" thing. None of Eno's games can be even remotely perceived as movies, and if this WERE a movie, it'd be panned for being a complete and utter rip-off of Alien, which I know even though I've never seen Alien, because it's just so blatant.
I don't think I've mentioned this in my previous reviews, but Kenji Eno had this wild idea about having "digital actors" in his games. That is, the idea that you can reuse the same character who would "play" different people. When examined in the, let's call it Laura trilogy, it failed miserably. Indeed, the only connecting tissue between the games is the main character, always called Laura, who's always a different person. However if you've not read about the digital actor idea, you'd probably just think Eno likes the name, because with games coming out on different platforms Laura always looks different. Does she have the same actress? Also no. In fact, this is yet another game in which Laura is basically mute, which really begs the question as to why you make what's supposed to be a movie with the main character who never really reacts to things outside of a shocked gasp. The only good thing to come out of this idea is that they could skip some of the character design, I suppose.
Enemy Zero is a bit of a mix between D and D2 in terms of gameplay: there are plenty of pre-rendered rooms you can examine and collect items, but it also has a few labyrinthian FPS sequences where you try to kill invisible enemies via a metal detector-like sound system of various beeps and bloops. It's probably the best part of the game because at least it's original and somewhat tense.
As with other Laura titles, this game also likes to waste your time and be needlessly obtuse at points, and this time I just gave up and used the guide halfway through as the game pretty much required me to go to a random spot on a fairly large map. On the other hand, some puzzles basically solve themselves, which is really strange. The music and graphics are, as always, nice, but I just can never recommend actually playing Eno's main series of games because they seem designed to infuriate, and their best (and worst) moments are confined to cutscenes.
And yet again I find that it was the original D to shock me the most with its final flashback scene, as this game can barely be called scary. Unlike with D2 it doesn't even try to go for shock, mainly just featuring various levels of gore throughout. I've still enjoyed playing it more than D which felt completely pointless, but again, if this sounds interesting, Youtube is that-a-way.
It's probably the game out of the trilogy I've enjoyed the least. First of all, let's talk about the whole "interactive movie" thing. None of Eno's games can be even remotely perceived as movies, and if this WERE a movie, it'd be panned for being a complete and utter rip-off of Alien, which I know even though I've never seen Alien, because it's just so blatant.
I don't think I've mentioned this in my previous reviews, but Kenji Eno had this wild idea about having "digital actors" in his games. That is, the idea that you can reuse the same character who would "play" different people. When examined in the, let's call it Laura trilogy, it failed miserably. Indeed, the only connecting tissue between the games is the main character, always called Laura, who's always a different person. However if you've not read about the digital actor idea, you'd probably just think Eno likes the name, because with games coming out on different platforms Laura always looks different. Does she have the same actress? Also no. In fact, this is yet another game in which Laura is basically mute, which really begs the question as to why you make what's supposed to be a movie with the main character who never really reacts to things outside of a shocked gasp. The only good thing to come out of this idea is that they could skip some of the character design, I suppose.
Enemy Zero is a bit of a mix between D and D2 in terms of gameplay: there are plenty of pre-rendered rooms you can examine and collect items, but it also has a few labyrinthian FPS sequences where you try to kill invisible enemies via a metal detector-like sound system of various beeps and bloops. It's probably the best part of the game because at least it's original and somewhat tense.
As with other Laura titles, this game also likes to waste your time and be needlessly obtuse at points, and this time I just gave up and used the guide halfway through as the game pretty much required me to go to a random spot on a fairly large map. On the other hand, some puzzles basically solve themselves, which is really strange. The music and graphics are, as always, nice, but I just can never recommend actually playing Eno's main series of games because they seem designed to infuriate, and their best (and worst) moments are confined to cutscenes.
And yet again I find that it was the original D to shock me the most with its final flashback scene, as this game can barely be called scary. Unlike with D2 it doesn't even try to go for shock, mainly just featuring various levels of gore throughout. I've still enjoyed playing it more than D which felt completely pointless, but again, if this sounds interesting, Youtube is that-a-way.
this game really isn't the worst but I remember it not being that scary just more frustrating. obviously making the mechanics more difficult (like in this game making the gun dookie balls) CAN make a game scarier but I felt more annoyance over fear.
Joya oculta y de culto de SEGA Saturn que no había tenido oportunidad de jugar hasta ahora. El juego combina fases de aventura gráfica, donde nos moveremos por un entorno CGI (tipo Myst) para resolver puzles y pasillos/laberintos en 3D donde tendremos libertad de movimiento y deberemos evitar enemigos invisibles. Para ello contaremos unicamente con un pinganillo que emite pitidos segun la proximidad de los enemigos y una pistola cuyos disparos requieren un tiempo de carga y son muy limitados. Además para cargar/guardar partida tenemos un dispositivo de batería limitada que se irá agotando, hasta obligarnos a empezar de nuevo si agotamos toda la batería.
Técnicamente el juego está bastante desfasado, al tratarse de un título de 32 bits, y el control también es de la época, sobretodo si no tienes el mando analógico de Saturn. Sin embargo, si consigues sobreponerte a eso vas a disfrutar de la auténtica experiencia del juego, que consigue a las mil maravillas mantenerte en tensión en todo momento. El hecho de tener enemigos invisibles, sólo pistas sonoras, una pistola muy limitada y un número finito de guardados/carga de partida te obliga a tener concentración máxima en todo momento, ya que sabes que un error lo puedes pagar muy caro.
Para mí este título es un claro precursor de Alien Isolation. Uno de esos juegos muy desconocido a día de hoy pero que en su época marcó una tendencia que otros aprovecharían más tarde para crear joyas del género de terror. Pese a sus limitaciones, ha conseguido engancharme por las sensaciones que transmite y la historia que cuenta, también muy inspirada en Alien: El Octavo Pasajero. Enemy Zero es una experiencia que todo amante de los videojuegos debería probar. Recomendado!
Técnicamente el juego está bastante desfasado, al tratarse de un título de 32 bits, y el control también es de la época, sobretodo si no tienes el mando analógico de Saturn. Sin embargo, si consigues sobreponerte a eso vas a disfrutar de la auténtica experiencia del juego, que consigue a las mil maravillas mantenerte en tensión en todo momento. El hecho de tener enemigos invisibles, sólo pistas sonoras, una pistola muy limitada y un número finito de guardados/carga de partida te obliga a tener concentración máxima en todo momento, ya que sabes que un error lo puedes pagar muy caro.
Para mí este título es un claro precursor de Alien Isolation. Uno de esos juegos muy desconocido a día de hoy pero que en su época marcó una tendencia que otros aprovecharían más tarde para crear joyas del género de terror. Pese a sus limitaciones, ha conseguido engancharme por las sensaciones que transmite y la historia que cuenta, también muy inspirada en Alien: El Octavo Pasajero. Enemy Zero es una experiencia que todo amante de los videojuegos debería probar. Recomendado!
This review contains spoilers
(played on normal difficulty)
the visuals, the music, the concept of invisible enemies you can only locate through audio cues, all of that is 10/10.
once you get used to the trial and error combat, it isn't completely terrible. the limited saving/loading interacting with trial and error combat and exploration (fuck the ducts), and the vague objectives, is kind of terrible. i feel like a lot of it was there just to pad the games length out a bit.
by the time i got to disc 3 I had about 14 energy left and figured once that's gone i'd have to start a new game. i wasn't about to go through all of the game again so starting from when i got the last gun i was making save states at the start of each floor. i'm usually extremely against save states but i'm straight up not going through that shit again, this game is special and i didn't want my enjoyment to get obliterated towards the end, because otherwise i'd probably have just abandoned it.
the visuals, the music, the concept of invisible enemies you can only locate through audio cues, all of that is 10/10.
once you get used to the trial and error combat, it isn't completely terrible. the limited saving/loading interacting with trial and error combat and exploration (fuck the ducts), and the vague objectives, is kind of terrible. i feel like a lot of it was there just to pad the games length out a bit.
by the time i got to disc 3 I had about 14 energy left and figured once that's gone i'd have to start a new game. i wasn't about to go through all of the game again so starting from when i got the last gun i was making save states at the start of each floor. i'm usually extremely against save states but i'm straight up not going through that shit again, this game is special and i didn't want my enjoyment to get obliterated towards the end, because otherwise i'd probably have just abandoned it.
game kinda stinks but george was peak
kenjj eno was ahead of his times in so many ways but its just surprising how so many great concepts were built upon in enemy zero. i hate to use the word “””””cinematic””””” when talking about video games but i really like how the characters from his other works act as “digital actors” while breaking up the gameplay with point and click chunks to move the story along without having to have 30 minute long cutscenes. a game that feels like a cinematic experience with gameplay, surprising i know.
kinda sucks that this and a source mod are the only games to explore the concept of an invisible enemy that you can only hear but it does it so well. the latter half can get really annoying with how many enemys it throws at you but the first half is SO good. recommend running the pc port for mouse aim.
kinda sucks that this and a source mod are the only games to explore the concept of an invisible enemy that you can only hear but it does it so well. the latter half can get really annoying with how many enemys it throws at you but the first half is SO good. recommend running the pc port for mouse aim.