ZOE is a short but worthwhile experience offering fast gameplay and some great boss fights.
User Rating: 8.5 | Z.O.E.: Zone of the Enders (PlayStation 2 the Best) PS2
Zone Of The Enders is a mech action game directed by Hideo Kojima, who made the Metal Gear series. ZOE features a short 6-8 hour campaign mode and a bonus mode after beating the main story. You take the role of Leo Starbuck, a young boy wandering about in the city. When the BAHRAM forces attack, Leo stumbles on an inactive mech named Jehuty. Leo pilots Jehuty, and so the adventure begins. The plot is pretty generic, but it still keeps you going throughout the game. You'll meet several characters along the way; some are quite interesting while some are forgettable. ZOE features a deep backstory covering the migration to Jupiter and the orbital frames. Now ZOE is pretty straight forward when it comes to gameplay. The combat may be fairly simple but it is very fun, the blade attacks are very fluid and flying around is a joy. The camera is also pretty stable; normally it operates well giving you a nice view of the battlefield. You also have a ton of subweapons at your disposal like the geyser, javelin and others. These can be fun to mess around with but in the heat of battle they won't be of much use. Sadly combat will get repetitive, their is only one blade combo and the blaster isn't much either. Some of the boss fights are incredibly fun. Especially the one on one mech fights, those are really cool. Graphically ZOE is superb. This game was released in 2001 and looks amazing, even by today's standards. Grant it the cutscenes might look a bit crappy but the mechs and environments look very vibrant. In my whole playthrough of ZOE, I didn't encounter any frame rate issues or crashes. Their is also a bonus mode awarded to the player after beating the main story. This versus mode is quite simple, basically the player battles another mech in a 1on1 fight. It gets old real quick, but it's still pretty fun from time to time. Their isn't much to say really, ZOE is a short burst of Kojima goodness with great gameplay and really awesome looking mechs. 
