Project Eden

Project Eden
The game's cover art.
Developer(s)	Core Design
Publisher(s)	Eidos Interactive
Designer(s)	Heather Gibson Neal Boyd
Programmer(s)	Gavin Rummery
Artist(s)	Stuart Atkinson Joss Charmet
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2
Release date(s)	Microsoft Windows NA: 8 October 2001 EU: 26 October 2001 PlayStation 2 NA: 22 October 2001 EU: 2 November 2001
Genre(s)	Action-adventure
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Project Eden is an action-adventure video game developed by Core Design and published by Eidos Interactive. It was released on 8 October 2001 for Microsoft Windows and on 26 October 2001 for the PlayStation 2 console (PS2). A Dreamcast version was planned but cancelled. In this cyberpunk game, players switch between control of four agents, each with their own special abilities, as they work their way through a city that has grown upward and upward, leaving delving buildings and neighbourhoods "below city limits".

Among other unique mechanics of Project Eden is the fact that player characters do not die; instead, they are re-spawned at the last checkpoint, where their health is fully restored. There is emphasis on puzzle-solving over combat as a single player can control any of the four characters at any given time, while other players can jump in at any time and assume control of team members.

Plot

The game starts with UPA agents Carter, Andre, Minoko and Amber heading below city limits to find two technicians missing from the Real Meat Company (a corporation that produces organic meat, because most of the food in that world is synthetically made). The suspicions of the team revolve around a local and dangerous gang named The Death Heads. The UPA team tracks the gang down to their base in St. Lucia's Church; but on their way, the gang members and many animals also start mutating into strange creatures. Clearing their way through the Church, battling the mutants, the UPA Team finally get close to the technicians, only to see them being taken far below city limits, possibly to ground zero (the term used for the ground level of the earth itself). The UPA Control instructs the UPA Team to recover a creature, a live one, for analysis; which shows that it has been a regular dog which had been tampered with using an old Gene splicer (this hints at the fact that genetic technology has advanced greatly). The analysis also reveals that the creatures they have been attacked by are being controlled by a signal; which is their next job, to both find and if possible, recover the technicians, and locate the source of the signal.

On their way, the UPA Team start to encounter little girls (who are blonde and dressed in a red dress) that go by the name of Lucy, who talk about irrelevant things before mutating into dangerous creatures themselves. Minoko, while going to another sector of the city by a high-speed railcar, mentions that she once had a sister named Lucy, but that Lucy had died due to a genetic illness she and their mother suffered from. As they continue, the team starts to question if Minoko's family was involved in their situation. The train crashes before reaching its destination, and leaves Minoko trapped in by a group known as cannibals. Upon their arrival, Carter asks Control to check out Minoko's father. Dr. Joseph Molenski, who was once a skilled technician and a biological engineer, and who was kicked out of Real Meat, due to his act of stealing machinery to help his own mysterious research. As a fugitive, Molenski was never acquired by UPA, nor was Lucy. Minoko was taken to the UPA Recreation Program, and thus became a UPA Agent.

Clearing out an old zoo (which is filled with cannibals along with mutants) due to their railcar accident, the team arrive at Ground zero. However, since what they are looking for is further down, the team advances to the underground levels; below sea level. During their investigation, they stumble upon a video of Dr. Molenski, saying that he has found a nuclear bunker underneath, and has also rigged up a basic gene splicer. He also mentions that using it, he hopes to cure Lucy finally.

The UPA Team enter the Eden Bunker, and upon their entrance, they discover that Dr. Molenski was trapped in a time dilation field, a field that which stops time around a given area, or slows it down immensely; similar as employed in a weapon the team uses, called the Timeshock. Molenski is seemingly reaching out to a computer. Upon dwelling deeper and deactivating the time dilation field, Minoko is kidnapped. Lucy tells Minoko that she has been creating the creatures, and the girls that mutated (in attempt to find a new body for herself) were her failures due to the different DNA of those girl victims that were too much to deal with. Since Minoko is her biological sister, Lucy wishes to take her body.

Meanwhile, Molenski is told that fifteen years have passed, and asked what has happened. The answer is simple; in order to keep Lucy alive, Molenski had linked her mind to the computers, running half of her brain with them, while keeping her body in a time dilation field. However, since the computers were networked, Lucy took over them, and tried to solve things her way. The other three UPA Team members rescue Minoko, and they deactivate Lucy's time dilation field; causing her death. Molenski removes the computer connected to Lucy's head and inserts it into a robot body he has built for her to try to keep her brain alive. The UPA Team in the end return to the surface.

Reception

Project Eden received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PlayStation 2 version 75.48% and 71/100^[1][4] and the PC version 73.54% and 72/100.^[2][3] IGN ranked it as the 87th best PlayStation 2 game.^[5]

References

External links

• Project Eden at MobyGames