(AfroGamers.com) A title that gamers who were either around or just coming into gaming might remember from the PS2’s launch is E.O.E: Eve of Extinction. Released in 2002, E.O.E was a beat ‘em up published by Eidos and developed by Yuke’s, the game is an odd memory for me.
I still have the physical copy and enjoyed it when I played it. Mind you, it was the kind of enjoyment you got from having only a few games and that game being one of the better ones of the bunch. When I played it over ten years later, I had experienced better beat ‘em ups since then and revisited better ones that came out before and during 2002. Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance being a good example.
E.O.E and Its Flaws
One of the issues E.O.E had was the camera which I’d say contributed to the difficulty. Mind you, the game had a manageable difficulty that wouldn’t have you putting the game down and revisiting hours later. You could chunk through this game in a week at the longest and only get mildly frustrated. The cause of that frustration: the camera which had you taking hits that should’ve easily been dodged or blocked.
I say “easily” because the foes in this game weren’t exactly programmed to be proto-Dead Souls or anything. Of course, slash ‘em ups tend to require more patience and timed evasion and blocking. Beat ‘em ups have developed to require that level know-how while playing.
However, in the early 2000s they were still pretty straightforward with the main change being the setting of a 3D arena. If early the PSX and Nintendo 64 showed us anything: 3D needs a camera that isn’t cheeks. It really helps to be able to see around your character fluidly. This was an issue with Eve of Extinction.
Another issue that was more tolerable was a basic, mostly uninteresting storyline. The main character Josh has a weapon containing his girlfriend Eliel that can change during gameplay. Basically, it can be whatever you might need for the combat situation you’re in. That would be great if E.O.E wasn’t in that weird space of fun combat but having bricks for enemies.
Again, it was 2002, so no one was really expecting Ghosts of Tsushima or Metal Gear enemies. Instead, it was more like Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage or early Dynasty Warriors scrub soldiers just marching in to get spanked. The enemies were so uninteresting, that it’d be hard to go into the bosses in the game outside of their AI being better than the rank and file scrubs.
That’s expected but nowadays you have situations where field bosses, sub bosses, and even a few scrubs that prove to be more of a problem than the bosses. The Borderlands series tend to have a number of them across multiple games.
Was There Any Hope for a Sequel?
With any older game or series, I like to dive into sequel or reboot potential. Often you hear from gamers that there are few original concepts or games being put out by the larger studios or that franchises are getting run into the ground. The magic solution to fixing that is to come up with something new that isn’t a sequel to something we’ve played for the past decade.
I’ve always felt that an easier solution would be to revive or reboot a title that is collecting dust in a developer’s vault. If we haven’t seen the game in a long while, see what can be changed or built upon. There are more mechanics and storytelling is better now than 20 years ago in games.
E.O.E: Eve of Extinction is one of those games that would need to be rebooted before moving it into a sequel. The original wasn’t that good or memorable from start to finish. I remember more about R.A.D: Robot Alchemic Drive than E.O.E and that was another mid-at-best title from the PS2 era.
At the time, there was no hope for a sequel in part because the solo game ended in a way that one game was enough. It was a standalone story and as it was, no one was really clamoring for another trip into Josh’s world to deal with a revived Wisdom Company.
Staff Writer; M. Swift
This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.