Event[0] (PC) Review

Something went wrong while cruising around Europa, which left you flying in the centre of nothingness. Approaching a tiny brown dot in the distance proves to be the only hope of returning to earth, since this is actually a long-abandoned space station from the '80s (yup, it's an alternative universe plotline all right). Unlike many space-centric sci-fi tales, however, Event[0] doesn't treat the cosmos as a walk in the park, since the "no one can hear you scream in space" philosophy of Alien is made perfectly clear in here.

This title captures the loneliness, as well as the frightening magnificence of space, with one example being when going outside the space station and looking at the breath-taking, enormous Jupiter that fills the view (by the way, read/watch Planetes NOW!). Once inside, the feeling of complete desolation is even stronger, as is the fact that fantastic visuals don't always need a big budget. Everything looks great, with an attention to detail that's stunning, although a bit of optimization would be more than welcome. Being a fresh product, of course, a few technical issues here and there are to be expected… although the extremely long loading times are pretty hard to stomach.

Luckily, the protagonist won't feel so lonely after all... sort of. Kaizen will act as our planetary castaway's companion, although he is just the station's AI - the station's glitchy AI. Besides walking around and examining objects, the only interactivity will be conversations with this unreliable chat box. Want a door opened? Tell it to do so. Want to know what happened here? Ask away. Kaizen's answers won't always please, but it will certainly respond on its own unique way… depending on how polite one is with it, that is.

As expected from a simple game AI, however, unless the developer has made sure that a certain question will provide a response, Kaizen won't really have a lot to say, and, most of the time, it will just insist on focusing on with the mission. Fortunately, it has been programmed to not just give the typical canned answers that chat box software give when hitting a wall and destroy immersion while at it. When Kaizen doesn't know how to respond, it won't just say "Ask me something else," but actually try to get things moving by talking about something else... after all, it is a problematic AI.

Now, without giving anything away, Kaizen can be quite the unsettling, creepy omnipresence. Yeah, it's not System Shock's megalomaniac SHODAN, but it can say some pretty disturbing, out of place things at times, as most robots do (common knowledge people!), and it's kawaii logo/face doesn't make things any easier. Without Kaizen, however, Event[0] would be half a game. Sure, there are puzzles to solve, and most are quite ingenious and actually avoid falling into the "use item A on B" variety, but there's only a handful of them available.

In other words, this is all about immersion and plot… and yet, while this rocks on the first part, story-wise it's far from perfect. At first, it will seem that nothing has happened here. Those who won't check their surroundings as well as they should, and, most of all, not take a look at the terminal logs that Kaizen has recorded, will feel that the whole quest is nothing more than a struggle between the player and this wonky AI in order to open a door or two. Thankfully, there is a plot here, and it's awesome as it is subtle in its presentation, but, sadly, it doesn't go the distance towards its hinted greatness.

To be more specific, Event[0] actually touches some pretty serious subjects, and handles them quite well - and that's good, because science fiction isn't only lightsabers, death stars, and awkward smooches between siblings; science fiction is about asking the big questions (is the cake a lie?), and, even more importantly, never really providing an answer, leaving the viewer to ponder on things. Does this game achieve doing so? Yes… but it all ends afterwards!

The best bits of the plot will be given in the final 10 or so minutes of this, otherwise, intriguing, journey. It will be great, it will be awesome, it will make people feel hungry for more, but, since this odyssey won't take more than two-to-three hours, it will somehow feel like an intro to something much grander. Despite the plot's inconsistencies, the scarcity of puzzles, the close-but-no-cigar concept of cooperating with an AI, as well as the short length of it all, this is actually a fantastic piece of software, whose only real flaw is that it could have been oh, so much better.