Game Review – Event [0]

Deep Space.

It seems inevitable that if our species will survive, we must explore it.

Have you given any thought to the long length of time it would take to reach the unexplored edges of our galaxy and beyond?

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Would you spend hours chatting with the other few members of the crew, practice a hobby like origami, or maybe shut yourself up in your quarters and read and listen to music? Maybe you would strike up a conversation with the ship’s AI, and study the ship you were on? Regardless of how you spent your time, the vast distance of space travel would definitely prove a challenge for the human psyche.

Event [0] brought these thoughts to mind as I searched the hallways and crew quarters of the Nautilus, trying to discover why the spaceship seemed to be abandoned. But one person still remained to shed light on the mystery, the ship itself, an AI named Kaizen. But let’s backtrack a second and explain how I got here.

On a mission to land on Jupiter’s moon, my own ship’s AI forced me to evacuate under very suspicious circumstances. Drifting through space in a tiny escape pod, my radio suddenly plays a transmission of a woman singing about the end of the world.

Following the transmission, I guide my pod to dock with the strange unwieldy looking cruiser, the Nautilus. Built in this game’s alternate 1980s, this experimental spacecraft is a cruise ship manufactured during the early years of spaceflight after Earth’s moon colonization. But what is the Nautilus doing way out by Jupiter? And where are the human crew? The ship’s AI Kaizen, is the only one who may have answers.\

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Event [0] is somewhere between a “walking simulator” and a point and click adventure game. The game has an unique keyboard and mouse control system; the mouse controls perspective, right click moves forward, and left click moves back. Although you can hover over objects, you cannot pick up and store items like in most adventure games. The only way you can directly interact with the environment is by typing at the numerous computer terminals throughout the ship.

At these terminals, I typed and “spoke” with Kaizen, the ship’s AI using natural language, meaning I can type almost anything, and Kaizen will respond. Kaizen can procedurally generate over two million lines of dialog and the AI entity has a strong personality influenced by human input.  As in any relationship, there can be gratitude, disappointment or jealousy, and Kaizen reacts differently depending on its mood. One of the best scenes in the games involves convincing Kaizen that I was “me” and not someone else during a very tense situation.

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As I spoke to Kaizen on these terminals, I asked, either politely or rudely, for Kaizen to open various doors to the ship, and gradually I was able to explore the whole ship. I found no crew, but I did find evidence of their presence. Abandoned meals, books, phonograph albums, and other items bore witness that at some point, people lived here. The living quarters and ship interior were beautiful, a curved retro-futuristic design as one might imagine if the rough technology of the 1980s had been adapted to space travel. I can imagine spaceships might look like this if the Shuttle Challenger hadn’t met it’s disastrous end. The attention to design in the ship is commendable, it feels like a real, liveable working ship with beds that raise to the ceiling when not in use, a compact cockpit with computer monitors instead of viewports, and two recreation areas.

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In contrast to the welcoming design of the Nautilus, there is evidence of trauma and chaos to the ship. Several hallways are dark, terminals broken and sparking. A few doors have been rigged with makeshift locks or passwords, and these situations provide the game’s 4 puzzles, all solved on the keyboard. Talking with Kaizen helps solve these obstacles and always made clear what needed to be done next to progress, and none of the puzzles was particularly challenging.

At this point I should mention I was stumped at one point for almost 20 minutes, and it was not because of a puzzle. Although Kaizen responds naturally to most queries, we got stuck in one conversation loop for a bit. I knew exactly what I needed from Kaizen, but no matter how I seemed to phrase my request, Kaizen would ask for clarification or repeat the clue for the situation. I finally got the verbiage right, and was able to progress, but it was frustrating. I was using the same words as in Kaizen’s clue, but I had to ask for what I needed with a slightly different, similar word that it took me a while to guess. This only happened to me once, and may just be my experience.

Aside from that roadbump, the game progresses quickly in a very linear fashion. Assuming you don’t have long conversations with Kaizen about Ukrainian gardening methods, you can complete the game in about 2-3 hours. The experience was rich enough to me to justify $20, but everyone’s value proposition is different. Also make sure you check the Steam store page for system minimum and recommended requirements. Although my PC landed somewhere between minimum and recommended settings, I had to turn my performance settings way down or the game crashed or ran at extremely low frame rate. Hopefully future updates will improve optimization, because the game has great textures and particle effects that I was not able to fully enjoy.

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Verdict

Pros:

  • Beautiful Retro-Futuristic Art Design
  • Well Realized AI Conversation
  • Simple, Innovation Control
  • Short, tight narrative experience

Cons:

  • Short game may turn off some
  • Limited interaction with environment
  • High PC system requirements for full experience

 

Should you play Event [0]? That depends what you enjoy. If you enjoy a tight short story with distractions like inventory eliminated, you will enjoy this game. If you are looking for an action game, you will be mostly disappointed except for a breathtaking space walk in the middle of the game. If the idea of exploring an abandoned ship and having chats with its computer sounds fun, get this game. If you are a point and click adventurer who likes to examine every piece of the environment and solve puzzles with doodads you’ve collected in your inventory, you will be disappointed in Event[0].

I enjoyed my time with Event[0], and I may replay it in the future to try to unlock one of the other two endings, although I am satisfied with the one I got. The Nautilus is a beautiful ship, and Kaizen would be an interesting companion in a long trip into the dark reaches of space.

I hope my review helps you decide if Event[0] is a game you’d enjoy, and definitely check out the Steam store page for more information.

Be sure to listen to my weekly podcast, Plug and Play for more thoughts on these and other games, and stay tuned to TheButtonSmashers.com for all your nerd culture news.

Tim Bledsoe

Podcasts & Single-player games are his thing except on "Adventure Time Tuesdays"