After every battle, Aya receives EXP points, and Battle Points which enable her to upgrade her weapons. The inventory/ level up system is second only only to Resident Evil Outbreak in terms of its stupidity. She also takes a painfully long time to reload her weapon, usually resulting in a thorough mauling before she has time to squeeze the next round off. Sadly, none of the in-game monsters seem to suffer from this lack of mobility, and the whole sorry mess is exacerbated by the fact that Aya moves about as fast as an elephant driving a combine harvester. Running AND turning a corner at the same time is nigh on impossible, and in confined spaces you will find yourself having to stop, pirouette 90 degrees and then carry on. The controls also frustrate, although this is symptomatic of the PS1's lack of analogue stick than the game itself. I went to get the aforementioned wrench only to find out that I couldn't pick it up, I had to back-track about nine scenes to ask the garage owner's permission to use the wrench, before going all the way back to the beginning to use the damned thing. I remembered seeing a wrench in a garage a couple of scenes back. For example, I came across a door that needed a wrench to open it. The relevant bit of scenery only becomes 'live' once Aya herself gets the idea resulting in endless to-ing and fro-ing. There is no provision in the game for picking up an object that looks as if it might be useful later, or guessing a solution to a puzzle without picking up all the clues. Conversations are in sub-titles only, meaning a lot of exaggerated arm waving animation to convey the characters' feelings, giving you the strange feeling you're watching a bunch of deaf-mutes doing vaudeville.Īnother downer is the arbitrary nature of the puzzles. Where the game falls down is the lack of vocal soundtrack. The in game animation is smooth and even the protagonists don't suffer from the characteristic PS1 blockiness. One aspect in which the game really excels is the presentation, which is superb for a game of its day, with lush backgrounds and dynamic, flickering lighting. The gameplay evolves in classic Resident Evil style, as the hilariously inappropriately dressed Aya travels through prerendered backdrops, solving the odd puzzle and shooting anything that gets in her way.
So good in fact, that while the rest of us are donning full body armour and bullet proof vests, she's charging around in a clingy vest and hotpants, clearly relishing her secondary role as every 14 year old boy's wet dream. So What's the next move? Send in the army? The Marines? Nah, let's send in a lone female agent armed with nothing but a bayonet. 20 SWAT team members have been sent after it, but have not returned. A monster has been sighted making its way up to the top floor. The game starts in a high rise block in a plush part of the city. Anyway, the little beasties have started rampaging round LA, which is where we come in. So having left the NYPD, Aya is now part of a top-secret (aren't they all?) agency called MIST, which apparently isn't the Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, but the Mitochondria Investigation and Supression Team, which sounds a bit like a Government QUANGO. Our unfeasibly blonde and leggy heroine, Aya Brea was an NYPD cop who helped wipeout the cause of the epidemic, but as is so often the case in the world of video games, things aren't that simple.
Waay back in 1997, when the original Parasite Eve was released, we were introduced to the concept of Neo Mitochondria, rogue organisms with the charming habit of invading human hosts and turning them into icky homicidal mutants.