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1-800-942-0426
Get 60 rounds of bullets
On the first level, after you beat Eve on the
Opera Stage, go backstage and you will
see the hole. If you listen carefully at the
hole you will hear sirens. Go back outside
the Operahouse and ask the cop on the far
right for bullets. He will give you 60 rounds.
Infinite Bullets
In the NYPD go downstair and enter the
left door. You can find the bullets in the box
near the counter get it and go out to the
New York map. Now return to that room
for more bullets. Repeat as needed.
Lots of Trading Cards
When you're at the hospital, just before you
go to the 13TH floor, find the room that has
the nurse who is looking for more hurt
people. Now go to the top of the room to
the fallen cabinet, look behind it to find lots
of tradng cards. Make sure you have room
for them in your inventory.
The Missing Building
After you win you'll be asked if you wish to
save. Do so, then reinsert CD #1 and
choose the EX game. You'll now see the
Chrysler Building on the Manhattan map.
Go inside and make your way to the top to
see the real enemy and ending.
Admittedly, Squaresoft often games often
have to face a higher standard than other
games just because so much is expected of
them. So if a game comes from them that
doesn’t meet our expectations, we feel much
more dissapointed than usual. Parasite Eve is
a game like that. It’s not a bad game by any
means, but you can’t help but feel
dissapointed.
The game is billed by Square/EA as “The
cinematic RPG” and that’s a pretty apt
description. Gamers were quick to bill this
game as Squaresoft's answer to Resident Evil
because of the pre-rendered backgrounds,
but in all honesty that’s all the two games
have in common. In fact, PE shares much
more with it’s Final Fantasy cousins than it
does with Resident Evil 1 or 2.
In the game you play a young, attractive cop named Aya Brea. After going
to
the opera one night, and watching as the patrons and the actors are lit
on fire
by one of the actresses (Eve), you get caught up in an adventure where
the
fate of the world is at stake. The game is entirely played from the Resident
Evil forced camera perspective with pre-rendered backgrounds and polygonal
characters. In this case, however, the areas actually scroll a bit (which
is nice)
and the monsters you fight warp you into a combat screen.
The combat is the best feature of PE. It all takes place in real-time and
you
can run around and dodge attacks while your weapon of choice charges.
Then, when you are ready, you press the fire button which will show you
your range and what targets you have to choose from, and then you shoot.
All in all, it works pretty well although it’s not particularly challenging.
It
seems as if the monsters will either be easy to dodge (most things) or
impossible (some of the bosses). After a while all of the combat gets
repetitive as you figure out patterns for the plethora of random encounters
you will face.
The problem with doing combat this way is that you never see anything
coming and the world is barren and lifeless. Sometimes there are other
humans around you can talk to, but most of the time you will spend in the
game is just wandering around large (but beautifully rendered) empty areas.
Combined with Aya’s rather slow running speed (just forget about walking)
and the pace of the game is slowed to a crawl.
The story doesn’t help things either as it’s pretty slow. There are long
periods of text as characters talk to one another that you can’t accelerate
through and most of the time it’s just not interesting. There aren’t even
any
real twists to the story (well there are a few but they are very anti-climactic)
and the game just seems to involve Aya chasing Eve down at one location
after another. This gets old. Especially because the plot never really
gets
tense. There are never any real moments where: A. You care what happens
to
any of the characters or B. You feel as if the game is building towards
a
climax.
The cinematics almost redeem the game because they are admittedly some
of
the best ever seen. In fact, many will play through the game just to see
all of
the cinemas. They’re that good. Unfortunately, when you beat the game you
are shown a REALLY BAD false ending and then a special EX mode opens
up.
To get the real ending, you must go through the game again and then climb
to the top of a new 50 story building and fight the boss there. Adding
some
replay value is good since the game is short (Average gamers can breeze
through it in around 7 hours) but not many will want to endure the whole
thing twice.
We’ve tried to make it through this review without mentioning the incredibly
cheap death that will happen to you after you beat the first five (yes
five!)
forms of the final boss. There are a few others, but we feel that one will
annoy
you the most -- especially since you can’t skip ANY of the cinemtaics in
the
game -- and it’s a long build to this guy.
On a final note, however, the demo disc is cool and features a neat playable
of XenoGears as well as movies of Final Fantasy VIII and Bushido Blade
II
