Hands-on: Zero

Tecmo has been quite busy with the Dead or Alive and Monster Rancher franchises for the past few years, and some of you may have been wondering what happened to the Deception series. Apparently the development team behind the Deception series has been working on a project called Zero for the PlayStation 2. While the Deception series was an action-adventure game where players set traps for their foes, Zero manages to offer something quite different while retaining the mood and atmosphere of the Deception series.

The game begins when reporters working on a documentary about the mysterious mansion of the Himuro family disappear. You'll take the role of a young girl (who happens to look like a younger version of Kasumi from the Dead or Alive series) named Miku Hinasaki, who is in search of her brother Mafuyu, who also is missing inside the mansion. There you will encounter ghosts and spirits waiting to torment you. While the gameplay is in the same vein as the Resident Evil or Silent Hill series, your weapon of choice isn't a gun or a metal pipe--it happens to be a camera! While a game where you kill ghosts with a camera may sound absurd at first, once you play it you'll find it quite engaging. You'll watch your character walk around the mansion from fixed camera angles or from mobile ones that travel on predetermined paths. Holding down the triangle button switches to a first-person view, as if you're looking through a camera's viewfinder. The various camera angles deliberately prevent you from seeing what's ahead in the corridor, so using your camera is a must to make sure your path is clear. The lower right portion of the screen has a small box that lights up when ghosts or spirits are present nearby. Because the game uses a variety of eye-candy-like transparencies and motion blurs for the ghosts, it's difficult to visually track the ghosts with your eyes, so you'll have to rely on your camera to take them out. While your target is inside the viewfinder circle, you can keep "charging" your camera and hit the R1 button to snap shots. The longer you charge, the more damage you'll do, which earns you more experience points. Like with real cameras, the number of shots you can fire off are limited to your film, but you can replenish the film by picking them up as items. Some types of film will be more effective than others, as with guns and ammo in typical survival-horror games. There will also be puzzles that will force you to use your mind. The same small box on the lower right of the screen that warns you of nearby ghosts will light up if there is something related to a puzzle. For example, a door is locked, but when you're looking through the camera, you will notice that a spell (with a paper tagged onto the door) is sealing the door off. You will have to remove the spell from a different location to unlock the door.

The control scheme in Zero is quite flexible. You can choose whether you prefer a typical 3D action-adventure style, such as the Resident Evil style, or a custom setup. You'll be able to swap the triangle and R1 buttons, so you can use R1 to switch to the first-person view and snap a shot with the triangle button--this might be more comfortable for those who are used to the controls in Resident Evil or Metal Gear Solid 2. The D-pad or the left analog stick is for controlling Miku, while the right analog stick is for aiming the flashlight in the direction you desire. While in first-person view, the left analog stick is for aiming at your target, while the right analog stick is for walking around. It might feel awkward at first, but once you get used to it, charging your camera and keeping targets at a distance works like magic. And if it's still difficult for you to keep away from them while charging, your camera can be powered up with enhanced abilities. With experience points earned from killing ghosts, you can customize your camera to widen its range (the circle on the camera finder becomes larger), quicken the charge time, or even paralyze or slow down the target's movements.

If the Silent Hill series is like watching a film from David Lynch or a Nine Inch Nails music video, then Zero is like watching the Japanese horror films Ring and Rasen based on the popular novels of Koji Suzuki. Zero delivers the mood and atmosphere into the setting perfectly with its unique sound effects, so having a good sound system or wearing headphones is highly recommended. For instance, you look at the floor on the corridor and see trails of blood. You walk slowly, and suddenly you hear the echo of a baby crying. Subtle vibrations on the Dual Shock 2 controllers are also executed well and draw you further into the game. While shooting guns in most survival-horror games causes the controller to rumble, Zero manages an effective but subtle use of vibration. Walking around a seemingly empty corridor is nerve racking enough, but feeling a light buzz on the controller, the same eerie buzz you feel when a bug flaps its small wings around your ear or the tip of your finger, is very unsettling.

Based on what we've seen so far, Zero features high production values, in both graphics and audio. The character model of Miku is particularly well done, and the level designs throughout the mansion keep you on a high level of alert. The lighting effects are also used to good effect, and you'll control the direction of the flashlight illumination in the darkness. The loading times in between moving from one room to another are processed in the background, so the game seems to flow smoothly. Zero, the latest project from Tecmo's Deception team, is scheduled for a release next week in Japan. We'll have more on this PlayStation 2 title as soon as we receive the final version.