Carrier is hard to take seriously, but it is a fun game to play overall.
Taking place twenty years in the future, the world has fallen into a seemingly black and white state of political turmoil as every country above the northern hemisphere has become far more prosperous than the countries below the southern hemisphere. At least seventy-seven countries below the southern hemisphere have grown to despise the northern countries economic progress, forcing them to unite as the G77 and start a terrorist organization known as The Southern Cross. In response to this, the northern countries form the NTA and team up in co-ordinance with the countries Naval forces in order to thwart any terrorist attacks which leads to their creation of a massive and powerful air craft carrier. After completing a mission on an oddly named island housing a Southern Cross base, the carrier started its three day journey back to America, but during its first two days has grown silent and fails to reply to any outside communications. The NTA then organizes a tiny rescue party consisting of an NTA Information Department Lieutenant and Naval Sergeant Jack, both of which have different reasons for joining the infinitesimal team. As they approach the ship however, the guns of the carrier shoot their helicopter down, forcing the two (plus the pilot) to crash land on the ship. From there, you start the game as Jack who almost immediately realizes there’s more to the ship than blazing guns as mutated crew members make their appearance to threaten everyone’s existence. Later in the game, you’ll be able to play as the lieutenant who has her own mini-scenario that explains any loose ends in Jack’s scenario.
The graphics express the good and bad qualities of the common Dream Cast game as the settings and character models are all fully 3D and show some very nice lighting effects and detail, yet the characters move stiffly with awkward positions and their jaws tend to keep moving in repetitive motions as they talk. It was sad to see that the only FMV in the entire game occurred during the opening scene where the hero’s helicopter is shot down, showing every other scene in CG scenes that are not really different from the normal graphics. Upon first glance of the settings, it’s easy to find the area your character is surrounded in to be bland and flat especially due to the set camera angles that revolve change with every new corridor entered. However, this attribute can be literally looked past, as the use of the scope can reveal a number of detailed 3D areas to bee seen. Although there are no super gory scenes in the game such as specific character deaths, the graphics are enabled for you to cause a little destruction amongst the enemies with what little arsenal you have, with a few well aimed shots to certain enemy’s body parts with certain weapons. Even in that sense though the gore is not entirely rendered well, but what little gore used is still effective.
The game play is actually pretty good all around, though with its similarities to other survival horror games and Carrier’s own innovations, it does take a little time to get used to. You explore the many decks of the massive aircraft carrier looking for survivors, clues about what happened and key-items to get you through locked doors. You’re able to save your progress unlimited amounts of times on computer stations that record the status of your character’s mission (they also double as elevator lifts sometimes). The directional controls are in 3D, enabling you to move forward with the up button and run while holding the X button and you can turn 180 degrees around by pressing back on the directional pad/analog stick and the A button. The right trigger lets you aim your weapon again in three different positions and a press of the left trigger lets you instantly change between the weapons you have in your inventory. The major innovation to the controls however lies in the use of a scope that you must use in order to determine if surviving crew members are infected with the mutant virus that’s gone through the ship, as well as being able to use the scope to locate various items in rooms and to locate enemies ‘through walls’ so to speak. The use of the scope is actually a very intriguing feature as you control the scope by holding the B button and you can move it around like flight controls (pointing up makes you look down and pointing down makes you look up) in 1st person perspective. What’s really unique about the scope is that it gives you a chance to check out the finer details of the graphics and in its own sense it adds to the atmosphere as you will find yourself entering new halls searching for any mutants on your way, keeping your attention solely on what you can find and what might escape your view.
Combat in the game is a bearable feature, though any of you melee nuts out there may be disappointed. The arsenal you are allowed is shockingly minimal as our characters get a totally of three different firearms, one welder and two variations of timed plastic explosives you can use mostly for gaining access to doors that are blocked off by plants or for some strategic destruction for crowds of enemies. When holding the right trigger, you can highlight different parts of your enemy’s bodies, at the head, upper torso or arms with a circular blue cross hair which makes dropping your enemies fairly easy. However, there are many instances in which you’ll find yourself surrounded by mutants in tight corridors, making the efficiency of aiming rather tricky. Plus, because the game is rather firearm/power dependant, if you ever happen to run out of ammo for your main firearms, you’ll be forced to use either plastic explosives or the welder to take your enemies down. Though the concept of using plastic explosives with a bit more freedom is a first for a survival-horror game, the style in which they’re used takes some getting used to as you are forced to place the explosives gently on the ground. Once they’re set, the explosive will do a five second countdown, forcing you to evade the area quickly or suffer the injuries. The puzzles in the game are not challenging as most of them consist of the simple find the right memo containing the pass code or find the key to the door in order to progress, with only one puzzle having any level of intricacy to it throughout the entire game, but it’s still hardly remarkable.
The sound quality of Carrier is certainly mixed as there is a nice level of detail to the sounds, yet some cheap variation and quality as well. The noises the mutants make are varied from nice groans, moans and other guttural noises, with some really goofy noises of pain as well, such as the torso mutants making a long ‘I’m dying’ noise. Bullet shells that fall into pools of water make a nice plunking noise, yet the bullet shells make the same sound as your character’s footsteps once they hit metal floors. Something interesting about Carrier is the fact that you can change between the English and Japanese languages for the dialogue in the game which can be a blessing for some gamers tired of bad English dubbing. Though the English dubbing in the game isn’t entirely bad, it’s half and half because the majority of supporting characters and a few of the surviving crew members have good English voice-overs such as the Colonel, while the remaining crew and supporting characters voices hung between silly and unfitting such as Jack’s voice which straddles between applying no effort in most scenes, yet pulling off emotional scenes pretty well. The soundtrack to Carrier itself shares this same ambivalence as the music brings up moments of silliness when trying to apply tension and drama, while other parts of the soundtrack actually contribute to the various settings a bit of the atmosphere and a few dramatic tones to the appropriate moments. Perhaps the highlight of the soundtrack would be its battle theme songs that are used with bosses and considerably large monsters, though even those same songs have a few tracks that are too kooky to fit in.
The atmosphere behind Carrier is surprisingly thinner than one would imagine as most scare factors are dependant on the often dismal or seemingly unoccupied settings and scenery such as empty hallways of the ship’s decks or waiting for the screen of your scope to see more clearly. Sadly however, that is the basic sum of the game’s atmosphere which is a sign of wasted potential seeing how parts of the soundtrack that you can listen to in the options menu contains tracks that would be appropriate for a graphic death scene or a room inundated with macabre imagery in no lights that forces you to see them through your scope in 1st person. These tracks (known only as the Jingles numbered 2 through 13) are mostly applied to the game for very brief scenes of pretentious, dramatic tension and more often for ambient tracks for various hallways and one or two rooms which only adds to the atmosphere less than it should.
The story, though in theory a unique idea, lacks a bit of credibility only due to the fact that it’s got a fair chunk of unoriginality to its presentation. I won’t say any more beyond that, but I can assure you’ve heard similar secrets presented in previous media, even in a game that was made for the Dream Cast during the same year that Carrier was made. Although the majority of the characters are hard to get a grasp for, there were a few moments of sympathy for the main character as various survivors around him would die off and we’d get a few good shots of the guilt on his face. If anything, Carrier is more of a soldier’s drama as the main character is constantly forced to hold back his emotions in order to carry on with his mission. The mutants you face in the game, much like other factors tend to share a sense of uniqueness and silliness to their designs as you’ll face up against human shaped mutants who use their rib cages to attack you and mutants with long, four sided faces that try to take a chunk out of you, as well as mutants that are mixed with a fish and, dare I say, invisible electric gastropods.
In all honesty, Carrier isn’t a terrible game. For some, it’s certainly a game that can’t be taken seriously due to the content, but it’s a fun and oddly addicting game regardless. There are moments and factors in the game that are reminiscent to other survival horror games, though for me the most impertinent of such moments is during a movie scene where Jack is running through a series of illogical explosions, something that is more likely to be found in a Resident Evil game, but such factors can be either overlooked or reprehensible to the gamer. You’ll either find the game not worth the time or well worth the purchase seeing how it’s improbable that you’ll have a chance to rent it these days. So, if you’re daring, curious or just want to play a good old survival horror game that’s been lost under the obsolete curtain of the Dream Cast, then Carrier would be a fair addition to your collection.