Lifeline – PS2 – Review

"Move toward the table."  "Go to the table."

She doesn’t respond. 
Clearly she can see the shiny object sitting on the table.  Could it be an
engagement ring?  At this rate she’ll never know.

Shockingly, these aren’t
signs of a failing relationship.  They are the result of a game called
Lifeline.

Judging by the recent
surge in publicity, it’s likely that you’ve heard the name once or twice.  You
may have also heard that the game features voice activation.  That’s it’s main
appeal, and as the developers would have it, the game’s only appeal.  You
cannot play Lifeline using a game controller.  Every action, every command, is
to be said aloud into the Logitech microphone (the one that came with SOCOM
and Karaoke Revolution).  You absolutely must have the mic to play Lifeline,
so if you don’t have it, be prepared to shell out another $20 in addition to
the game’s price.

It seems odd to make a
game’s controls depend solely on your voice, but at the same time it’s a
refreshing concept that really got my attention.  The only thing that came to
mind when thinking about the possibilities of Lifeline was Seaman, an old
Dreamcast fish-talking simulator.  Both games are completely different from
each other.  It was exciting to hear that another game with similar
technological roots was headed to PS2.

Although your character
is intended to be the boyfriend of this girl who apparently died, the
character you see on screen is Rio.  You start out by viewing the guests, who
are aboard a space station hotel, via security cameras.  Something goes
horribly wrong, monsters infiltrate and eat the guests, and before you know it
you’re trapped inside a room.  Lucky for you Rio is still alive, and despite
the fact that she’s only a waitress, she just happens to be pretty good with a
gun!  Rio also happens to have a helpful communication device on her.  She
uses it to communicate with you.  Is it beginning to make sense?  You tell her
what needs to be done to stop the menace and free yourself from captivity. 

Like many people in the
business world, however, Rio doesn’t usually do what she’s told.

Lifeline is supposed to
be able to recognize hundreds, maybe even thousands, of words.  That sounds
pretty good, until you take into account the average teen’s vocabulary:
12,000+ words.  It’s much larger for adults, and even higher for writers like
myself.  Knowing this, I did not expect the world from the game.  I went easy
on it, spoke clearly, and tried my best to be patient.

In combat, Lifeline
responds with a good amount of accuracy.  You don’t have very many commands
(shoot, flee, dodge, and a couple others), it’s still the most impressive part
of the game.

Whenever you encounter an
enemy, the battle menu appears, alerting you that it’s time to fight.  Besides
the basic commands already mentioned you have the ability to shoot specific
parts of the enemy.  Gruesome, and fun!  Call out "Head," and Rio will shoot
the enemy’s head.  Call out "Left Eye," and the left eye will be shot.  To
shoot the same area multiple times in a row, just say "Shoot, Shoot, Shoot."

The only problem I
encountered here was similar to the problems I encountered in the rest of the
game: movement.  Rio can understand things like "Move Left" and "Move Right." 
But just because she can understand them does not mean she always will.  In
many cases she won’t move in the direction you tell her to move in, whether
you’re engaged in combat or not.

This is where the fun
turns into frustration.  You might be tempted to yank the microphone right out
of your PS2 and throw it out the window.

Imagine a room with many
objects.  You’ve got mirrors, a desk, a table, chairs, and a nightstand of
some kind off in the corner.  In a normal adventure game you could simply walk
up to these objects and interact with them.  Even if the desk had nothing to
offer you could at least walk up to it, touch it, and make certain that it was
of no use to you.  If only the same could be said about Lifeline.

Only areas and objects
that the game intends for you to explore and examine can be explored and
examined.  You could try to access that nightstand all night long and never
succeed.  You could also tell Rio to leave the room and watch as she walks
over to the door that won’t open, when the door a few feet from it will.

I’d tell Rio, "Go to the
desk!"  She’d respond with something like, "The bed, right."  And then she’d
go to the bed!  I already visited twice, but who cares, let’s walk over to it
again.  After all, it’s about the only thing you can examine with
consistency…

I could give a million
different scenarios, but none of them would have as big of an impact on you as
actually playing the game would.  Of course, I wouldn’t recommend that you
play this game, unless it’s through The Official PlayStation Mag’s demo disc. 
Don’t buy the mag for the demo – if you already have it, great, but if not,
forget it.  Lifeline’s redeeming qualities aren’t redeeming enough.  It’s a
really cool concept, and the technology’s there, but it would take ten years
to develop a game that had true voice activation.  At least, with the current
technology it would.  Hopefully someday that will change, but until that time
we’re stuck with a limited vocabulary that can’t even understand all the words
it’s supposed to know.

Gameplay: 5.6
"Up-Down,
Up-Down, Shoot, Shoot, Shoot!"  Sorry, I was just doing my impression of Space
Channel 5.  Actually that’s how this game feels at time.  You’re constantly
telling Rio where to go and what to do.  If she did it with few flaws it would
be cool.  But she’ll frequently do something entirely different from what was
commanded.

It’s
interesting that while the game has a hard time picking up things it knows,
it’s able to properly ignore things that it doesn’t.  The word "And" is not
necessary in this game.  For example, in the command "Dodge and Shoot," you
could easily omit the "and," making it "Dodge, Shoot."  The result will be the
same.  This means that the game knows to ignore extra words that we humans
just love to throw into our sentences.  If only Lifeline was as good at
recognizing words as it is at ignoring them.

Graphics: 7
Moderately
attractive polygon characters and pre-rendered backgrounds.

Sound: 6
Quiet.  Too
quiet.  The game has to hear your voice, and so do you, removing music from
most of the game.  The intro theme is pretty cool though – somewhat Parasite
Eve-ish.

Difficulty: Hard
No, don’t stop. 
Please, I beg of you!  Don’t stop banging your head against the wall!  This
game won’t suddenly lose its frustration factor.  So you might as well just
knock yourself unconscious.

Concept: 8
Talk about taking
gamespeak to a whole new level!  It’s not the best execution, but if you think
about how complex our speech is, you’ll understand why.  This is one
circumstance where no one is at fault but time.  If we could freeze it, game
developers could create the ultimate voice action game.  We could say anything
and the character would respond.

Overall: 6
Not at all near
the point of purchase.  I’m gonna flat-out say it: don’t buy this one.  It’s
only $40, but you could spend that on a game that truly feels interactive. 
This game has interactivity, but it’s not able to decipher your spoken words
as well as it should.  We gamers can accept this, but in return we must take
our money elsewhere.