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Survival horror games are hard to do right. They need to make you worry that the next door you open could be your last and that some horribly powerful zombie or mutant could be around the next corner waiting to do you in. When they are done right, they're great, and create the proper feeling of being inside a horror movie. When they're not, the horror is replaced with frustration, and nothing kills a game faster. On the surface, there isn't a thing wrong with Lifeline. The setup involves a space station hotel that gets attacked by mysterious mutants during its unveiling on Christmas Eve. The player assumes the role of a man caught up in the chaos, and when the dust settles the only living people seem to be him and a waitress named Rio. The way the game works is that the player does not directly control Rio; instead, their character is locked in a security room and uses a microphone to direct Rio around the hotel with voice commands. These the player administers via a USB headset. Unfortunately, it seems like the microphone the player uses to call Rio is broken, because she'll often react to a command like, "Look at box on table" or, "Exit room," by replying, "So I should run?" and then run around the room aimlessly or using a healing item. It calls to mind nothing so much as a space-age version of an old text adventure game like Zork or Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where the player's ability to interact with the game is sometimes hindered by the limited vocabulary the game is programmed to recognize. It makes everything from searching for clues to just trying to leave the room an exercise in frustration. The player is even expected to do Rio's thinking during the times when she runs into monsters, although why is left up to our imaginations, especially since battles to the death are not the kinds of situations where a person usually speaks slowly and clearly like you need to do to have even a chance of Rio understanding you. The player can string commands during fights to move things along more quickly (e.g. "shoot head, dodge right, reload"), but Rio is as likely to understand what they want her to do in a fight as anywhere else in the game. Sometimes telling her to dodge causes her to run straight into the monster the player was trying to get her to avoid. The worst thing about the game is that if it weren't for the voice recognition system being so difficult to use, Lifeline would easily be an almost flawless game. Lifeline's graphics are crisp and realistic, the sound effects, music and voice acting are acceptable, though hardly a perfect example of what games today are capable of, and finally there's an intriguing back story that unfolds as the game plays out. How disappointing. But probably the thing that annoys me most is I'm not only out money for a game that doesn't work right, I'm also out money for a USB headset that I have no other use for besides playing a game that doesn't work right. The idea behind Lifeline's interface is revolutionary, but the technology has yet to catch up with the idea. Hopefully the next time a company gets an idea as wild as a game completely controlled through vocal commands, they'll make sure their system works right before unleashing it on the buying public.Read full review
If you've played video games for any length of time, you've undoubtedly had a frustrating experience that inspired you to start yelling at your television. Nine times out of 10, this rarely produces any appreciable results, but with LifeLine, Konami's new voice-activated adventure game, the primary gameplay mechanic forces you to talk to the main character by using a USB headset. LifeLine represents an ambitious undertaking, so the developer certainly deserves credit for trying something different. However, the experience is undermined by unreliable technology and some poor game design. LifeLine's voice-recognition technology forces you to talk your way through the game. LifeLine begins during a Christmas party at the grand opening of a new hotel. However, this isn't just any hotel. It's a space station hotel that's suspended in Earth's orbit. As you and your girlfriend Naomi enjoy the revelry with the rest of the guests, something terrible suddenly happens. The room is flooded with terrifying creatures--who are presumably aliens--and all hell breaks loose. You get separated from your girlfriend, and the next thing you know, you find yourself sealed inside the space station's main control room. You're trapped, but you are able to see every room in the station, thanks to the hotel's myriad of security cameras. Furthermore, since you have access to the space station's central computer, you can open and close virtually any door. You eventually come across a waitress named Rio, who's locked up in the space station's barracks. She's looking for a journalist who was at the party, and you're looking for your girlfriend Naomi. As a result, the two of you team up to help each other find the people you're looking for so that you can all get off of this monster-infested space station. So there's the setup. You're unable to directly control the game's main character, but you can open some of the doors she comes upon--and you can tell her what to do and where to go by using the USB headset. Rio responds exclusively to voice commands, so if you want her to do something, you'll have to talk her through it. Think of it like a high-tech version of the old text-parsing adventure games like King's Quest or Zork and you have a rough idea of the type of gaming-by-proxy experience you're in for. LifeLine is by and large an adventure game. You'll explore the space station while looking for keys and other items that will help you get past locked doors and various puzzles. Movement is made fairly simple by virtue of the fact that any location you need to go to--even within a single room--is discretely labeled on the game's overlay map. Once you've reached a specific location, you'll be given a view of all the items at that location worth examining. From here, you basically have to guess what an item is before Rio can interact with it. This can be flabbergasting at times, since it's not always entirely clear what an item is. Using colors, shapes, and locations to describe an item can help sort things out more quickly, but the whole guessing game process can still prove to be quite arduous. Most of the game's puzzles are pretty obvious, but the real challenge usually involves trying to figure out the exact phrasing that the game is looking for. There are also points where the solution to a puzzle is needlessly cryptic, thus making some kind of walk-through--or an extremely patient and persistent personality--a necessity.Read full review
the sole reason why i purchaced this game was to laugh at how horrible it is. Me and my cousin love just fighting verbally with the character on the screen. if you are looking for a good game, this isn't it. but it's funny, and has an interesting concept.
Great game, great condition
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
This is a game that my brother purchased because he had a voice headset he wanted to try out. I played the game and it is actually pretty fun. You tell the character what to do with vocal commands. It is a little hard when you are fighting something because you have to tell it when and where to shoot.
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