When I first laid eyes upon Zettai Zetsumei Toshi, as it’s known in Japan, the game revealed an interesting take on the bastardised survival/horror genre.<br><br>Set in the near future, on a man made island off the coast of Japan; players have to escape from the island after a series of devastating earthquakes leave the entire area inhabitable.<br><br>Although the game offered some nice touches and interesting ideas, a European conversion looked unlikely, that is until Agetec picked up the publishing rights and decided to publish it in the West, under the new moniker SOS: The Final Escape.<br><br>Players take on the role of Keith, a journalist whose new job sees him relocate to Capital Island, seemingly unaware of the recent earthquakes! Unfortunately SOS: Final Escape instantly began to bug me with its Western conversion; for starters, why change the names and if you’ve got to, surely a more heroic name then Keith would have been better. Also the slightly ‘hammy’ Japanese presentation suffers further from the conversion; if AgeTec had kept Japanese dialogue and added sub-titles this would have likely won more acclaim and been rightly labelled as a Japanese niche title, and probably won more acclaim amongst that hard-core bracket. As it stands all the cut-scenes have the shatteringly poor Japanese-English translations issues and reek of a Japanese game being butchered to try and appeal to Western tastes – a pet peeve but certainly one’s that going to bother you.<br><br>Although you can trace obvious influences to titles such as Resident Evil, this is a game that has its roots much closer to real-life and as such the game is significantly different to anything else on the market. Picking up from where the games introduction leaves you, players have to guide Keith from the smouldering bridge that connects the island to the mainland Japan. This section plays almost like a white-knuckle platform game, as you make split-second jumps from platforms that are just about to crash in the ocean below. <br><br>It’s here that you’ll notice the few appealing differences that the game presents; for starters the game places a lot of emphasis on scripted scenes, so when you walk up to a bus hanging precariously over the lip of a bridge, the scene kicks in as the bus slowly begins to slide off the bridge as you scramble to get back to safety; the game is frequented with these scenes, such as when a monumental stone sphere rolls from the top of a building, crushing cars as it rolls down the street towards you. These scenes really add to the movie feel of the game, and help to lever it above the mediocre standards usually associated with this genre.<br><br>With virtually everyone else safely evacuated from the area, the developers have created the sense of loneliness and isolation to good effect; however you’ll soon encounter a second character, after rescuing her from a coach on the edge. This opens up the scope for puzzles, as you can now access areas that were previously inaccessible. Unfortunately as the puzzles begin to emerge, you can actually feel your enjoyment in this title begin to wade; the solution is often too far removed from the logical answer, resulting in a game that quickly tires. There’s also a strange game dynamic; underneath your health-bar is a thirst-bar, which requires you to drink water from the helpfully located taps and fill up bottles that you’ll uncover throughout your adventure. Now whilst we can understand that all this earthquake dodging is thirst-quenching stuff; having to keep such an important eye on this and the incessant backtracking that’s involved are likely to make you wish Keith died from dehydration.<br><br>Unfortunately despite the good ideas, the generally poor presentation and execution are likely to putt off anyone’s who’s remotely interested. For starters the camera system is years old and the cause of much frustration, especially when movement often needs to be pixel perfect; hitting R2 centres the camera behind you, whilst the Triangle button switches to a first-person perspective; but unfortunately the system just feels too sluggish and unresponsive. <br><br>Elsewhere the adequate visuals are let down by some appalling animation, whilst the large city does hit the frame-rate quite significantly. It’s certainly not going to set the gaming world alight and is quite definitely ranked in the last-generation of PS2 titles; however there are strong points, the first time you see the size of the island, when that ball rolls down the street towards you; but unfortunately the overall look isn’t anything to get excited about.<br><br>As you’d expect the voice acting and scripting is awful; I’m beginning to believe that they wanted to capture the ‘hammy/tacky’ image, and in this respect no areas of the presentation will disappoint, as long as you’re a fan of poorly localised Japanese tripe. Unsurprisingly the story goes on to the conspiracy theory, as it emerges that the earthquakes weren’t just natural disasters.<br>