Today our review is for an obscure PS2 title called Lifeline. First let’s give some background. The 32-bit era popularized survival horror titles. Resident Evil was the big name, and Silent Hill came in at a close second. Clones came in troves. The problem is that not many of them tried anything different. Perhaps it was the hardware for which these titles were released. Basically most of them had pre-rendered backgrounds with polygonal characters exploring dilapidated locales and facing off against monsters. So the question is how do you innovate in this genre?

Sony decided this could be done with input methods. Tank controls were standard in the genre. These made it difficult to escape from and aim at threats, but even standard navigation was awkward. The market was ready for something new. Motion controls were too inaccurate at the time. Instead they went with voice inputs. Lifeline was the result. Today we’re going to take a look at this experiment.

Lifeline is unlike any other survival horror game you’ve ever played. I don’t say that lightly. Lifeline plays by no one’s rules except its own. This scenario has you playing as an unnamed individual referred to as ‘the Operator.’ You’re keeping an eye out on a dinner party from the solitude of a locked room aboard an exclusive charter in space orbiting planet Earth. You’re stuck watching the fun from a variety of cameras around the ship. Your girlfriend Naomi is in attendance. Suddenly unidentified aliens invade the station making quick work of most of the party-goers. The only point of contact you have is with a cocktail waitress turned heroine Rio. Unfortunately she’s not a veteran fighter or even anyone who has held a gun before. The operator (that’s you) has his work cut out for him.

Lifeline is unique in that the USB headset for the PS2 is used to issue commands to the character. You simply tell Rio what to do, where to go, or with what to interact. At first the game looks like a traditional survival horror game. You view the action from fixed camera perspectives as Rio navigates 3D environments. You don’t have any direct control over her however and simply issue voice commands. I really like how the fixed camera perspective makes sense in this case. You’re viewing the action from security cams, after all. The controller is used but in a completely secondary way. You hold down the circle button to let Lifeline know you’re talking to it. The controller is also used here mostly to move an on-screen cursor used to analyze elements in the background. You can also cancel commands as well with the press of a button.

In a way this harkens back to the old graphic adventures of old. As the operator you view the action from security cameras. This works well to explain the angled viewpoints which is pretty interesting. Generally you will issue instructions to Rio and tell her what elements of the environment to interact with. She speaks back and gives clues. Lifeline recognizes several different spoken words but unfortunately this is limited. Voice recognition technology was in its infancy back then after all. It’s not always clear what Rio can and cannot interact with. Thankfully you can pull up a map that highlights locations and objects. Rio also speaks back to you to confirm the command that she heard. If she doesn’t understand what you’re saying she’ll let you know. Get used to it because you’ll often hear ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

Unfortunately Rio won’t really do anything on her own. You literally have to tell her where to walk, and what to interact with. This is true even when the answer is obvious. It’s an exercise in frustration almost immediately. Commands during exploration are generally things like ‘walk to the table’ or ‘look under the sink.’ You can make her run, or use items as well. This becomes tedious when there are a lot of areas to search in any given room. In one early area there are four lockers lined up, and going through tuckered me the heck out. Whenever I would see lines of stalls or multiple doors I just became so tired of saying commands that I wanted to turn the game off. Around halfway through I started following a guide just to take the guesswork out of the equation.

Rio also talks back to provide commentary. This is one of the high points of the game in my opinion. There are several instances where you can tell her to do off color things. These include changing her outfit, cleaning objects, and many others. I thought the way she snaps back and refuses added a lot of character to her. I found myself having the most fun when I experimented and ticked her off. Yeah, it’s juvenile, but nonetheless I got many a laugh at her reactions.

There are even some light puzzles to solve. These aren’t particularly taxing but you do have to pay attention to the environments. The space station has a lot of locked doors so most of the time it feels like you’re searching for a key or item to open the way forward. Other times rooms will be blocked off and you’ve got to figure out how to get in. One example has a room on fire. You have to instruct Rio to shoot a fire extinguisher. Puzzles like this are simple, but really rewarding to solve only via voice commands. A lot of the time you have to interact with electronic locks and shutters by opening them via the controller. Your character is the vessel’s operator, after all. These seemed kind of unnecessary. I do suppose they add a fair bit to the immersion however.

Now we get to combat. It’s kind of a mess. Enemy encounters occur in real-time, but due to the voice command gameplay it almost feels turn based. Generally you start by telling Rio which enemy to target (they’re given a number thankfully). From here you are given a list of body parts on the enemy, and you tell her which one to shoot with her pistol. Each enemy has weak points, and access to these changes dynamically. Any area you can’t currently hit is exed out. Unfortunately this is overly complicated. There’s no reason these enemies should have eight different targets on them. I know it’s realistic, but it makes Lifeline less fun. Thankfully she remembers the last target (and even body part) you told her to focus on, and you can repeat just by telling her ‘shoot.’

What’s also annoying is you have to pay attention to her placement during fights as well. You can instruct her on directions to move including forward and backward, and even tell her to dodge. Maybe it’s my slow reflexes but I absolutely struggled to successfully avoid attacks in this manner. Speaking of issues the speech recognition does leave a bit to be desired. Sometimes I would go for several minutes with Rio understanding everything I said. This would come to a screeching halt when she couldn’t grasp something as simple as me asking her to walk to a shutter or locker. Sometimes I would have to repeat myself four or five times. I’ve never had issues with people understanding my speech. I imagine people with thick accents will struggle with Lifeline even more than I did.

I fully admit that the graphics in Lifeline are nothing special. Even at the time there were far better looking survival horror games. Characters have a lot of sharp edges and unnatural body shapes. There’s something about the sterile environments that I enjoyed though. Rio with her blonde hair and starting yellow outfit really stand out from them. The enemy designs are a bit unspectacular. The art style is a bit generic for these, and there aren’t a ton of different monster types. Visually the game is decent, but not particularly impressive for the hardware. The music largely falls into the same category. It’s all competent, but largely forgettable. The voice acting isn’t fantastic but some of the actors grew on me as the game went on. In particular Kristen Miller as Rio had a lot of great lines and delivered them decently enough.