We love Z.O.E.

"Zone of the Enders", or "Z.O.E", as it's known, is set in a post-terraforming era of the Earth's history, when colonists from the little green and blue planet, called "Enders" (good grief -Moral decency Ed), finally get round to spreading themselves over the farthest reaches of the solar system, and for the first time, experience slightly less than plain sailing in the shape of a Martian force in the moons of Jupiter. Of course, instead of giving the player control of an all-out interstellar war, Z.O.E. offers control of a prepubescent munchkin of a child called Leo Stenbuck, who just happens to stumble upon a giant "orbital frame" and who by some bizarre freak of nature is in possession of the precise knowledge required to operate it. It doesn't just stop there, either - the young lad discovers a young lady, occupant of another great robotic construct, and fears the worst, that she has no soul. So in spite of the rather more pressing matter of a cataclysmic, galaxy-threatening conflict which threatens to engulf life as just about everybody knows it in the fires of war, he has to try and remedy young what's-her-name's soul problem. You can tell that the Japanese are going to love this one already, can't you? The thing is, Z.O.E. is merely one half of producer Hideo Kojima's job at Konami too. Remember Metal Gear Solid 2? He's doing that one, as well. And if Z.O.E. wasn't already looking at sales in the hundreds of thousands in the Far East, it will also play host to the first playable demo of, you guessed it, MGS2. Anyway, the general point of this item is to inform you that Z.O.E. isn't simply a proving ground for the demo of said stealth-em-up. And you can finally discover just how and why for yourself, with the somewhat highly anticipated release of the game's opening movie, in Windows Media form. The file can be had from the GIA, and if you think that looks good, we also recommend you take a look at some of the in-game screenshots.