Project Eden

Project Eden is a video game for the PC and PlayStation 2 released in 2001. It is a hybrid between first- and third-person shooter with an emphasis on teamwork and puzzle solving over combat. Players switch between control of four UPA (Urban Protection Agency) agents, each with their own special abilities, as they work their way through a city that has grown upward and upward, leaving delving buildings and neighborhoods "below city limits.". Among other unique mechanics of Project Eden is the fact that player characters don't die; instead, they are respawned at the last checkpoint, where their health is fully restored. With its emphasis on puzzle-solving over combat, the game may be thought of as a cyberpunk updating of The Lost Vikings, as it has more in common with that game developed by Blizzard Entertainment than traditional first- or third-person shooters. A single player can control any of the four characters at any given time, and other players can jump in at any time and assume control of team members.

Characters
No subsequent background information is given on the characters (except in the instruction manual), only their abilities are listed.


 * Carter Dorlan: The team leader of UPA Technical Squad 4. A long-time veteran agent with a background in administration, and almost approaching 40 years old. An unwritten UPA standard procedure is to shift its older personnel out of the field and into office positions, but Carter is fanatic about leading his crew directly on the field and taking a part in the actual work effort. His special ability is interviewing suspects and opening specially locked doors.
 * Andre Herderman: The engineer. A thirty year old former SkyRail engineer who joined the UPA a decade ago because he was laid off after boredom and bad attitude interfered and he was seeking something smarter and more exciting. He has violent anger issues and that shows in his love for picking fights with people like rioters. He was in the same train that injured Amber when he was young, which led him to become an engineer in the first place. His special ability is using the tool called the Omnitool to fix broken down equipment or machinery that must be repaired before becoming functional again.
 * Minoko Molensky: The Computer technician. She is in her early twenties and has been in Carter's team for over one whole year. She is a fast learner and very friendly and easy to get along with. She is a gifted person who shows off an in-born skill for computers, as early as when she was a little orphan, and she also shows off a careful calculating side unlike most young rookies. She tries hacking into the UPA systems as a part of her continuous training and practice. Her name means Child of the Minotaur. Her special ability is hacking into computer terminals, which let her control cannons, computers, cameras, heavy machinery, robots, tanks, aerial drones, factory lines, and information databases.
 * Amber Torrelson: The heavy support. She is a thirty year old Cyclops-class Cyborg. At twenty she was injured in a train accident, and the only way she could be saved was to be rebuilt with a giant robot body. This fit her fine, because she was already not very social by nature, and the robot body made it easier for her to keep her personal space while interacting with others. She is also knowledgeable in chemistry and physics. Amber's arm contains a combination gun that can shoot pulse laser bolts and missiles, and the missiles can also be upgraded to become homing missiles. Her special ability is being invincible to dangers like flames, poison gas clouds, electricity, lava pits, acid pools, laser beams, cold temperatures, vacuum, and high pressure zones. She can walk through those things without being ever affected at all.

Plot
The game starts with UPA agents Carter, Andre, Minoko and Amber heading below city limits to find two technicians missing from the Real Meat Company (a corporation that produces organic meat, because most of the food in that world is synthetically made). The suspicions of the team revolve around a local and dangerous gang named The Death Heads. The UPA team tracks the gang down to their base in St. Lucia's Church; but on their way, the gang members and many animals also start mutating into strange creatures. Clearing their way through the Church, battling the mutants, the UPA Team finally get close to the technicians, only to see them being taken far below city limits, possibly to ground zero (the term used for the ground level of the earth itself). The UPA Control instructs the UPA Team to recover a creature, a live one, for analysis; which shows that it has been a regular dog which had been tampered with using an old Gene splicer (this hints at the fact that genetic technology has advanced greatly). The analysis also reveals that the creatures they have been attacked by are being controlled by a signal; which is their next job, to both find and if possible, recover the technicians, and locate the source of the signal.

On their way, the UPA Team start to encounter little girls (who are blonde and dressed in a red dress) that go by the name of Lucy, who talk about irrelevant things before mutating into dangerous creatures themselves. Minoko, while going to another sector of the city by a highspeed railcar, mentions that she once had a sister named Lucy, but that Lucy had died due to a genetic illness she and their mother suffered from. As they continue, the team starts to question if Minoko's family was involved in their situation. The train crashes before reaching its destination, and leaves Minoko trapped in by a group known as cannibals. Upon their arrival, Carter asks Control to check out Minoko's father. Dr. Joseph Molenski, who was once a skilled technician and a biological engineer, and who was kicked out of Real Meat, due to his act of stealing machinery to help his own mysterious research. As a fugitive, Molenski was never acquired by UPA, nor was Lucy. Minoko was taken to the UPA Recreation Program, and thus became a UPA Agent.

Clearing out an old zoo (which is filled with cannibals along with mutants) due to their railcar accident, the team arrive at Ground zero. However, since what they are looking for is further down, the team advances to the underground levels; below sea level. Upon their investigation, they stumble upon a video of Dr. Molenski, saying that he has found a nuclear bunker underneath, and has also rigged up a basic gene splicer. He also mentions that using it, he hopes to cure Lucy finally.

The UPA Team enter the Eden Bunker, and upon their entrance, they discover that Dr. Molenski was trapped in a time dilation field (a field that which stops time around a given area, or slows it down immensely; something used in a weapon the team uses, called the Timeshock). Molenski is seemingly reaching out to a computer. Upon dwelling deeper and deactivating the time dilation field, Minoko is kidnapped. Lucy tells Minoko that she has been creating the creatures, and the girls that mutated (in attempt to find a new body for herself) were her failures due to the different DNA of those girl victims that were too much to deal with. Since Minoko is her biological sister, Lucy wishes to take her body.

Meanwhile, Molenski is told that 15 years has passed, and asked what has happened. The answer is simple; in order to keep Lucy alive, Molenski had linked her mind to the computers, running half of her brain with them, while keeping her body in a time dilation field. However, since the computers were networked, Lucy took over them, and tried to solve things her way. The other three UPA Team members rescue Minoko, and they deactivate Lucy's time dilation field; causing her death. Molenski removes the computer connected to Lucy's head and inserts it into a robot body he has built for her to try to keep her brain alive. The UPA Team in the end return to the surface.