When will Peter Gabriel ever realize that relationships are nothing more than mere distractions from the important things in life like computers and coffee?
Okay, that's harsh, but it seems that the two themes of "relationships" and "life as we know it" are the weakest part of this ROM...it's the only real complaint we have against Eve. (Admittedly, we're not romantics. See above paragraph.)
In Eve, you get to hear a lot of people talk about relationships. They talk in rather vague words (and very few words) about being in love, being out of love, and what qualities to look for in a mate. The most interesting quip was, "I think the key to a relationship is shoe size. The bigger the size, the better the relationship."
Truth is all of this supposed "relationship exploring" is little more than sound bites, and not even particularly good soundbites at that.
The question kept coming up: "Why should we care about what they have to say?" It's a good concept to have some Joe and Jane Average people talk about relationships, but chances are, you've heard much more interesting, true-to-life words about relationships at work, home, a slumber party, or the Peter Gabriel Chat room.
Adam and Eve keep popping up throughout the ROM, but they show no emotions whatsoever. There's nothing going on between these two kids to make you want to see them get back together.
Not that you can't get anything from the relationship side of Eve. It helps the player to get a feel for the themes...they just could have done more with it. They even could have made a CD ROM on *why* that one guy is so pre-occupied with shoe size, but alas, they missed out on the opportunity.
Life As We Know It
You also get to hear artists talk about art, scientists talk about science, vicars talk about religion, and zoologists talk about certain animals. This is handled better than the relationship area, but it's still lacking something. Here you have all these experts in different fields, all talking about their areas of expertise, no one is listening, and no one is talking to *each other*. Kinda like the artsy version of the McLaughlin Group, only using a better-looking group of people. Not what we'd call a interactive experience, though. The best thing about these expert conferences is the unique way they merged the sound bytes with work from the artists to get a neat visual effect. If only the talk was as pleasing to listen to as the scenes look...
A Time to Talk
The biggest flaw with the way Eve handles both of these themes is it lacks interactivity, a ROM's biggest asset. It would be different if the player could somehow contribute his or her own two cents on relationships. It would be exciting to be able to talk about your area of expertise and put it on a disc. Since Eve lets you mess around with other people's music, why not be able to change the topic of other people's conversation as well? Unfortunately, the technology isn't there yet, but we hope something along those lines are taken into consideration on the next ROM to come out of Real World.
Eve Elements/Four Worlds of Eve/Mixing It Up/Contents