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Resident Evil 0 Review
Stephen Leyton
28/11/2002
The game that finally answers all of our questions is here read on to find out the full review.
Being a huge Resident Evil fan, I was exceptionally excited when Resident Evil 0 popped through the door â“ the second game in the franchise to hit the GameCube complete with stunning visuals and an all-new storyline depicting the events before the mansion and town outbreak made me excited to say the least.
Before we go into too much detail, let me explain briefly the long history behind Resident Evil 0. As die-hard RE fanatics will know, the game was originally planned for the Nintendo 64 as the first game in the series to feature exclusively on the Nintendo machine; the development was at such a late state that the majority of the game was already in place and so too was the storyline. Featuring at E3 2000, press were shown small parts of the game, which for the time looked very impressive on the Nintendo 64 considering its limited storage capacity. Itâs not until you look back at the original N64 screens, that you realise how complete it was compared to the polished GameCube version that has just hits the shops in the US, with a European release due to follow in March 2003. Below are some screens showing the Nintendo 64 version compared to the GameCube version, freakishly similar youâll notice?
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The story behind Resident Evil 0 is one filled with mystery leaving many questions unanswered. The game begins with STARS Team Bravo flying over Raccoon Forest, checking out reports of missing people and mysterious happenings; however things drastically start to go wrong as the Helicopter crash lands and leaves the Bravo stranded in the forest (as foretold in Resident Evil). The team then stumble across an overturned truck with several dead bodies, Rebecca Chambers notices that the truck was transporting a convict to death row â“ however it becomes clear that he has escaped and that STARS initial mission is to find the fugitive Billy Cohen and bring him back to justice.
As the team splits up to search for Billy, Rebecca (poor girl on her own with no big muscle man to help her out) stumbles across a Locomotive, being the inquisitive type she decides to check it out, as something about it looks unusual â“ and this is where the game begins, a new adventure a new storyline, I bet you canât wait!
On the train things start to go ghastly, dead bodies start to move and jerk, broken glass scatters the floor, chairs stained with blood and no survivors - sounds like a typical Resident Evil game? Yep youâre right relatively little has changed here. Well it is until our sweet little Rebecca bumps into our fugitive Billy, after a small conversation it becomes clear that Billy wants to help poor Rebecca, however being stubborn she decides to go on her own, yet this leads to trouble resulting in Billy saving her life. This is when the game gets even more confusing as we are introduced to a mysterious new character wearing only a white gothic cloak. Taking the form of the Pied Piper, this character seams to have power over a jelly like creature that kills within seconds and can take the form of new enemies by merging together with other ones.
Being a new game in the series I was incredibly excited with the prospect of learning all about Umbrella and how the organisation started; being set before Resident Evil has given the creators the chance to tell the story right from the start, and to answer many questions that gamers had after playing the past games on PlayStation, Dreamcast, PS2 and GameCube. We could finally find out what happened at the Mansion before Chris and Jill got there; how the outbreak started and who was responsible for it; however weâll keep that a secret as Resident Evilâs main allure has always been in the strong storylines.
For the first time in the Resident Evil series you can control two characters at once. Rebecca and Billy work together throughout the game and both have their own special attributes; for example Rebecca can mix herbs to make special medicines, whilst Billy is stronger and better with weapons. This adds a whole new element of gameplay to Resident Evil as you need to make careful decision as to what you do with each character; should they work as a team and go together or should you split up giving you more options and directions. The puzzles in the game are now geared towards the Character Switch option, as many of them require Rebecca and Billy to do something different to solve the puzzle; for example on the train Billy or Rebecca mends a broken wire which then explodes pushing them through a hole into a room, that character is then trapped in the room (as the only door is locked shut and needs a sharp object to open it) and can only use a small servicing lift to move objects up and down the floors. Whilst that character is stuck, the other one must go on a hunt to find a sharp object to pass through the servicing lift allowing the trapped character to open the locked door â“ did you get all of that!
Whilst the character switch option is a nice new feature, at times it becomes frustrating as it has led the developers to place more emphasis on puzzles involving both of the characters; now if youâre like me the best bits in the series are the action elements â“ blasting zombies, beating up mutated animals and causing major destruction, which unfortunately seems to have taken second place to the puzzle elements within the game.
Whilst Resident Evil 0 features a variety of new ideas and tries to solve some of the problems levelled at the six-year old game design (you can now drop items wherever you feel like it), ultimately it does still feel like every Resident Evil title that has come before it; controls are still stilted and puzzles still revolve around obscure solutions themed around the co-operation of the two members. Itâs unlikely that those whoâve gone of RE will find anything to change their minds with RE0, youâll have to wait for RE4 to do that, however for the rest of us who still enjoy blasting zombies and finding clanks this is the third best game in the series.
Like Resident Evil, the graphics will not disappoint many people, the visuals of the characters are again very impressive with fantastic models looking incredibly lifelike and the detail is second to none. However for those of us that look a little deeper into things there are a number of aspects that disappoint, for starters the pre-rendered backgrounds whilst some are excellent others drop below the line and look more fitting on the original PSone machine than the GameCube. There are also scenes that just do not live up to the original version on the GameCube, maybe this was due to deadlines or the fact the game was complete for the Nintendo 64 and then simply rushed to get it out on the GameCube.
With all Resident Evil games, sound plays a crucial factor in setting the tone of the game, there is nothing better than walking down a corridor with eerie music playing, whilst the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end waiting for a door to blast open or a zombie to lurch an attack at you. Resident Evil O has a very impressive sound track but nothing nobody has heard before, and the actual sound effects sound as if theyâve been ripped from previous games in the series.
