Welcome to the world of survival horror. Do you enjoy seeing scary movies and getting scared? Then Resident Evil Zero is the game for you. Resident Evil Zero is the 5th game in the Resident Evil Series, well 6th if you count Resident Evil: Remake.
Now the main question on everyone’s mind is does it live up to the Resident Evil hype? In my opinion it sure does.
Story
As taken from the Resident Evil Zero manual: 1998… Several “unusual” murder cases had occurred in Raccoon City, a suburb in the Midwest. Gravely, Raccoon City police reviewed reports of groups of “people-eating monsters” attacking civilians’ houses. The order came down: send in the elite S.T.A.R.S. team (Special Tactics and rescue Service) to investigate. The S.T.A.R.S. Bravo team went in first. Unfortunately, due to inexplicable engine trouble, they had to make an emergency landing…. They touched down in a dense, dark forest. This was the beginning…. …. of the nightmare
There are two main characters in this game, Billy Coen and Rebecca Chambers. Billy Coen is an ex-marine who is sentenced to death. His transport crashed and he escapes. While on the run, he meets Rebecca. Billy is unique from Rebecca because he is able to move heavy boxes that Rebecca can’t.
Rebecca is a rookie to the S.T.A.R.S. team. Her role is a field medic, because of this she has a mixing kit with which she can mix herbs for health.
Gameplay
All of the Resident Evil’s have had the same type of gameplay. Since you may not of played them I will explain about it. Resident Evil is full of puzzles and things to figure out. The puzzles range from putting things in order to mixing chemicals to many other things that I can’t mention without giving away spoilers. Resident Evil is not a game about unlimited ammo and killing millions of zombies. It’s about being low on ammo and praying there isn’t a zombie in the next room, sadly though in Resident Evil 0 that didn’t seem to be the case. I had plenty of ammo all the way through and that took away some of the scary factor.
You ask how can a game be scary? Well picture this. Your walking in some dark, old, beat up hallway. You have your lights in your house turned off and it’s late at night. You have the volume cranked up and your home alone. The hallway has windows on the sides that you can’t see out of. You don’t have much life. Then you see it…. a dead body lying in front of you…you know its a zombie and that it’s going to be the bastard who kills you. You slowly walk up to the body on the ground. You realize that the body is dead for good and wont be bothering you. You let a sigh of relief then BAM!!! The windows break open and two dogs jump through the windows and are looking for a nice meal. The game is full of moments like that, which make you jump out of your chair.
Now onto the new additions in this game. You can now drop items anywhere at anytime. That’s a nice feature but they got rid of the chest! In case you don’t know, chests are put all through out all the other RE Games. When you put an item in a chest you can get it back out at any of the other chest throughout the game. IN REZero you are force to sometimes run all the way back to an earlier part of the game because you didn’t need the item tell a few hours later. Being able to leave your items anywhere would have been a good idea if they still would of had the chest.
Another new feature is that you have two characters that you can switch around at anytime. So for instance you could have one character locked in a room and have the other character go to the other side and unlock the door. I also liked how you can fight monsters side by side with them. You can control the character with the c-stick if you want but you don’t need to because the AI is pretty good. You can tell the other character to stay where they are or to follow you by pressing start. Switching between characters happens instantly with no loading. You may wonder what happens if the character you aren’t using is alone in a room with zombies, well they are smart enough to kill the zombies attacking them. Or if they are in deep trouble they will radio for help.
I gave gameplay 7 out of 10 because the backtracking for items was annoying. Also this game kind of felt like I had done it all before. I really did like being able to switch from character to character on the run though.
Controls
Well the controls are pretty close to Remake’s controls. They took out the C-type which many people liked but I never used it so I can’t complain. The controls are a bit weird at first but after 30min a person who is new to the game should be a pro. The main thing people don’t like about the controls is that Up always makes you go forward, back makes you walk backwards then left makes you turn left and right makes you turn right. It’s easy to get use to so I find it to be no big deal, though.
Graphics
Well this game is beautiful. It sill use’s pre-rendered backgrounds and has beautiful player models. One thing I was happy to see is that the videos in this one had no slowdown at all; unlike the few times it happened in Remake. I really liked how many different zombies there where. There are zombies wearing many different clothes, which is really nice. Instead of having to see the same looking zombies over and over.
Overall
I can’t deny that this was a great game. My only dislikes was that this one wasn’t as scary as some of the others. Especially Remake. It also felt like I had already played it before. I did really like being able to change characters on the run, the story fit well with the rest of the series. Also being able to drop items was a good idea but they should of still left the chest. All in all if you are a fan of Resident Evil then GET THIS GAME! If you want to get into the series this is also a good. Although if you can only get one Resident Evil for the Gamecube I would recommend Resident Evil: Remake over REZero.