So, where we last left off, the remake of the original
Resident Evil for Gamecube had blown my damn mind and left me itching for more.
Next up in the series was Resident Evil 0, which had originally been announced
for the Nintendo 64, only to jump to the Gamecube after the remake came out. I
was quite excited for it; after all, it was a brand new story and the first
prequel of the series, all in the same graphical style of the remake that I
loved so much. As soon as it came out, I promptly snatched it up and delved
back into the world of survival horror.
And how I felt after I played it..well…’disappointed’ is too
strong of a word, because it’s definitely a solid game in its own right. I
suppose it just felt a bit lacking to me. Then again, I was probably comparing
it a little too closely to its predecessor, the remake. The remake was just so
fuh-reakin’ good to me, it would’ve been really hard to top it in my mind. But,
as I mentioned, it certainly didn’t render 0 any worse than a very good entry
in the series.
The story chronologically represents the starting point of
all games in the series, hence the titular 0. It follows the doomed S.T.A.R.S.
Bravo team on their ill-fated investigation into the murders that have occurred
in the Raccoon city forest area, and you take control of
forgotten-after-this-game S.T.A.R.S. member Rebecca Chambers. Shortly after the
beginning, she finds herself on a zombie-infested train and meets up with a
fugitive criminal and new-character-also-never-seen-again-after-this-game,
Billy Coen. From there, the two must navigate the treacherous T-Virus plagued
Umbrella facilities and the like, solving puzzles and trying not to be torn
apart along the way, as we were all accustomed to.
The new so-called “zapping” system, in which the player
could quickly switch between the two main characters each with their own
distinct health, item inventory, and other minor quirks was quite unique and
helped create a twist in the classic gameplay scheme. Many puzzles in the game
necessitated cooperation between both characters in a number of interesting
ways, as did enemy combat and management of items throughout the game. And
speaking of item management, the classic item crate that was present in save
rooms of every previous game was done away with in favor of the ability to just
drop items at will in any spot the player pleased. This is both a gift and a
curse to the player accustomed to the prior method of item storage; for one
thing, long trips back and forth to save rooms in order to drop in just one
item to make space for another were eliminated under this scheme. However,
should you need an item farther into the game that was dropped in a certain
area much earlier (I’m looking at you, hookshot in the church), you’ll
need to backtrack alllllll the way back to wherever you dropped it, and this
can be both tedious and confusing, if you’ve forgotten exactly where it was you
put it down.
If you didn't have the hookshot at this part, which, let's face it, you didn't during the first time you played through, it was pretty annoying.
Once again, the horror was back, this time in the form of
those seemingly undefeatable leechy-men that relentlessly stalk you at certain
points in the game. I remember truly loathing running into those guys and
scrambling to do whatever I could to either dodge them or attempt to take them
out with limited munitions (this was, by the way, before I figured out that one
well-placed Molotov cocktail will do the trick).
Graphically, the game is on par with the remake, and that’s
great because both the remake and 0 look absolutely fantastic, even to this
day. Every visual just lends itself to the experience. And any hardcore fan of
the series that stepped into the main lobby of the lab from Resident Evil 2 in
all its graphically remastered glory was beside themselves at the prospect of
seeing this area updated. It was also weird as hell to find this area, which
was once so alien and obscure, hidden in the depths of Raccoon City’s
underground, connected tangibly in some way to the geography of the rest of the
Resident Evil universe. Even more weird was to think that members of the Bravo
team (namely Rebecca and Enrico) were actually running around in this area prior to the events of the first
Resident Evil.
And that brings me to a weird gripe I have. And I might be
nitpicking, but this was something that always confused the hell out of me and
actually did detract from the game a bit in a way that I suspect I’m the only
one bothered by. Okay, so in the very first game way back on Playstation (and
the remake as well), the story went that the S.T.A.R.S. Bravo team went out to
the forest to investigate some murders that had occurred in the mountains.
Their helicopter crashed, they lost contact with the Alpha team, and afterward
Alpha team went looking for them. The amount of time was never specified in the
original PS1 game, but I always assumed that it was nothing more than a short
while afterward. However, according to the story of 0 (and the manual for the
remake, see picture below), Bravo team went missing for an entire day before Alpha team went looking for them. So, wait,
what the hell was Alpha team doing that whole time? Also, so Rebecca went on
this whole adventure, made her way into the mansion, and then just said nothing
about it later? I know she was trying to keep Billy’s whereabouts a mystery,
but come on. And just how the hell did Enrico get into the lab from RE2? And
why couldn’t we explore it more??
The manuals of RE1 and Remake, respectively. RE1 doesn't specify the amount of time between losing contact with Bravo team and the departure of Alpha team, but Remake states that the last communication was "before dawn," at which point Alpha team then decided to investigate. Still doesn't make much sense to me. Also, just a minor detail I noticed when taking this picture, note the misspelling of Arklay as "Arclay" mountains in the Remake manual.
Like I said, I know I’m nitpicking, but this whole thing
just seemed really tacked on at the last minute, and for somebody who gets as
enthralled in stories as much as I do, I wasn’t really buying it. However, if
there was one thing that made up for it, it was the lore the game created on
the origins of Umbrella, the careers of Albert Wesker and William Birkin, and
the creation of the T-Virus. The game actually seemed more about the genesis of
Umbrella and far less about the experience of the Bravo team, if anything.
In all, despite being a bit more lackluster than its
Gamecube predecessor, 0 is still up there with the classics in my mind and is
worth a playthrough every once in a while. Also, I should mention that the
leech collecting mini-game that can be played upon completion of the main game
provides for quite a bit of challenging extra entertainment and can also be frustrating
as all hell when attempting to just get that infinite ammo quirk.
So even though 0 was still a satisfactory experience, I
think it represents the point at which things started declining in the series,
for me at least. Next up were two games released within the same year, Resident
Evil: Outbreak and Resident Evil: Dead Aim. Dead Aim was a first person shooter
along the lines of Survivor, while Outbreak was the first game in the series
that boasted online capabilities for Playstation’s then-brand new Playstation
Network. I outright passed on Dead Aim as it was pretty much in the same vein
as Survivor, which I never truly enjoyed. To this day I’ve never played it,
though I do actually own it (yeah, I have a real problem with buying games and
then never playing them). Maybe one day when I’m not in school or sitting here
writing reviews instead I’ll get to try it.
As for Outbreak, I never owned the broadband network adapter
for the PS2, which in a way sort of rendered the game useless. Sure, it does
have a single player experience, but almost the entire novelty of the game is
centered on teaming up with friends online to fight off hordes of the undead.
Nonetheless, I did rent the game when it came out just for the experience, but
this time I can definitely say for sure that I was disappointed.
Story-wise, the game takes place right before the events of
Resident Evil 2, during which the T-Virus outbreak is just hitting Raccoon
City. There are five scenarios to play through, in each of which you’ll take
control of one of eight pretty forgettable (and quite annoying, I might add)
characters, each with their own unique attributes. Each scenario will have you
doing the usual Resident Evil stuff (i.e. searching for items, solving puzzles,
and battling monsters) alongside 2 other CPU-controlled characters. Here’s
where the online play would come in, as instead of AI you’d have other human
players running around alongside you throughout each scenario. I imagine this
would’ve been kind of fun back in the day, but these days online play is so
ubiquitous in video games that it seems a little silly that you’d be playing this
sort of game with other people.
The scenarios vary in location and objectives to accomplish,
the most interesting of which are the 2nd and 3rd
scenarios, where you’ll find yourself in some familiar locations- the lab from
RE2 and the hospital from RE3, respectively. I always liked the idea of
exploring these locations further than you did in the originals. For example,
in ‘Below Freezing Point’, the RE2 scenario, you’ll find yourself at the base
of the gigantic mutant plant that’s growing out of the lab’s basement. I always
wondered where the hell that thing was coming from. The transition from one
scenario to another doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense, however. After the first scenario, which takes place
in a bar and subsequently on the streets of Raccoon City, you suddenly find
yourself on a train that magically ends up at the RE2 lab. Or, after that, you
go from another train to the middle of a courtyard of a hotel that’s erupted in
flames. How the hell did that happen? It doesn’t matter, it’s never really
explained so just go with it.
Yeah, so, how did they end up in RE2's lab again? Eh whatever, we got to explore it more and it was cool seeing it in next gen graphics.
Outbreak sort of throws out a lot of basic sensibilities
we’ve learned over the years from previous games. For one thing, each scenario
is timed…sort of. Since you’re right in ground zero for the T-Virus outbreak,
each character is infected with the virus right from the get go. As time goes
on, your infection rate steadily increases from 0% to 100%, and as you can
probably guess, you’re dead once you reach 100%. This sort of replaces your
health, as your infection rate will increase every time you are hit. You can
collect certain items to slow it down and it does increase in speed at higher
levels of difficulty, but as I mentioned it basically serves as a timer for
getting through each scenario. Another major change from previous games is that
zombies, which are the primary enemies you’ll encounter throughout the game,
respawn infinitely. That throws a huge wrench in what you typically expect from
an RE game, let alone a survival horror game in general, where munitions and
supplies are often scarce to begin with. I guess you can argue that it forces
one to focus more on outwitting enemies and getting through quickly than
collecting ammo to blow them away, but I just wanted to kill zombies and have
them stay dead without constantly pestering me while I was trying to figure out
what the hell to do. And that’s another thing- the game is very vague in terms
of what to do at certain points. Often you’ll just find yourself running around
completely depleted of ammo and too injured to dodge enemies just trying to
figure out where to go and what to do next.
Beyond that, pretty much all of the scenarios are
forgettable. It doesn’t really help that we all know exactly what happens in
the end, courtesy of RE3: Raccoon City will be blown to smithereens by a
nuclear bomb and every place you’ve just been to will be vaporized. Okay, cool,
these new characters may be added to the lore, but all of them are so annoying
you won’t care enough either way. For some reason, during gamplay the
characters will just blurt out nonsensical lines throughout the entire scenario.
Sometimes they’ll be vaguely related to something you need to do, like finding
an item or solving a puzzle, but most of the time they’ll just be something
stupid like “I need snap decisions to stay alive.” Oh, and in addition to their
dialogue text that appears at the bottom of the screen, the characters will
also vocally say something completely unrelated that usually just amounts to
them saying “what!?” repeatedly. If you’re in a scenario with Jim, get ready to
hear “let’s just try to stay calm!” in that obnoxious voice a million times.
I’m not sure if this somehow had more functionality in online play, but in
single player mode, it’s just really annoying and unnecessary.
Outbreak seemed more like a gimmick to capitalize on the
burgeoning online connectivity between video game consoles that was occurring
at the time and nowadays is more of a relic of the past, if anything. I suppose
it’s worth a playthrough if you want to see RE2’s lab redone in next gen
graphics, but with the remake of RE2 on the horizon, even that will be pretty
obsolete eventually. There was also a sequel, Outbreak: File #2, but from what
I’ve gathered it’s much of the same thing. Which, by the way, doesn’t make a
whole lot of sense if the first game ends with the destruction of Raccoon City,
but hey, what do I know. By the way, that's another game I own but have never
played.
So, now we reach the point where Resident Evil stood at a
crossroads and took a different path that changed the series for good. For
better or worse…well, I suppose you can argue either way, but personally I’m
going to go with worse. Tune in next time where I’ll talk about Resident Evil 4
and beyond in what I think will be
the last installment of my Resident Evil retrospective.
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