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Review: Resident Evil Zero for Gamecube
Written: 12/20/02
Webster's dictionary defines the words "zero" and "review" as "the arithmetical symbol 0 or <null> denoting the absence of all magnitude or quantity" and "a critical evaluation (as of a book or play)," respectively. Put these together with the meanings behind the words "Resident" and "Evil" and you get "critical evaluation (as of a book or play) inherently present an evil force, power, or personification the arithmetical symbol 0 or <null> denoting the absence of all magnitude or quantity." You may be thinking that the previous sentence makes absolutely no sense at all. While your suspicions may be correct, I’ll tell you one thing that isn't nonsensical: Resident Evil 0 for the Nintendo GameCube.
The story begins as the S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team is sent into Raccoon City to investigate some grisly and bizarre murders. Unfortunately for them, their helicopter has a little engine trouble, so they must land in a nearby forest (which, incidentally, also happens to be somewhat close to the mansion we all know and love from the original game) or risk exploding in a bloody and fiery mess out in the middle of nowhere.
At roughly the same time, a one Billy Coen escapes from the transport which happened to be taking him to his execution. You serve your country as a marine, putting your life on the line fighting Charlie, and THIS is how they return the favor?! Both Billy and Rebecca, androgynous waif girl rookie of S.T.A.R.S., find themselves on a mysterious train located nearby. It’s there that the game begins and the mystery behind the T-Virus, Umbrella, and the funny looking man in the dress robe unfolds.
Gameplay
Ah, classic Resident Evil gameplay, but not without a twist or two. First off, gone is the nifty control scheme of the RE remake known only by the enigmatic letter "C." I’m not sure why Capcom chose to not include it, but for whatever reasons, it’s not there. Regardless, the controls are still accessible to anyone familiar with the franchise. In an attempt to relive the nostalgic days of yore, back when men were men and 99 cents would buy you something, I went with control type C again. The main difference is the fact that you now have to hold B and push in a direction to run. Bollocks to that! Also, you can’t use the C-stick to turn around, as it’s now used to control your partner. Which, I must admit, is pretty neat. You can still do a 180 by hitting down on the control stick and B, though, so it’s not gone forever. Y brings up the inventory, and X switches characters.
So let’s talk about character switching (awesome segue #1!). At nearly any time, you can hit X and switch to either Billy or Rebecca. Whom you play as will mostly be a matter of taste, but there are times when you’ll want to be Billy because he’s built like a tank and can take a number of hits and bites, whereas Rebecca falls over dead if you so much as look at her. You’ll find Rebecca and Billy get separated at times, and it’s at these times that a lot of puzzle elements come into play. You’ll often have to transfer items between them by means of a dumbwaiter type thing to help one advance through a section, who in turn will help the first get through a part of the Umbrella training facility. It’s done fairly well, not coming off as gimmicky. Definitely a nice addition.
Then there’s the replacement of magic item boxes with the ability to drop items anywhere. While this may have sounded good on paper, it’s executed poorly. Because you have this ability and two characters with which to carry items, Capcom went nuts by upping the number of items in the game considerably. Couple this with the fact that a lot of items (mostly weapons) take up two spaces in your inventory, and you’ll find yourself backtracking to dropped items a LOT. I had no problem with the item boxes in the original game, so this irritated me greatly. "Hey, you can drop items anywhere now. Isn’t that cool?" "Kickin’ rad, Capcom, thanks!" "No problem. Just doing our job." "Hey, wait a second, half of my inventory is taken up holding ammo and weapons alone!" "HAHAHAHAHA, FOOLISH AMERICANS!"
Aside from that, everything is as it should be. Nonsensical puzzles, having to choose between running from zombies or shooting, running into walls, everything you’ve come to expect from this wonderful franchise. It’s a beautiful thing. Note that load times are still 3-5 seconds per door. I know they’re trying to go for some weird scary effect here, but it’s really just bothersome.
Sound
Sound plays a nice role in RE0. While it’s mostly ambient stuff to set the mood, there are occasions where your head will explode because a certain piece of music will start playing and you know it’s time to run because a leech zombie is coming. There are also a lot more pieces that use piano in a very minimalist manner. A few notes here and there with the sound of wind in the background is plenty to make me happy. While I’m still playing on my sad excuse for a TV which has nothing better than mono sound, it still sounds great.
The voice acting once again does the job, but little else. I’m not one to bitch about voices like some sort of pretentious snob. Still, I do have a complaint. I would've appreciated a little consistency with the voices. For example, Enrico’s voice, while not terrible on its own, sounds horrible when compared to the voicing from the RE remake. This wouldn’t be a big deal if not for the fact that RE0 was released a mere six months after RE. Seriously now, how hard would it have been to hire the same people to do the voices?
Aside from those points, you’ll hear the same familiar sounds of hunters screaming, birds squawking, and my personal favorite, the diaper sounds of zombies ambling. There isn’t a whole lot of variety in the sound effects department. At least not from previous installments. I guess I shouldn’t complain, because the day zombies stop wearing diapers is the day I quit playing games in the RE series.
Graphics
If you’ve played Resident Evil for the GameCube, you should know what to expect. Gorgeous pre-rendered backgrounds with nice character models and animation. Of course, Capcom didn’t need to make any changes. They could’ve sat on their laurels and laughed knowing that we’d eat up the graphics with no changes at all. But no, they decided to pretty things up a bit. There’s a lot more FMV in the backgrounds, improving where millions worldwide thought there could be no improvement. Suckers! The train especially looks stunning, with lighting effects galore (though one wonders, if they’re out in the middle of a forest at night, from where are these lights coming?)
A lot of the zombies are more personalized now, too. While before there was the fat zombie and the normal zombie with the occasional miscellaneous zombie thrown in, now you have train attendant zombie, normal zombie, S.T.A.R.S. member zombie, hick zombie, and a whole slew of others. They still look as good, if not better than before. You couldn’t ask for anything more, except for maybe a pirate zombie. Also, that incredibly annoying glitch from the remake was removed. You know the one, where during a cutscene, there would be those annoying pauses.
There are also neat touches here and there. Example: Billy sports handcuffs like any self-respecting escaped con should, and they dangle from his wrist realistically. Top-notch graphics all around. A+++++, would look at graphics again!!
Replay
It should come as no surprise that you won’t spend an awful lot of time trying to get through Resident Evil 0. I played through and beat the game the first time around (albeit on Easy difficulty) in about eight or nine hours. So what’s to keep me coming back again and again?
Well, when you beat the game, regardless of time or difficulty, you unlock the Leech Hunter mini-game. It basically consists of running around the training facility and picking up colored leeches; 50 green for Rebecca and 50 blue for Billy. This mini-game alone should take you about an hour or two to fully complete. Depending on how many leeches you pick up, you’ll earn a grade and a corresponding bonus, like infinite ammo or all weapons, which you can use in the actual game. Not bad for just a little mini-game that any loser who beats RE0 can earn.
Then you’ve got the actual game and plenty of unlockables. Once you’ve beaten it on Normal or Hard (and when they say hard, they mean it. I found this to be much harder than the original) and have acquired much sex from many random women as a result of bragging, you’ll be awarded a rank based on time. What a surprise, eh? You’ve got plenty to earn, like different costumes and weapons, so get to it.
Unfortunately, Resident Evil 0 only has one ending. If you want to get all those different bonuses, you’ll have to sit through the same ending again and again. This was a real disappointment, but I guess there’s really no way they could put in multiple endings. What are they going to do, have Billy kill Rebecca?
So, in the end, Resident Evil 0 is a great game and definitely a worthy installment to the franchise. It suffers from a few flaws, but nothing detrimental, and definitely nothing a fan of the series can’t look past to enjoy the creamy center. I wouldn’t say it’s quite as good as REmake (LOL!), but I’m certainly not regretting having purchased it.
Final Score
91%
Alexander M. Massa, Staff Writer
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