Resident Evil 0

The Good
Graphically Amazing’ Dual Character Interaction’ It’s Resident Evil.

The Bad
Not as scary as newer titles. Sluggish control. Confusing puzzles.

The Bottom Line
With the recent movie release, it would be hard to not know what Resident Evil is about. It’s about zombies. It’s always been, about zombies. But why? That is the question that’s never truly been answered. Where the heck did all this zombie-eating-brains stuff start? Why does the Umbrella Corporation always have something to do with the zombie hordes? Resident Evil Zero aims to explain all that, the obvious ‘Zero’ in the title being an indicator that it is, in fact, a prequel to the Resident Evil series. Nobody, however, expected it to look so dang good!

Right off the bat, I’ll say it loud and clear. Resident Evil Zero is to date, the most graphically detailed and beautiful game on the Gamecube. What Zelda : Windwaker achieved in style, RE:0 achieves in pure eye candy. Of note, is the fact that it comes on not one, but two Gamecube disks. Considering how much data one disk can hold, that’s quite impressive. The necessity for so much storage space stems from the high quality characters as well as the backdrops which, unlike the previous RE games, are not static at all but rather rendered movies. This leads to an unparallel movie-like quality, something that has to be seen to be believed. But not everything is about graphics, is it?

Another deviation from the usual style, RE:0 lets you play not just one character, but two, at the same time. Using their ‘character zapping’ system as they call it, you control both Rebecca (a rookie Raccoon City Police Officer from the original Resident Evil) and Billy (a framed convict). If you control one character, the other becomes an AI operated partner that will help you take down zombies. Passing items between characters inventories if they stand close together is a breeze, thankfully, as you need to do this quite often. The team play aspect also plays an integral part in the puzzle solving side of the game. Often you may have to have one character hold down a lever, then switch to the other and move to stand on a platform, switching back to the original to pull the lever. It’s a classic system, but it works remarkably well.

Aside from those new additions, it’s vintage Resident Evil. The plot, while sometimes flimsy, serves well to support the existing storyline. The sounds and music are a notch above the norm thanks to extensive use of the Gamecube sound system and there’s more than enough zombies and large spooky creatures for everyone.