Resident Evil

The Good
Obviously this game is a retelling of all the events that took place in the original Resident Evil, with some minor additions to the storyline. For example, players are introduced to the Trevor family - a family that was unfortunately involved with Umbrella's experiments at the mansion - through various diaries and memos found throughout the game. There's also new areas added to explore as well. Some of these new areas include a graveyard, a forest. and some additional rooms which hold key items. Players will often see a lot of the same enemies that were present in the original, such as zombies, zombie dogs, hunters, and the Tyrant. However, one cool element that mixes up the familiarity of this gameplay is the regeneration factor. Unlike the original, zombie's must be killed by either decapitating or incinerating them. Failure to do this within a certain time frame results in the zombies being resurrected in a much more aggressive form. This makes the player be even more strategic as they must decide if they should run past them, carry kerosene (which is needed to burn the bodies), or just leave the bodies and hope that you won't have to return to said area. Not only is this a great remake of a classic game, but it's also a very ambitious game in itself. The graphics were beautiful for 2002, the gameplay mechanics were fantastic, the addition of "Defensive Weapons" was a great touch, and it had a wonderfully balanced ambiance of eerie, atmospheric horror and fast-paced storytelling. The controls translated well to the GameCube controller, I thought. But then again, I've never understood why people criticized the original game for having "tank controls," as I never had problems with those controls, either. The soundtrack for the remake is a stir of both new musical scores and faithful renditions of older tracks from the original soundtrack. The sound (including it's dialog, sound effects, and soundscapes) was flawless, with voice acting and dialog greatly improved from the original, the gunshots sounded clean and powerful, and the whole umbrella (no pun intended) of soundscapes, like outside ambiance and creaking floorboards, was quite instrumental to building the daunting atmosphere that players were presented with here.

The Bad
I didn't find many things to dislike in this game -- which is a pleasant surprise seeing as remakes have the tendency to often butcher classic characters and deviate too much from it's original premise. Anything to dislike at this point would be nitpicking, at least for me anyways. But I won't waste time with nitpicking, as the minor miscues in this game aren't even worth mentioning.

The Bottom Line
Not only is the remake of Resident Evil a definite highlight for the series, but it is also a tremendous graphical triumph for the GameCube. The crew involved in the production of this remake should be quite proud of their work. Aside from all that, this reproduction of Resident Evil is definitely one of the best titles in the RE series, and is just as good as the original. I honestly can't decide which is the better game, but I deeply appreciate this remake for being just as great as the original because that's something which doesn't really happen all that often. This is definitely a GameCube title to check out, and for those who can't be bothered to dig out their GameCubes (or buy one, for that matter), be sure to check out the HD remaster that just came out which looks even more amazing than it already did.