Itchy...Tasty

The original Resident Evil game came out for the Playstation and Saturn years ago, and has since been released in seemingly countless "Director's Cut" variations on a number of platforms. This game, known as "Biohazard" in Japan, is one of the most popular in video gaming today. It has resulted in a number of sequels and spin offs, as well as the inevitable clones trying to duplicate the success of the original. Capcom took the first game of the series, almost completely remade it, and published it on the GameCube. The result is this game, cunningly called "REmake" by many a fanboy out there (I will stick to just RE in this review).

RE is a ground-breaking game for many reasons. First, it represents the return of Capcom to developing games for Nintendo. During the N64 era, their support was suspect at best. Secondly, this is one of the first high-profile "mature" games for a Nintendo console, and as such, is a major weapon in the GameCube's anti-kiddy arsenal. Also, this game is the first 2-disc game for the system, demonstrating once and for all that the GC's smaller disc size isn't the problem critics make it out to be.

All of that is well and good, but what about the game itself? Well, to start, the story of RE is still the same as the original game. While this is the biggest point that critics fault the game on, I don't see it as such a problem. This is because the story has been fleshed out to a great degree by the addition of new characters and new areas to explore. In fact, the story is about the only thing this game has directly in common with the first game. Almost everything else has been reworked. To summarize the story for those that haven't played the game, you play as either Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine, who are member of a STARS team (which is some sort of para-military police squad) that is investigating the disappearance of a sister unit that was responding to a number of strange occurrences in a forest surrounding Raccoon City (don't ask me). In the course of your investigation, you discover that most of the other team is already dead, and you are forced to take refuge in some sort of abandoned mansion. Things go from bad to worse as horribly mutated monsters and zombies begin to arrive on the scene. It is up to you to rescue any survivors and escape mansion alive. Admittedly, this story is something out of a b-movie, but it sets the stage for the game pretty well.

Graphics in RE are simply jaw-dropping. The backgrounds are all pre-rendered FMV that is loaded for each area and viewed from a fixed perspective. While this limits the player's ability to survey his or her surroundings, it also allows for a lot detail and animation to be put into the characters. The uniforms of the STARS members are replete with seams and even individual stitches, for example. Also, there are a number of very spiffy lighting effects from your weapons fire, flickering candles, or even lightning outside. Overall, this is one of the best looking games out there.

Sound is equally well done, with all the weapons fire and zombie moaning you would expect. The horrible voice acting has been improved in this version, which is a plus. The music is mostly non-existent or very faint, except in high-stress situations when it suddenly increases in volume a great deal. This actually makes your heart start to pound...it is really a neat trick.

Gameplay and control are probably the biggest sticking points for most people. First, the control. The use of fixed camera angles necessitates the use of a control scheme where up on the analog stick always moves your character forward, no matter which way he or she is facing, and left turns you left, etc. This can give some people fits, and it takes a while to get used to. Some people are just unwilling or unable to make that adjustment, but I was able to adapt after a short time without much trouble. One aspect of RE that many people detest is the fact that, for most of the game, you will not have enough ammunition to dispose of all the zombies you encounter. This means that you have to dodge a fair amount, especially on the higher difficulty settings. There are three difficulty settings, easy, normal, and hard. Each has increasingly tougher enemies and decreasing amounts of curative items and ammo. RE definitely follows the old-school gameplay formula of solving various puzzles to find items which allow you to open up new areas in the game. While this kind of gameplay has been done before, in RE it works pretty well because a majority of the puzzles are fairly intuitive and well-designed. This version of RE adds a few twists to the gameplay. Zombies that you kill will eventually come back to life as Super-Zombies (technically known as Crimson Heads) if you don't burn them with a limited supply of kerosene, for example. On the whole, however, this game will seem very familiar to fans of the series.

Overall, RE is one of the better games for the GameCube. There are a number of extras, such as special weapons and different costumes, that are un-lockable by beating the game on a certain difficulty level in a certain time. While the game only took my about 13 hours to beat the first time through, these extras got me to play it about 5 or 6 times. So, there is a fair amount of value here. For those of you that are old enough, I highly recommend you try this game. However, I recommend that you rent it at least once, because the control scheme is a major turn-off for some and the short game length means that a rental may be all you need.

By Andy Rucker