Author: ssybrik

There are plenty of good old-fashioned chills and thrills to offer in this game. I say “old fashioned” because that is what the game is: a direct port of the old Gamecube version of Resident Evil Zero. It’s not that a port is bad or anything; they just don’t offer anything new to those that have experienced the original game. It also means that this game still has plenty of scares to offer.

Story

As part of the intricately woven story of Capcom’s pre-apocalyptic world, Resident Evil Zero tells the story of how the zombie infestation came to be. As mysterious murders have been happening in the Arkley Mountains in the region surrounding Raccoon City, the S.T.A.R.S. (Special Tactics and Rescue Service) team is sent in to investigate. S.T.A.R.S.’ Bravo Team, and rookie member Rebecca Chambers, was flying over the mountain area when they were forced to make a crash landing due to engine failure and began exploring the area on foot. Not long after landing, the team discovers that Billy Coen, a rogue ex-marine, is loose in the woods and decides to search for him.

Searching separately from the team, Rebecca stumbles upon a train owned by Umbrella Corp., where she meets and joins forces with Billy to survive the onslaught of zombies that desires nothing more than their meaty flesh. Their collective goal to survive and escape danger leads them to discover the beginning of the zombie outbreak as they make their way through a speeding train of death to a haunted Umbrella research facility.

Who ordered the lobster? We only have scorpions.

The game was created to fill in the blanks of the intricate story of a doomed world. You can find notes that add to the bigger story of the RE history. They are literally placed everywhere. However, they are really only worthwhile if you play the all the games in the series. For the story involving the immediate cast of RE0, the pacing starts out fast in the beginning, but soon after the beginning, the pacing of the immediate story slows to a snail’s pace. The game is obvious that the game is made to reveal part of the story of the RE Universe; the immediate story of RE0 was made just as an after thought.

Gameplay

The game uses the classic Resident Evil formula. You play as one of two characters at a time. The game camera is strictly fixed to a specific viewpoint depending on where your character is. You can only hold so many items at a time. And don’t forget about all the zombies. While there are plenty of familiar mechanics from other RE games, this game has the most dramatic changes to a RE game without completely changing the formula, like RE4 and RE5.

Although I said you play as one character at a time, you have two characters that you need to control and watch out for. While having control of both characters at the same time may be a little gimmicky for a RE game, the game design is made quiet well to require the coordination of both characters in order to move forward, since each character has their own characteristic and skills. The character switching system for the game is referred to as "partner zapping". Rebecca and Billy usually travel as a group, but there are a good amount of puzzles and obstacles that require separating the two and "zapping" from one character to another in order to move forward in the game. You can freely check on each character’s status and switch between the two characters almost anywhere and anytime you want, except for when one of them is incapacitated. And when I say incapacitated, I mean disabled, not dead. If either character dies, it is still mean game over for the player.

It may be a slumber party, but we are not going to practice kissing! Your breath stinks.

Each character is still restricted to carrying up to 6 different items at a time, but Rebecca and Billy can exchange items whenever they are close to each other.

The second big change worth mentioning is the item system. Item storage boxes do not exist in this game. This means that there players aren’t forced to hold onto unwanted items until they reach an item box. Players are welcomed to drop items wherever they want, as long as a room isn’t already filled with items, and then pick them up later, if they need to hold onto it again. Items that are discovered and left in a room are marked on the map to make finding and retrieving easier. While this eliminate the need to find item boxes to drop items just to get new items, you will need to travel to fetch specific items if you ended up dropping it in a room that is far displaced from where you usually traffic. When you finally figure out how to work the system correctly though, this new method of item management just seems much more player friendly.

While those mechanics are dramatically different compared to most other RE games, there are still plenty of elements that make it feel similar to a classic RE game. Players are still forced to move like a tank, either move forward, backward, or turn clockwise or counterclockwise, making for some awkward control, especial for players who are used to freely moving in all directions. Players are still forced to work with a fixed camera angle in different places. It may be frustrating when transiting between camera angles, but it s price to pay for using pre-rendered backgrounds.

Graphics

Dark, creepy, and dreary. These words pretty much sum up the tone of the environment, so it works for the game. The world of RE0 is made of dark and grainy pre-rendered images and it kinda resembled an oil painting; it’s man-made and life-like from afar, but when you try to notice the details, you can tell that it’s fake. This characteristic isn’t bad at all, in fact it adds to the setting. The environment is constantly covered in blood and mess, so the grainy, surreal setting just further complements the image of a haunted environment.

Story developments are played out in CGI cut scenes. These are pretty much just as dark and grainy as the pre-rendered environment you explore in, but they do make the world seem a bit more lively and animated. They are a good change of pace from seeing death and decoy in a static world. But to be honest, the entire cast of the game kinda blends into the background, even Rebecca and Billy. Sure, characters stand apart from the environment, but if they didn’t move, they easier blended into the background. Then again, it helps to create a world of tension where you just don’t know where the enemy is going to be coming from.

We are not coming back to this restaurant next time.

Audio

Tension is pretty consistent throughout the game. Every time I picked up a new item, solved a puzzle, or even just going through a door, I couldn’t help but feel like I would find a zombie trying to get the jump on me when I wasn’t expecting it. When you walk, you make sounds, all kinds of unholy sounding sounds. They tend to have a sick, creepy quality that is amplified by the silence of having no background music. The music, or lack of, certainly didn’t help to calm my nerves. It felt like the quiet before the storm. Most rooms won’t have any background music, but regular zombies will let you know when they are in the room with their moaning. If any stronger monsters show up, the silence is suddenly broken by intense music, and suddenly you find yourself in a shoot off, trying to make sure the enemy doesn’t get a chance to sink its teeth into you. While the game’s audio is lacking in variety, you would hardly even notice it since you don’t hear it that often.

Multiplayer

Unfortunately, the game does not have any multiplayer mode at all. Since two characters are usually available to be used at most time, it would be nice to be able to have some kind of coop mode, but the way cameras are set, the way characters can move, and the way maps are designed, there is no real way to have two characters move around independently on the same screen.

Summary

There is nothing new to discover in the game, but if you are a fan of the series, or the genre, it is definitely worth visiting for the first time for $30. If you lost your original copy of it and wish to revisit the beginning of the RE history, grabbing a new copy of the Wii version may be easier now than trying to find an old copy of the Gamecube version. Either way, you can add it to your library of mature games for the Wii. Resident Evil Zero is definitely a blast from the recent past and is great for a good scare.