Zombies must Die!
Written: Apr 10 '00 (Updated Apr 17 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Graphics, StoryLine, and Dead Zombies
Cons: Camera Angles
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| EasyTarget's Full Review: Resident Evil Code Veronica for Dreamcast |
Remember the last time you were just about to escape from a zombie filled town, and just when you thought you had escaped you were suddenly surrounded and kidnapped. Of course you were then dragged off to a remote island totally unsure of your whereabouts, and imprisoned. Don’t you just hate when that happens. The proceeding is the premise of Resident Evil: Code Veronica.
You wake up to find yourself locked in a jail cell, where luckily the guard lets you go. Naturally you want to get the hell out of there, but you have no idea how and the game begins. The game provides you with subtle clues and outright hints on what to do and where to go. Several times you can only go in one direction, making the decision process easy. The attention to detail greatly enhances the environment and encourages you to explore the area. Well what about the zombies you ask? Glad you asked, they are everywhere and always getting in your way but hey that’s zombies for ya. The zombies can be quickly dispatched with a few shots, but ammo is limited so choose wisely on when to kill and when to run. The island you have been dropped off on is in total disrepair nothing works, which lends itself to having you run around and solve puzzles. Granted not all of the puzzles are challenging, most are finding the key to unlock the door. Obviously no one trusted anyone else on this island. As in most games the zombies become more and more difficult to defeat using up more and more of that precious ammo. You are treated to several boss characters, a.k.a. really big bad guys. Ultimately you will defeat the final bad guy and escape the island only to crash land your plane so you can kill more zombies. Like a horror movie, once you think its over, its really not.
Graphics: Resident Evil may be the first game that truly pushes the envelope on what can be done graphically on the Dreamcast. No other current game on the Dreamcast totally immerses you in to a complete world filled with this amount of detail. (Shenmue may do this, but the game is not available in the US yet.) The fires burn, rain gutters dribble with water, lights shake in the wind, the game world has a sense of life, or in the case of the zombies sense of death, which games have not been able to produce before. The in game cinematics are breath taking, the flow from cut scenes to game play is almost seamless. You can skip by the cinematics if you need to get back to killing the zombies. The real time atmospheric lighting adds a true sense of realism and beauty, even to the ugly zombies.
The only little nitpicks are lack of damage to background objects. I feel that if you shoot something it should remain damaged. Granted with limited memory size and inability to store that info its impossible to do but I am hoping more games add the effect. Also the shadows cast by characters and moving objects are nothing more then little circles on the ground, some games have added real time shadows so it is possible and I wish it was present in Resident Evil.
Sound: Absolutely critical to the game, Resident Evil has a overwhelming variety of ambient sound effects that not only aid in gameplay, but hint at what is to follow. The dynamic changing of background music adds the horror movie something evil is about to happen ambience. The voice acting may not be the best in the business but is several layers above average games. Several times I got the impression that the actors had no context as to how the dialogue was fitting into the current story line.
Gameplay: The meat and potatoes of any game is in the gameplay. Poor execution of great ideas can lay games in the discount bin, while great execution of poor ideas makes them best sellers. Luckily Resident Evil is great execution of a great idea. Although not original idea, it is a sequel, killing tones of zombies is a great idea for a game.
My two gripes first, camera angle and character controls hinder what could have been a flawless game. Playing in third person viewpoint creates the added problem of camera placement if it is not a dynamic camera. More then once, camera placement led me to shoot off screen zombies, only through their moaning did I know they were there. You can remap the button layout to aid you in your zombie slaughter but moving Clair and later on Chris, was very touchy. Several times I found myself lightly bumping the control in order to get Clair in the proper spot to activate or pickup an object. With that said, I still feel the gameplay was extraordinary, with seamless cinematics, in depth story line, and enough zombie killing to last a life time. The game length is long enough to give you your moneys worth (it is 2 disks), and gives enough zombie killing action to satisfy most gamers.
The game has graphic violence and warns that younger kids should not play it, as always parents should use their own judgement. I felt that the gore level was not over the top, but definitely not meant for 5 year olds either.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
EasyTarget
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Member: Michael Mooney
Location: Boston, MA
Reviews written: 20
Trusted by: 1 member
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