"Not the best, not the worst..."

Well, when news spread about that Resident Evil: Code Veronica (RECV) was coming out soon, many game players and RE fans were giddy with joy. All of us were very excited, ready to marvel at what features this new toy would have, and how much better it would be than the prequels. Well, this falls somewhat short of most peoples' expectations.

Story: 5/10
A certain aspect I've noticed seems to change from game to game. It's the puzzle solving and story revealing to killing ratio. In the first one, there weren't all that many zombies, but a good amount of tricks and traps for you to overcome. In RE 2, there was some more killing, and still a good amount of puzzles and things. I've only played 3 for a few minutes, but someone told me that it wasn't that hard to figure things out, and there were kills galore. In REVC, there are very few things to figure out. The story itself sucks, I don't really want to reveal anything to spoil it, although nothing special really happens throughout the game. RECV also has more killing than any RE yet. This is cool for a while, but it gets redundant, killing 4-6 zombies every screen. There are some new monsters, but they will mess you up given any chance. Let's put it like this, this game is hard to get through, but not hard to figure out.

Graphics: 8/10
The highlight of this game is definitly the graphics. The movie scenes look pretty close to real, and even some in-game scenes look like they're really happening. Also, unlike the other RE games, this one has a different type of camera. On most screens, the camera will follow you around so you can see a little better, a nice new feature. Everything else, including the guns, herbs, etc. is all true to RE graphics.

Sound: 4/10
The sound of guns gets annoying with all the killing you'll be doing, and the voice acting is kinda bad. The zombies still have their same old grunts and groans, and the humans still have their screams. They could've done a little better in this aspect.

Challenge: 6/10
As stated earlier, there's so much killing it will make your head spin. The only puzzle that's a real challenge is the picture puzzle. Everything else is based on ammo and life conservation.

Features: 6/10
There are some new weapons, nothing all that special. There is also a battle mode that you get when you beat the game.

Control: 6/10
It's Resident Evil....enough said.

Rent/Buy:
Hmmm, tough one...the game is too long to enjoy it if you rent, but you might not want to go through it if you buy it...I guess borrow it from a friend first and if you really feel you need it, then by all means go and get it. I would say let's wait for the sequel, but we said that last time and look what happened...

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/05/00, Updated 03/06/01