"Best in Survival Horror and Action/Adventure genre, and best in terms of graphics."

Ah, this is the best game of its whole series, the best in the Survival Horror and Action/Adventure genre and the best in terms of graphics which places second after the rival Shenmue, Resident Evil Code: Veronica. For the sake of the civilization of a place infested full of zombies, you’ve really got to get this game. Never heard of Resident Evil before? You are clearly under the coconut-shell for a long time and you are not deserved to be called a gamer.

Graphics – 10
As I’ve said before in the first place, this game is the best in graphics, after Shenmue. The totally amazing FMV sequence in the beginning of the game will totally awe you till your jaw dropped five meters wide. They look totally real, catch you breathless and make you wait what the character in the game will do next. The character in the game look totally real, with the right colour textures matching their own skin with their clothing undoubtedly real, and every single aspect of the character detailed, from their hair, eyes and downright to their shoes.

Obviously haven’t seen in other Resident Evil series before, this is the game that utilized the Dreamcast system for better performance, and totally beaten up Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3 in the Dreamcast system. Eye-catching details with a tiny sparkle on certain important items that you must collect. Some FMV sequences are totally gruesome and gross, with all those zombies walking dead towards you. And to make it best, there are simply lots of FMV sequences that will make you cheer and enjoy.

The background are just nice, which matches the scene at every time. Fire, and whatever debris that you will come across look seemingly real. Most of the time, you’ll see that the places will be dark and dire with hardly a light to lit up the place. Of course, you don’t always get into the darkness always, there are many places that you can travel to now, so you will at least encounter a brightly-lit place at least once in your travel.

Music – 9
There will be no guess when the horror will struck up on you next, as the music plays the best together in here that will frighten you up completely. You might think that it’s the wise choice to set the whole game mute so you won’t be deliberately frightened, but it’s actually silly, if you want to enjoy the game completely and listen to important messages sent out during FMV sequences, so you might at least know the story a bit more and decide where to go next.

A bit of frightening sensation, really. The music will go totally blank, while you can only hear squeaks of rusted metal cranks, your own quick-pattering footsteps and zombies walking or slithering towards you. There is no prediction when a loud booming music will make you jump. You might here no background music for a moment while the next loud, booming explosions will make you fall over the sofa and land down on the floor. Some music, which is very rare, does not sound really scary, like in the save room. Of course, you will encounter quick and loud music noises that will make you go into a lunatic panic that makes you shout “Quick, kill the zombies! QUICK!”. Really.

Sound effects are really scarry, with zombies walking with their endless sound of “Uuhhh…” completely. Shots of few quick bullets from your trusty Handgun sound extremely real, followed by other weapons that you will find in the game. You can note those creepy metal sounds, when you open the door, your heart-beats when you climb a stairs and your footsteps can be pretty scary at times. What makes the game really worse is (in terms of scariness of course, not the weakness) that Capcom overdo it, making your character reaching for a door, walking on the stairs too slow that will make you wait with your heart beating quickly.

The voices, on the other hand, sound a bit different. Claire sounds all right, though I think it’s a bit different, I can’t really explain the differences. Steve Burnside, one of the characters that you will meet in the beginning of the game sound a bit girlish. Honest. Other characters sound just nice where it should be but Alfred Ashford sound like a silly, high-twittering hen-chicken shouting and cackling. But anyway, you will get easily used to the voice actors in the game, which are a nice addition. The computerized woman voice which gives you some quick, ‘evacuating’ instructions are just nice, but if you listen to most other games, they sound almost the same but this game, it’s different.

Gameplay – 10
Maybe I should start out with a brief and quick talk about the Resident Evil series, just to get those people with no Resident Evil knowledge. The original Resident Evil game, stars Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, with a few other popular characters who are in the S.T.A.R.S. (Special Tactics and Rescue Service) team who will be investigating a secret mansion with loads of zombies and mutated enemies in it. Resident Evil 2 starts off with Claire Redfield, in search of his brother Chris, with Leon “Scott” Kennedy, a rookie police officer in his first day job. All of this are happening in a horror town by the name of Raccoon City. Resident Evil 3 starts off as a prequel to Resident Evil 2 and stars Jill Valentine and the other half of the game is the sequel to Resident Evil 2. Now, Resident Evil Code: Veronica stars in Claire Redfield, Steve Burnside and the ever-popular Chris Redfield, investigating a private Umbrella island and all over the country.

Taking control as Claire Redfield in the beginning, with her new outfit, she starts off in a private Umbrella Biohazard island, trying to get information and in search of her brother, Chris Redfield. This game might be a bit different, as it will give you a different feeling and how the camera follows you are all different and much more modernized. The inventory screen was also given a new and much better look, as it looks much more computerized with technical sound effects sounding off. You can only store a measly amount of eight items in the beginning, so you need to find few items to allow you to store more things. Files are placed differently, if compared to previous games like Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3.

There are new enemies as well as bosses that you will encounter later on in the game. Scary, big-sized with hands that are able to stretch out long called Bandersnatch can be a real pain as they deal few quick damages if you use weak items like Handgun. Other than that, it seems that Umbrella, or the bloodline of the Ashford family seem to be creating new types of creatures. Your old zombie friends now varied from naked ones (not really that worse, like the old ones in Resident Evil 3) to the zombie’s best friend, hound dogs that give you few quick bites. Zombies are now much more cleverer in this version, completely different from the stupid ones in the old Resident Evil series. This time around, when the zombies sees you, they try to walk quickly but limping to you and when you run past them, they will make a quick attempt to grab you immediately, if compared to the old zombies in the previous Resident Evil series that almost done nothing and let you scrape free.

On the other hand, Claire can now perform different moves to throw zombies off, if they succeed in grabbing and biting you. If you are on a bridge, Claire will throw the zombie by taking their hands and blast them off the bridge, and down they fall to the waters below. What makes this game harder than before is ammo are really scarce, so you must not really waste them by shooting at every enemy you see. Sometimes, you must even ration by using Combat Knife in tight situations while at other times, you must try and run past those annoying undead creatures. Healing items like Herbs and First Aid Spray are completely hidden by taking full advantage of the ‘dark’ system. You need good eagle eyes to spot these nifty stuffs, if you see anything ‘suspicious’.

As you might know, this game consists of two discs. This game is completely different than Resident Evil 2 as you can use either Disc 1 or Disc 2 straightaway to choose your favourite character but this time in the game, you need to follow like any other normal games, complete the Disc 1 to continue in Disc 2. You can only use as Claire in Disc 1 and later on in Disc 2, then only you can take over as Chris. Some places in the game will scare you up, to get flying bats all over you (now, crows are replaced as bats. They don’t really do any harm if you know what to do).

Controls – 6
We all know what Resident Evil is unpopular of, the tight, hard-to-use controls. Ah. We know, you frustratingly trying to run past the zombies while you run straight to their faces, forcing yourself to get bitten and hurt easily. Press left or right directional pad will only make your character twist and turn like dancing on the same spot while pressing up will make your character move forward, despite whatever directions while down will make your character walk backwards. Resident Evil and Dino Crisis gamers will definitely expect this game to be easily controls. These gamers will surely admit (including me) that it will be hard to master in the beginning, but once you had taken all of it easy, there will be no problem.

Pressing the L button this time will let you change target, instead of targeting at items such as explosive items, as happened before in Resident Evil 3. Tapping R button will make your character target any enemies. Pressing the X button is for Action/Attack which is used to confirm any thing and to shoot, Y is to bring up the map, A is to cancel and to run (different completely, right? Instead of pressing A to confirm, this game makes it to cancel), while pressing the B button will bring up the menu. Try and master the controls and you’ll see the light and laugh at yourself for saying the controls are hard in the beginning.

Replay Value – 8
Replaying the game might be useless, for such a long game. You might not even have the time to replay the game as this game is really long. Period. But anyway, most Resident Evil gamers have the strange feeling of wanting to play the game all over again, despite their hard work defeating monsters, scrape through a seemingly difficult place and collecting items. Playing finish the game once will unlock something secret, which will add more replay value to the game, which will add all and more fun to Resident Evil Code: Veronica.

Overall – 10
An all time favourite of mine, and the best Resident Evil series in its long timeline and history. If you’re not a fan of horror games, try this game and give yourself a pat on the back for making the right choice. You might change your mind later and love Resident Evil. As the storyline may be a bit confusing, it’s best and recommended that you finish and complete one or two previous Resident Evil series to understand the story more.

Evil
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+ Surpassing, jaw-dropping graphics with lots of cool FMV sequences!
+ Enhanced gameplay to make you love this game even more!
+ Horror background music and sound effects that add a lot to this game!

Devil
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- Few voice actors are a bit disappointing.
- Horror it sounds, and horror by nature. Not for the young and the old.
- The game is a bit too hard, so is the same, usual controls.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/06/01, Updated 01/06/01