"Welcome back to Hell, enjoy your stay!"

The long running Resident Evil series is back on the Nintendo GameCube. The first time I played Resident Evil Code: Veronica X was with my brother because I’m a big wuss to play it alone. I was right not to play it alone because Code Veronica X is probably the scariest installment in the Resident Evil series.
You are Claire Redfield (a playable character from Resident Evil 2). While invading an Umbrella base you are caught and thrown in jail. When you wake up you will find out that something has gone terribly wrong, the island with the prison base that you are on, is infested with mutant zombies, dogs, creatures, and other unspeakable horrors. Then you meet up with some familiar faces, and some new ones. The biggest question though is... can you trust them. I was very engrossed in this story and I'm sure you will be too!

The graphics have been improved over the DreamCast version, and the PlayStation 2 version of this game. Everything looks gorgeous! The textures look smoother and there are hardly any noticeable jaggies. The environments that you will be in are extremely well done, along with all the characters. The monsters will scare you, because so much effort has been put in to them making them look very realistic. There are a few noticeable glitches and a few graphical errors, but it still looks pretty good even up to today’s standards especially the FMV sequences!

The sound really sets the atmosphere of this game. This is usually always very creepy music playing in the background. Whenever something good happens, the music changes to a slightly more up beat tune. However when your character gets surprised, or in the middle of a fight with zombies or other creatures, the music will change to a fast creepy tune. So the sound is evenly spread out, but what about the sound effects? Well they are nothing to be let down by either. Listening is a very important part of this game because you usually can hear your enemies before you see them. The voice acting is superb as well! Every voice fits the character perfectly and the mouth moves exactly to whatever words your character is speaking. Then we have the gunfire. It sounds so realistic you will swear you are the person shooting the gun.

This game takes the ''survival horror'' to the next level. You still have the standard kill everything you see tactics but now there are more guns, more puzzles, that make this game a perfect survival horror game. The puzzles in this are very challenging that you will really have to think. There are now also many more guns that make you decide what are the essential items or weapons that you have in your inventory at that time. In short term, this game is just like any other Resident Evil game, but with more challenge to it. My only gripe is I don’t like the fact that you can’t run ‘n’ gun (which is the case in all the previous Resident Evil titles) you must aim and shoot with the only options of aiming up, center, down, and all around your character. I guess Capcom doesn’t let you do the run ‘n’ gun to add more tension to the already creepy game.

Replay is sadly low; Code Veronica X is by far the longest Resident Evil out there right now. If I can remember it took me about 13-15 hours to get done with the game on my first time through. It will sit there on your self until one day you’ll find that you want to live through this game again and have a scary good time.

My Rundown
Story - 10/10
Graphics - 8/10
Sound - 8/10
Gameplay - 9/10
Replay - 6/10
Overall - 8/10 (not an average)

Final Word
Go out and do yourself a favor, buy this game. It doesn’t matter if you are a veteran of the series or if you are completely new to the series, there is something in this game for everyone to enjoy!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/24/03, Updated 03/22/04