""If I did THAT, I'd get the picture on the box!"*"

There is something to be said for atmosphere in a game, especially in a game intended to scare, and how much is affects the gameplay itself. Things like musical score, graphics, previous experiences in the game and intimidation can all be attributed to the formation of the atmosphere, but that's just reducing a good scare to a paint-by-numbers formula, and you can't put a price on yellow stains in your trousers.

The Resident Evil remake was impeccably executed, and Capcom made it all look so easy. The graphics and background were lush, yet grainy and dark. The sounds and music were expansive enough to get you lost in the game, and-- if I could be clichéd for just a moment-- it put you right there in the Spenser Mansion. The best part about the remake, though, is that it expanded upon the original-- it really was a remake. (That's more than what could be said for the Super Mario Advance series.) Barry's dialogue wasn't as wince-inducing as it was before, and the lip-syncing wasn't as pitiful was it used to be. Overall, it was just another compliment to the realism the game had.

Beyond this, atmosphere becomes increasingly difficult to obtain because the little things become smaller and more difficult to pin down. One thing that did it for me was the ability you had to walk up to whatever you liked and check it out for a description-- never have ladders and furniture scattered in a room, gathering dust, possessed such an emotional quality, and never have bookshelves been so interesting. The descriptions all added to the tension and anxiety that accompanied the gameplay, only to be broken by pounding tympanis and intense cello lines triggered by, say, a zombie bursting through a door. These moments are as thrilling as they are orgasmic and fun-- and I say ''are'' because these moments still possess that quality. The Resident Evil remake never got old.

The underlined point here is that Capcom did all this-- the musical score, the surprises, the graphics, the sound effects, the random items in the background, emotional descriptions-- with style, and made it look simple. And you know what, I'd be willing to bet that Resident Evil 0 is proof that Capcom thought it was easy too.

Resident Evil 0 comes off like an attempt to recreate the magic of the Resident Evil remake, only with new buddy system, new plot, new characters and other junk-- all the new items that is to be expected from a new chapter in the Resident Evil series.

The plot, as you may know by now, is following Rebecca Chambers-- Bravo Team's newbie-- around between the time the Bravo Team helicopter crashed and her appearance in the famed Spenser Mansion. The opening sequence will point you towards leeches, a pale white dude, an ex-con and the other members of Bravo Team who become zombies due to crows, zombies due to dogs, puppy chow in the 'copter, dead, shark/snake food and zombie food, respectively. The plot unfolds in it's usual way, through a series of notes, diary entries and cutscenes. The ammo is scarce, as usual, and the buddy system eliminates item boxes, which creates all sorts of new problems and struggles.

On an aesthetic level, the game is lush and elegant. The characters are realistic and the backgrounds are fragile and as realistic as can be. The sound is similarly well-done, and the soundtrack is lovingly orchestrated as always. On top of that, you can take consolation in the normal set of extras, plus the extra Leech Hunter mode.

Yet, something is missing.

The Resident Evil remake was new and it was fresh. The graphics in the game were never so fully realistic and the notes and documents your protagonist would stumble upon seemed so passionate and fully realized that they almost seemed to be real. The graphics were textured and the architecture was black; fog and limited light was thrown over every inch of the game to make it seem so hauntingly real that should a zombie moan and run at you in the night, it would truly make your skin crawl. Resident Evil 0 is no such recreation or even approximation.

The graphics are built with more solid colors now rather than the Resident Evil remake's textured colors. The end result is a less emotional, tense room-- no more graphical action. The music lacks the tension it once had, and glistening shingles and emotionally intense cello lines are gone. Oh sure, the shrieking violins that announce the humanoid leech are scary the first couple of times, but once the humanoid leech loses its challenge, the violins stop screaming like babies during the apocalypse, and they rather whine like a kid getting their flu shot-- besides, much like a flu shot, humanoid leeches don't last long enough to be that bad.

Besides the first shriek of the violins when you encounter the surprisingly banal humanoid leech, the music contributes very little to the mood. Actually, the only other music that does it's job well is the save room music, which has a very smooth and relaxing progression and pace. The rest of the music takes away more from the mood than it really contributes.

Of course, this would be a bad thing if there were actual scares and surprises to behold. The notes you find and read are weakly written and they always lead up to a stagnant scare that you can see from a thousand miles away. Hunters don't jump out of nowhere anymore and zombies are merely minor, 5-bullet threats. The only surprise are the resilient monkeys, which you only encounter once in your journey and, unfortunately, aren't used to their full potential. The monkeys could've made a fantastic constant enemy but, alas, that was for naught.

Also, in a game like this, the plot is a crucial element in a game like Resident Evil and it's many sequels and as a result, Resident Evil 0 suffers drastically for having a predictable and sorry storyline. I place the blame mostly on the documents and notes you find. The notes, which should compliment and expand on the plot as well as provide puzzle hints and just plain scare, are a nice representation of the forced, shoddy plot Resident Evil 0 possesses. You know who the bad guy is a mere half-way through the game; whatever happened to the immediate surprise of Albert Wesker's shocking appearance in the Umbrella Labs, typing into an Umbrella Lab computer with a smug, satisfied look on his face?

Such plot twists and turns aren't here, unfortunately. The game itself is remarkably easy on both Leech Hunter and the Hard Mode of the actual game itself, assuming that it won't take anyone that long to figure out the trick to juggling items properly. The puzzles are run-of-the-mill and are not difficult to solve, save for a certain crafty trick that involves the lighting of animal-associated candles. The easy, strictly linear path through the game leaves little room for experimentation and recreation; so nothing impacts anything anymore? Yes, quite so, and yet you, much like myself, will play through the game and its many hours and its extra mode, hoping that an eventual maelstrom will come and fully redeem the $50 price tag. Sadly, it never comes.

Resident Evil 0 seems poorly developed, perhaps even rushed. As a result, you could understand Capcom resorting to a more generic formula for a game with the novelty value of the new buddy system, but there's many unfortunate things about this buddy system: it's a nice experiment, Capcom, but it just doesn't suit this game, and there's something about a stone-dumb computer-controlled Billy whipping Molotov cocktails at a weak Rebecca in the face of a big boss that just doesn't fill me with hope, and if you have to sacrifice difficulty to compensate for a new style, then maybe we should pull our time out of the new system and pump more of it into better storylines, better writers and new puzzles.

This game reeks of paint-by-numbers and that Resident Evil 0 is basically a game that has all the standard Resident Evil-style ingredients, but where it should come through in originality and innovation, it falls completely flat. And if Capcom can't drudge up new ideas for puzzles or storylines, what hope do I have of the atmospheric, tragic descriptions of the backgrounds and objects in the room examined? Is Capcom running out of ideas? Is this really the end for our anti-Umbrella protagonists? I should hope not. Maybe it'll get better before it gets worse, and that the wait for Resident Evil 4 and the network-based Resident Evil Outbreak will present new ideas and validate the formerly present genius of Capcom. I really do hope so, because if they decide to paint-by-numbers again, then they'll get the same picture that was on the box!*

* -- Calvin & Hobbes comic strip reference

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 02/03/04