"The scariest installment of the series is also the best!"

The Resident Evil series has always been a thrill ride for anybody who plays them. Now Capcom has released a brand new chapter in this legendary series, Resident Evil 0. As the name suggests everything takes place before the Spencer Estate incident from the first game. In this game Capcom really shows a lot of innovation. They introduce us to a new character, more enemies, new environments, and the ability to control two different characters at the same time. Resident Evil 0 was originally slated to be a Nintendo 64 game, but Capcom decided to push it back to the GameCube for more graphical benefits, and more time to make the finishing touches.

Even though Resident Evil 0 is a prequel, you should probably play the first Resident Evil to fully understand what’s going on. The game starts out with a train rushing through the Raccoon City Forest then, all of a sudden a passenger looks out his window to find huge leeches smacking up against the train. After that the whole train gets consumed by the monstrous leeches and turn into the living dead. Then the S.T.A.R.S. (Special Tactics And Rescue Service) helicopter crashes in the Raccoon City forest; the team decides to split up and your character, Rebecca Chambers, learns about Billy Coen, a criminal that was sentenced to death but the escaped in the crash. Rebecca then finds the train that was attacked. This really sets the suspense and surprisingly you haven’t even played the game yet, this was all in the first five minutes of the game! You’ll find yourself wondering about your team, what happened to Billy, who was in charge of the attack, and what creatures lurk in the mysterious train. Nice move by Capcom to get players into the story early on in the game.

Graphically this game is just amazing! Even the zombies are pretty in their own spooky kind of way (Note: Very seldom do I use the words “zombies,” and “pretty,” in the same sentence). All of the backgrounds are pre-rendered which allows more atmosphere to the games’ creepiness. The in-game graphics look like some other games’ FMV’s with everything so detailed. Most of the rooms have a gloomy look, shadows are cast upon your characters, and the enemies look so creepy. Not to mention the FMV’s look like they were filmed and slapped onto the game. All the hard work that Capcom put into making this game look amazing really paid off and in my opinion it is the best looking game currently on the GameCube.

The sound in this game is one of the biggest factors of making you scared while playing. Most of the time, when things are normal there is no noise except for the sounds of your footsteps. However, when something “scary” happens the music gets loud, dramatic, and fast, to get your heart to skip a beat. When everything calms down again, the music fades away. Sometimes the music is calming and cools your nerves, like in the save rooms.

The sound effects are brilliantly done. Everything in this game has awesome sound effects, from the voice acting, footsteps, gunfire, and everything else that makes noise in this game. The sound also helps you out in this game, you can generally hear your enemy before you see it. For example, zombies groan, and slide their feet against the floor, to let you know that they are in the room. The sound in this game will make you scared, I can assure you that, but while you’re scared you are going to realize that once the music stops playing, you are no longer scared. If that’s not enough to scare you the incredibly realistic noises the enemies make will make you look over your shoulder to make sure it wasn’t real.

If the graphics and the sound don’t scare you enough, the gameplay will! Ah, I just don’t know where to start, this game has so many different things you do in the gameplay. I might as well start off by explaining the genre which is survival horror. The “survival,” part comes from the fact that you have to learn to conserve ammo and healing items to survive throughout the game. The “horror,” part simply comes from the zombies, and other gruesome enemies in this game. The fighting/shooting in this game is fairly simple. Your character takes out their gun with the “R,” button and fires with the “A,” button. From there your character can aim up, down, straight forward, and turn around in a circle. My only gripe is that, like in mostly all of the past Resident Evil games, you can’t run and shoot. You have to put your gun away, run to a new position, and continue firing. Your weapon selection is awesome with weapons such as, a standard combat knife, handguns, molotov #########, shotguns, grenade launchers, sub-machine guns, and of course the magnum and the rocket launcher. Each of these guns have their own weaknesses as well. Now, picture this, you are in a room with no zombies or creatures but you know that there are enemies in the next room. Fear starts to consume you for a moment, you push the “A,” button to open then door, which slowly opens to load the next room, you get in there and pop a few enemy heads. That is what it feels like to be playing Resident Evil 0. You can never be sure if something is going to be there that was not before, or if there will be a new type of enemy for you to fight (unless you use a guide).

This game introduces two characters being played at once. Rebecca Chambers and Billy Coen can be controlled together or apart. When you are controlling them together, one person leads and the other one follows, this is helpful for rooms with lots of enemies or just one boss enemy. You can also control the character following you by using the Control Stick. It is also very helpful solving some puzzles throughout the game, in fact there are some puzzles that you can’t do without using teamwork. You can also split them apart to cover more ground, or if one character is hurt badly you can have the less injured one take out the baddies before going into the next room. Another handy feature is the “item swap,” lets say one character is running out of ammo and your other character is pretty well loaded down, you can give your partner some ammo so he or she doesn’t run dry. This is also a good thing to do when you are running low on inventory room (which is very limited). Speaking of inventory, the good old item boxes are no longer in Resident Evil 0, now you can just deposit items wherever you choose. That does have one disadvantage though; you must remember where you put your stuff especially if it looks like it has something to do with solving a puzzle. Puzzles have always been a Resident Evil tradition some hard some very easy. Most of these puzzles include picking up various items and placing them somewhere, or just finding keys to a locked door.

Next to Resident Evil: Code Veronica X, this is the longest Resident Evil ever made. It took me somewhere in between nine to fourteen hours to beat. Those hours were some of the creepiest yet enjoyable hours that I have spent on any Resident Evil game. When you finally finish this game you won’t touch it for quite a while, but then someday you will have a strong urge to pick it up and play it again. This is mainly because you get unlock different items, there are different levels of difficulty, and a secret mini-game at the end!

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

From start to finish, Resident Evil 0 is a blast to play through. An excellent story will have you on the edge of your seat. The stellar graphics will amaze you and will make you want to play more just to see the different textures and rooms. The sound will freak you out at times, but at other times relax you and calm you down. The gameplay will keep you coming back for more because you will be having such a good time and since the gameplay is so good the replay is of high, I guarantee you will play through it two or three times before getting bored with it completely.

Final Word
This game is a pure masterpiece that absolutely no one should miss out on. However if you are new to the series I would recommend that you play Resident Evil Remake to understand the story better. The controlling two players at once feature breathes even more life into the legendary series. Another reason you should get this game is because it is now fairly cheap since it was released in 2002, but even if it was still full priced I would gladly fork over the cash for such a great game!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/21/04, Updated 03/22/04