"Stunning graphics and tons of replay value don’t make up for insipid, mundane gameplay."

In this game, the prequel to the first Resident Evil, you're Rebecca Chambers, new recruit in the elite S.T.A.R.S. team. After your helicopter crashes, you're stranded in the wilderness in the fight of your life against a horde of zombies, mutants and poorly-designed puzzles. After finding an abandoned train nearby, you soon team up with an ex-convict also stranded there under suspicious circumstances, and switch between the two of them to kill your enemies and ultimately escape back to civilization, all the while learning the secrets of the sinister Umbrella corporation.

Graphics- 10/10
Resident Evil Zero is a beautiful game to look at. Every single aspect of the game is extravagantly detailed. The cutscenes, in particular, are spectacular. The character models are exceedingly realistic, and when the camera is close to a zombie you can see every gruesome detail in perfection. The light effects in this game are also amazing; shadows and reflections flow by so seamlessly that you frequently fail to notice them at all. My sole criticism of the graphics is that the game is so dark that the backgrounds get a tad dull after many hours of play.

Sound- 8/10
The right atmosphere in this type of game can have a huge effect on the overall impression of horror, and while the incidental sounds are near flawless, the music in the game is barely adequate. The frequent long periods of near silence are not suspenseful, as intended, but rather make the game all the more monotonous, especially with all the back-tracking you'll have to do. Orchestral scores when you encounter some of the more powerful enemies add to the adrenaline rush, but such encounters are too infrequent to provide a real sense of horror. As for the sound, you'll soon notice how everything is perfectly synchronized with the corresponding action, all the way from footfalls of enemies to the dripping water from a faucet. Doors slams, zombies groans and gunshots are all amazingly rendered and fit in perfectly with the game's own brand of realism.

Gameplay- 5/10
This is where the game suffers. The gameplay is, quite simply, extremely tedious. Controls aren't a big issue, but they have a high learning curve. The gameplay borrows a lot from previous Resident Evil games, but the new two-character switching system is innovative and reasonably effective. The story fleshes out pretty well, except for one major problem, although if this is your first game in this series you might not understand a lot of the storyline ties to the other RE games.

The game is in essence, a prequel, and as such much of the story simply exists to set up the events of the first Resident Evil. The games biggest caveat connects with that- there is major plot spoilers for RE1 about halfway through the game. Play that first, if you're worried. At any rate, the premise of that game, as of this, is that you're lost in the wilderness and being confronted by a horde of flesh-eating zombies. That may sound a bit unbelievable but the game does a good job making it seem realistic, although the back story behind your main enemy in the game seems overly contrived. You play as Rebecca or Billy in your quest to escape alive, and along the way you gain bits of information about your secret enemy and the Umbrella corporation. Overall, the game isn't very scary. Some of the enemies can surprise you, and some of the more gruesome aspects are a bit creepy, but the game suffers from a lack of anything genuinely frightening or suspenseful.

The controls are awkward at first (unless you're already accustomed to the Resident Evil or standard survival horror controls), and you probably won't master them until around the halfway point. The game also inexplicably lacks any sort of conveniences despite the four unused buttons on the controller. The gameplay would be considerably less irritating if you could reload manually or switch items between characters without pausing, for example. You have the ability to switch back and forth between two characters, and that part of the game works surprisingly well. The fixed camera can be an issue, at times, although no serious problems with it arose for me. The biggest problem with the controls is the extremely sluggish turns, and coupled with a poor aiming system those can often be the sole causes for your demise against some of the smaller enemies.

The major flaw in Resident Evil Zero is simply the monotony of constantly back-tracking to solve the puzzles, most of which are well below the level of the average Zelda puzzle and take up far more time. The reason for all the back-tracking is that you simply do not have enough available slots to hold items. You have twelve total, between the two of you, but you will often find that half or more of those are filled with weapons or healing items, leaving little room for the puzzle-solving special items. On the first few times through, you can spend hours finding the right special items to combine, and this can make the game quite a chore. The game also loses a real opportunity in that few of the puzzles have anything to do with the two-character system. Finally, you have to have a special item called an ink ribbon and be in the same room as a typewriter to save, and on harder difficulties you may lose hours of painful work simply because you couldn't survive long enough to make it to one of the sparse save locations.

This gameplay's saving grace could have been fights with the more complex non-zombie enemies, but these simply occur too rarely to break the tedium. Beyond that, on higher difficulties you will often have to avoid these rare points of interest to conserve precious ammo. Fighting mutant animals is entertaining enough, but the zombies become commonplace after a short time and one of the common stronger enemies is insanely difficult to kill under most circumstances. Still, all in all, fighting enemies is a great deal of fun. The game is a breeze on “easy,” difficult on “normal” and fiendishly difficult on “hard.” One of the more difficult aspects of the game is that some of the lesser enemies can kill you instantly unless you quickly mash buttons, and this occurs throughout all difficulty levels.

Value- 9/10
This game has a surprising amount of replay value. The first time through is absolutely the worst, as once you have a better idea for how the puzzles work you'll save a lot of time. Repeat plays are a lot more fun. There are also a few rewards if you play on normal or hard, most notably, beating the game on any level unlocks a rather large mini-game, vastly more entertaining than the main game due to the frequency of fights with enemies. You can, in turn, unlock rewards for the main game by completing this game at various different levels. The main game should last around ten hours your first time through.

Overall Score- 6.6/10
The graphics are stunning and the sound impressive, but the gameplay is almost painful. The horror aspect of the game is almost completely lacking except for the sheer terror of realizing that you've left a necessary item all the way back in the last building. Soldier through the game a couple times and you'll have a great deal more fun.

I would advise against renting this due to the immense boredom of the first play-through. Buy if you're a fan of the genre or series or leave it alone.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/15/04