Resident Evil Code: Veronica X

"This game is definitely NOT scary...quite fun though."

I suppose Resident Evil was the very first time I was truly scared by a video game. Walking through those dimly lit corridors at the Spencer Mansion, waiting in unbearable anticipation as each door opened, never knowing when there would be a zombie or something worse in the next room. I had nightmares for weeks about that game, I still do. Resident Evil was the true definition of a classic.
I was then incredibly apprehensive about Resident Evil 2, seeing that it spanned two discs; could I stand the horror for two entire discs, when I could barely get myself through the one disc in RE1? Well, I did, and I enjoyed myself tons. The fact that the virus spread throughout the entire town was overwhelming to me, I just kept thinking ''those poor people''. It was not as scary as the first one, but still the best in the series.
Thinking I could handle everything now, I got Resident Evil 3; by that time I had already played Silent Hill, which to me was even scarier than the original Resident Evil, so RE3 would not be as traumatic. Nothing could prepare me for the unbearable paranoia that would come from the fear of the possibility of Nemesis appearing pretty much ANYWHERE, and knowing it would be a tough fight in which I would spend tons of my precious ammo and running away would be no good because he would follow me to the end of the world; still, it was a little less scary than the previous too, and more action-driven.
Now that Nintendo is clinging to Resident Evil's exclusiveness to the Gamecube like a man focusing all his strength on his hand while hanging from a ledge over a bottomless pit; I thought I was done with Resident Evil, and from most of the reviews, Code Veronica would not offer me anything more thrilling than the previous three games, so I kept putting off the date of me buying it, focusing on games like Metal Gear Solid 2, Final Fantasy X and Silent Hill 2 and 3. Well, I finally got Code Veronica and I have to say, it's not as good as the previous three, but it's not as bad as I expected it to be.

Graphics (8)
Let's be fair, by the time this game was originally released the graphics were pretty good, and the cutscenes, though not nearly Squaresoft quality were very well done. If it were by today's standards I'd give the game a 6, but I want to be fair. The circle for a shadow is unforgivable though, for any system beyond SNES; especially in a game this cinematic, it's distracting and quite laughable. The characters and monsters look quite good, though, and their movements are well done; except for the zombies' walk, it looked better in RE2 and RE3, here it's like they can't bend their knees quite enough and they walk like a 60's movie robot, it's clunky and instead of disturbing it's just plain awkward. Also, the way your character turns around is simply lazy, it's a small detail I know, but it's still crap, the character model simply turns on the spot, it doesn't even move its feet, it looks like Claire and Chris are standing on a turntable; not to be a fanboy, but if you want to see a character turn around with style, look at Silent Hill. Also, variety seemed to be an issue, what I mean is, even though there are a lot of different zombies depending on the location or environment, I wonder: wasn't there at least ONE woman in all of the island or the Antarctic facility besides Claire? I mean, women also have the right to be the walking undead and eat raw human meat; it's pretty much the same criticism that I had with RE2, there were a couple of female zombies, but it was like 1 female for every 50 males, and what happened to the children? Wasn't that supposed to be a CITY? Hmm, no women, no children, Racoon City must've been a resort for same-sex male couples or something. They fixed this problem in RE3 a bit, with the female zombies looking even creepier than the male ones, but then blew it again in Code Veronica. But again, for their time, the graphics are excellent.

Sound (6)
Well, how should I put it? Do you know that habit that Capcom has of ''recycling'' graphics (Street Fighter, Megaman) meaning all or a lot of the games in a series use exactly the same character sprites or models? Well, here it seemed to have happened with the sound. All the sounds are recycled from previous Resident Evil games, one would think moving to a next generation console would mean they'd want to improve in every department, but this one remained the same. The music, though original almost sounds like remixes from RE1 music. One great thing I can say about the music, though, is that Alfred and Alexia's theme and the ending music are both excellent; though not enough to make up for the rehashed sound. Even the God-Awful voice acting carried through to the Dreamcast and THEN to the PS2. The first time (and all the other times) you hear Steve Burnside speak, you want to reach into the TV and kill him, and when you finally get to control him, you'd just like to get him into a room full of zombies and go ''Here my pretties, eat!'' Claire is just...well, not terrible, but...let's just say she's not believable as a human being, and it's in the genes because Chris sounds the same, except male. Alfred Ashford...oh...my...God...he takes the award for worst actor in a video game EVER! He sounds like ''Him'' the effeminate devil villain from the Powerpuff Girls. Apparently Capcom decided that Albert Wesker in RE1 didn't sound evil enough and they gave him a deeper voice that acts even worse (if that is humanly possible). Alexia Ashford, she's good in comparison to the rest of the cast, she cheeses it at times, but she gets the job done. And the only good actor in the game is the one who talks the least, and that's Rodrigo Juan Raval, he actually does a good job; but in the end he suffers the fate of all non-caucasian people in Resident Evil (Hint, Hint, Resident Evil 2, Hint, Hint).

Gameplay (8)
It's not scary anymore, no mystery, everything you expected to see is there and...pretty much nothing else besides that. But the game IS fun, just like the previous ones. The way the game advances is quite clever, and you see these guys really planned how each stage was going to develop; lot of backtracking, but I never found that boring. The game is HARD, and by HARD I mean if you're already on the second half of the game and you were not careful with ammo handling on the first part and you find yourself out of ammo there's nothing to do, you have to start over. The good thing is that there are more weapons this time around that you can find the best way to use to NOT have the ammo problem happen. And for the first time in a Resident Evil game, THE KNIFE IS GOOD FOR SOMETHING!!! Probably they knew the game had too many monsters and very little ammo and decided to give the knife it's first starring role, I mean by using it you'll save tons of ammo, you can shoot a Hunter once with the shotgun and then knife it to death while it's on the floor. The enemies are tougher than they ever were and they come in by the herds. The puzzles are tougher and though they remain pretty much the same type as always, they seem to fit better here than in RE2 or 3 (A battery hiden behind the Mayor's statue, allow me to laugh myself to vomit). The controls are the same as always, though Claire runs as though she has a cane stuck in her--as for Chris, well he's also pretty stiff. Both characters have access to every weapon in the game and both will find a sidepack to allow for more items. The item boxes that make absolutely no sense are still there, but in smaller amounts and ink ribbons abound, so saving enough shouldn't be a problem in case you run out of ammo and need to go back. There's the quick turn around move, thankfully, that way you don't have to turn your character around taking forever to do it, like you would an eighteen wheeler truck. In the end, it's a Resident Evil game, the gameplay is pretty much the same, and that's not a bad thing.

Story (6)
I'm sorry, but if you play Resident Evil expecting an amazingly elaborate story, you're looking for virgins dancing in a strip club. The way the story advances IS pretty good though, but the story is pretty much the same as always, and the initial villain is too cartoonish and a blatant rip-off of Psycho. His voice is annoying; there's nothing the least bit menacing about him and it just takes the story to levels of ''far-fetched-ism'' (sorry, forgot the word) that just ruin it. There is close to no elaboration whatsoever on how on earth did the virus spread, there's just a hole in the wall of a lab that upon examining it will make Chris comment: ''The virus might have escaped from here,'' THAT'S IT, THAT'S ALL THERE IS. It seems like they were getting tired of making up a new way in which the zombies came to be, they just decided to put them there just because they're the trademark of the game. I hate the characters in this game, I do, everything they say and everything they do is just some burned out clichee out of an action movie; plus Steve looks like Leonardo DiCaprio and that just makes me want to fee him to a mob of zombies EVEN MORE. They even completely deface your entire concept of Umbrella as a company bent on producing bio-organic weapons (which just so happens to have way too many accidents); now, the heads of the Umbrella Organization are an insane woman who is hell-bent on becoming the queen of the entire world which she wishes to destroy to make it a perfect ecosystem (*cough*Poison Ivy Rip-Off*cough*) and her equally unbalanced brother. A good attempt at giving the story a little variety, but not good enough. Anyway, the story is not really BAD, it's enjoyable and entertaining, and the action sequences are very well accomplished, it's just that it's too shallow and predictable and the characters are your regular action movie heroes who you picture were all boy and girl scouts as kids, and the villains were the type who liked to torture bugs for fun (you'll see). Plus they need to try and make a little more sense of the things your character can or CAN'T do, because you'll be sure to find some things that don't add up.

Overall (7)
This is a good game. All flaws aside I had a lot of fun with it. As an ACTION game it's very good, I mean, the survival part is there, but the horror part is gone; this is the type of game you play just for the fun of it. I wish it had had a little more story, and a little less shallow characters. They should've implemented those really bone-chilling memos that you used to find in the previous ones in which a person unknowingly described how the T-Virus slowly ate away at him, or how he can hear his friends screaming as they're eaten alive, or how they choose suicide over becoming a mindless zombie; but there's none of that, all the memos in the game have the scare factor of your sister's dollie collection. But the game IS fun, and it IS very well planned and structured, I can't stress that enough. Every area you find has some sort of purpose, even when you find an area that seems to have none, later in the game they'll find some clever way of getting you back there for a reason. Resident Evil: Code Veronica deserves to be played even if only once, it is a good game. Let's just hope when Capcom decides to jump off the sinking ship that the Gamecube is (which they seem to be doing now with Dead Aim) and they come back to more popular consoles they find the way to give Resident Evil another breath of un-life.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/15/03, Updated 10/19/03