Resident Evil Zero

Overview: Scare factor: 10 Fun factor: 8 Replay value: 6.5 Graphics: 10 Sound: 10 Overall: 8.75

Review:

This game takes place before any of the other Resident Evils, hence the title "Zero". Some things in the game are revealed to help explain the plot to Resident Evil as a whole in more detail. I think Capcom went a bit overboard with the story though and some parts of it, to me, didn't make much sense. But putting that aside, it does explain some things, like a bit about what happened to Bravo team and things like that. It even crosses over into areas from RE2 which is pretty neat.

The graphics though, like I said, are amazing. The game starts out on a train, and when the train starts moving everything else moves like it ought to. Water splashes about, plant leaves shake, curtains move, everything seems so natural. The lighting effects are awesome also. All of the light in the game seems shine perfectly onto the animated backgrounds and the in-game characters. The cinematics are pretty impressive too. Although, they sort of went a in a little bit of a different direction with the style of the cinematics. And sometimes the clothing folds during cinematics can look sort of awkward or not there enough. They could have also made an effort to make the character movement seem more natural during cinematics. The movement during them sort of reminds me of the cinematics in the older games.

It all really comes together with the awesome music. The music is really really impressive also. The music in this game truely makes turning every corner that much scarier. Also, the voice acting in this game was done really well. I really liked it. I think the way that they did the voices in this game showed really good emotion and kinda gave more character to, well, the characters.

I'm not sure if anyone read anything else about this game. But, incase you didn't know, there are no boxes in this game!! NO BOXES whatsoever! You have to drop items on the ground when you have too many of them. Which means that you have to run around and pick up dropped items when you want to use them. If you thought it was irritating to run back to your box to pick up that key item, wait till you have to go on a treasure hunt to get it. The map in this game does show the location of every dropped item, but it doesn't make up for the fact that they're scattered about. It's a good idea to drop your items all in the same room, but then Capcom also made it so that you can only drop a certain amount of items in one room. So, it's not necessarily as easy as it sounds.

Another new feature added to this game is that you can use two characters. You can switch between them and explore different areas of the game and they also have different abilities. For example, Rebecca can mix herbs, but only Billy can move heavy objects. Also, you can use the characters combined to solve different puzzles throughout the game, which makes things interesting. It also helps to have two characters' inventory space. You can carry twice as many items! Also, when traveling with both characters. You can have your inactive character help to defend the character that you're currently using, which is cool.

Overall, this game is a good addition to the RE series and I'd recommend picking it up, that is to say however, that you already haven't. The lack of boxes and sometimes drabness of color in the game can bring down the fun a bit. All of the good things about the game help to make up for it though and the fact that the game will reveal more about RE the series is always a reason to pick it up. I would, however, recommend buying REGC before you buy this one, if you happen to be faced with that decision (I think REGC is more fun to play in general).