Rough Draft

Resident Evil 0

Ah, Resident Evil. Over Christmas break Dan and I talked about how much the original freaked us out and how we couldn't even play the game for long periods of time. So when Kurt brought Resident Evil 0 for the Gamecube back, I had to try it out. Graphically the game is gorgeous. The lightining is amazing, objects in the environment move (like the skillet vibrating on the stove in the train), and there's so much detail to each of the rooms. The overall feel of the game reminds me a lot of Resident Evil 2, my favorite in the series.

There's really only 2 things I've noticed that make this different from the rest of the Resident Evil games. The first is that instead of storing items in a magic box, you simply leave them on the ground. Fortunately, the map marks where you've left items so you don't have to worry about where you left things. This makes the game a bit more real, and now you don't have to worry about having to use up an herb, just you can pick up a key or other item that you need.

The other new feature is that you have 2 characters to control at any given time. In the other games, you would control a second character for certain parts of the story, but in this one you have control of 2 characters all the time. So far I haven't been too impressed with this though. The interface for exchanging items between the characters is pretty clunky and constantly swapping items between the two gets annoying.

There are options for whether the character you are not currently controlling follows you around or stays where they are as well as if they should shoot when they see enemies or not. I usually end up just leaving one behind while I explore various rooms until I get to a puzzle that requires both characters (or I need an item the other person has). I've already died several times because the person I'm not controlling gets killed by a zombie. Even if they are set to shoot when they see enemies, they don't seem to try to avoid the enemies, so they usually end up getting attacked anyway.

I'm playing on the normal difficulty setting, and it's been pretty challenging so far. I'm pretty much always on the verge of running out of ammo, and both characters spend very little time in the "Fine" condition.

Overall, it's a fun game and I'm going to try and beat it. Although that will probably take me the rest of the semester, since I've only put a couple hours in since the beginning of the semester.