Resident Evil (GC)
by Susie Vee

Movies are remade all the time, so why not video games? After all, there are many classic games that would impress modern audiences, but unlike classic music, books or film, games tend to age badly. The bright eggs at Capcom have latched onto this idea and come up with a remake of the survival horror game that started it all, Resident Evil.

This is the first Resident Evil game for the current crop of next-gen consoles, and – for the time being at least – it’s a GameCube exclusive. To reintroduce gamers to the world of Raccoon City and the Umbrella Corporation, Capcom has rebuilt the first adventure from the ground up. The basic locations and storyline remain the same, but with new locations, new monsters and new puzzles, the game feels (almost) totally fresh.

Of course, the graphics are the highlight, easily making this title a contender for best-looking console game of all time. The real-time lighting and beautiful characters come at a price, however. The game returns to the 3D characters and 2D backdrops we thought we had seen the last of (like Onimusha). The backgrounds are stunning, filled with animated bits and are nearly photo-realistic, but the bolted-to-the-ground static camera gives away the trick and prevents a certain sense of immersion.

That said, Resident Evil is still one of the few games that can keep us up late into the night. It’s dark and creepy, so turning the lights off heightens the experience (if you can handle it). The game’s slow, deliberate pace doles out the frights carefully, but the general air of dread will keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time.

There are plenty of holdovers from the original series, like the goofy item boxes, and your pitifully small inventory (uh oh -- only one slot left, you can either pick up a shotgun or a small feather). And the ink-ribbon saving system is still with us, and has since been ripped off by all manner of games.

One of the main new elements is the “crimson head” zombies. Take a zombie out, and unless you burn the body, it’ll eventually reanimate again into a fast-moving super-zombie. This adds a new level of strategy, where you may want to leave some zombies alive (um…or not alive, as the case may be), and just run past them.

The other big new element, defensive items, is clever, but doesn’t really add much. If you have one, you can, for example, stick a knife in a zombie’s head as he’s attacking you. There aren’t really a lot of these items around, and on the default auto mode, you’ll probably waste them rather quickly.

Other sorts of ammo, as well as the ubiquitous ink ribbons, are fairly plentiful, so you’ll rarely run out of ammo (which was always one of the main tenets of the genre).

As in every RE game, you get to choose between two characters, one male, one female. Their adventures cover similar, but different ground, and to get the full effect of the game, you'll want to play both. Jill Valentine, the spunky cop, is already a classic female game character, and it's fun to step into her shoes again. Chris Redfield is also back, and is still a bland white bread hunk.

At least the voice acting is better this time around. The original version of Resident Evil was known as having some of the worse voice acting of all time, as well as a painfully stilted, poorly translated script. This time it's passable, but still a little cheesier than it needs to be.

If you can stand the horror, without running and hiding under the covers, Resident Evil is highly recommended for both survival horror vets and newbies. If you can’t possibly bring yourself to replay the same plot, then hang on until later in the year, when the first fully original RE game for the GameCube comes out, a prequel called Resident Evil 0.

SCORE: 9.0