Resident Evil 0

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a game by Capcom
Genre: Action
Platforms: GameCube, PC
Editor Rating: 8.8/10, based on 4 reviews
User Rating: 8.3/10 - 14 votes
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See also: Horror Games, Resident Evil Games, Coronavirus Games
Resident Evil 0
Resident Evil 0
Resident Evil 0

When it was first released on the Nintendo GameCube, Resident Evil 0 was a huge deal. It was fairly well received and it is actually one of the more forgotten about games in the Resident Evil series. Capcom love to re-release their older Resident Evil games and that is just what they have done with Resident Evil 0, but they have given it an HD coating and improved a few things too.

So, It Starts

One of the things that I love about Resident Evil 0 is how it is a prequel to the very first game in the series. It actually works way better than you would think and the story is one of the things that I do like best about the game. Resident Evil 0 will see you play as Rebecca Chambers who is a rookie on the S.T.A.R.S team and who is sent to investigate a series of strange murders.

Well, something goes wrong and she finds herself on a train that has crashed. This is where we meet our second playable character, Billy. Billy is a prisoner who is actually on death row and his story is also quite interesting.

Ok So Now It Is Your Turn

The “gimmick” of Resident Evil 0 is that you can switch between the two characters. Past Resident Evil games have let you play as different characters, but that was always a pre-determined thing. Resident Evil 0 changes things up by not just letting you play as Rebecca and Billy, but changing to either one of them whenever you want.

This swapping feature is a huge part of the game and you will have to use each character’s strengths to get through the game. This is done very well and the two of them can work together to do puzzles. It is not uncommon to have Rebecca doing one thing somewhere, Billy another and the two coming together for one puzzle. It is actually quite well done and I feel that Resident Evil 0 has some of the better puzzles in the series.

Classic Resident Evil

While Resident Evil 0 does have this new mechanic. The core game is still that of classic Resident Evil. You have to conserve your ammo, look for herbs and always decide if running away is better than trying to stand and fight.

Hey That Is New

To be fair to Capcom they did a lot of good with this HD remaster of Resident Evil 0. To start with the game looks great, I am very impressed with the visuals that the game has and the sound as well has been given a bit of a kick. They really did a wonderful job in making Resident Evil 0 look as good as possible.

Another new feature is the controls. You can play this with the old-style Resident Evil controls if you like. They have though introduced a more “modern” kind of control scheme which my suit new players better. As a long time, player of the Resident Evil series I really cannot say for sure if I like the new control scheme better as I am so used to those old tank controls.

Capcom has also added a really fun Wesker mode! When you beat the game, you can then play through it as a super jacked up and overpowered Albert Wesker and let me tell you this is an absolute riot and a lot of fun!

8.5

I think that Resident Evil 0 is a really great game and Capcom have made it even better with Resident Evil 0 HD. The game looks great, sounds great and those puzzles are very clever and really do make you think. Plus, the story is really exciting and one of the more underrated in the whole series if you ask me.

Pros:

  • The HD remaster looks great
  • The sound has some real punch to it
  • Switching between Billy and Rebecca is fun
  • One of the better stories in the entire series
  • New Wesker mode is great

Cons:

  • Controls may throw some people off
  • Some of the puzzles are quite challenging

Download Resident Evil 0

GameCube

System requirements:

  • PC compatible
  • Operating systems: Windows 10/Windows 8/Windows 7/2000/Vista/WinXP
PC

System requirements:

  • PC compatible
  • Operating systems: Windows 10/Windows 8/Windows 7/2000/Vista/WinXP

Game Reviews

Resident Evil games have dragged us kicking and screaming through houses of horror, a besieged police station, freaked-out labs and a reeking city crawling with the recently deceased. And now that the series is stepping into the wayback machine with Resident Evil 0, a GameCube-exclusive Evil prequel, we're getting our newest survival-horror fix aboard a...whazzat? A choo-choo? "The train is only one of the stages in the game," Tatsuya Minami, producer for Resident Evil 0, says of the boxcar environments that we've always associated with this title.

Turns out that the two main characters--spunky S.T.A.R.S. Bravo teammate Rebecca Chambers and series new guy Billy Coen--wander through several other nightmarish areas as they play out the 1998 events leading up to the original Resident Evil. But what's much niftier is what this duo can do in these environments. For the first time ever in an RE title, you can switch between the principal players at the flick of a button or have them fight side by side if they're in the same room. Minami calls it the "Partner Zapping" system, and it makes for puzzle possibilities you just didn't see in past REs. For instance, we used Billy to hit a switch that opened a door near Rebecca, letting her enter a new area when we zapped back to her location. In another section, we had Billy use a dumbwaiter to send health herbs up to Rebecca on a higher floor.

And that brings us to the other big gameplay twist: Item crates--which in past games were the only places you could dump gear--are now extinct. "You might question what happens when your inventory is full," Minami says. "In that case, you can drop off an item anywhere." Items remain on the floor until you pick them up again. Other RE0 features are mostly tweaks resurrected from past Evil games. The head-stomp move, which brings eternal rest to zombies gnawing at your feet, makes a welcome return. But Minami said it's too early to say if the defensive weapons from the GameCube RE1 will make it into this game. Curious status-screen partner-A.I. settings such as "Back-up" and "Act Alone" have yet to be explained, as well. But one thing's clear from these shots: RE0 packs the same madeover backgrounds that defined the first 'Cube game. In fact, the environments here are even spiffier, with more animated bits and creepier lighting and shadow effects. This is one train you'll want to catch at night.

When you've built your career on flesh-eating zombies and mutant dogs, you'd think nightmares would be an on-the-job hazard. But for Hiroyuki Kobayashi, one of the programmers of the original Resident Evil on the PlayStation 1, undead dreams were the least of his worries. "Sure, I had nightmares," he says, "but they weren't about zombies. They had more to do with all the software bugs we kept running into."

These days, he's too busy for bad dreams; as producer of the series' long-awaited prequel, Resident Evil 0--due in November exclusively for GameCube -- Kobayashi is spending every waking moment forging a new chapter in the series' serpentine saga. And newcomers confounded by the previous games' plot twists piled atop plot twists will be happy to know this Evil starts with a clean slate. It takes you back to the very beginning, an entire day before everything officially hit the fan.

"As the title suggests, RE0 deals only with events set before the first game," says Kobayashi, "and since the game will lead up to the story in RE1, it's naturally going to explain a lot." it'll also be the first RE game to feature a "partner-zapping" system that lets you switch between the two playable characters in real time (see sidebar on the next page). So for you RE enthusiasts who dig the series' creepy atmosphere, realistic firearms, and shambling zombies -- but get turned off by its impenetrable mythos--we couldn't think of a better way to kick off your biohazard love affair and get to the root of its evil.

On the Night Train

By now, if you've followed RE0's coverage, you've seen a lot of screens set aboard a mysterious train. "The game doesn't begin on the train. That's just the main area we've shown so far," Kobayashi says. "There will be backstory before you get to that level. And I can tell you now that the train environment doesn't take up much of the game." But since it's nearly impossible to talk about RE0's plot without mentioning at least the premise of RE1, let's rewind (or should we say, fast forward) a bit and start from the "beginning." The first Resident Evil game introduced us to the STARS (Special Tactics and Rescue Squad) Alpha team, featuring series mainstays Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, whose mission was to solve a series of gruesome murders near Raccoon City. They were also charged with finding out what happened to the STARS Bravo team, who had flown in a day earlier to investigate the murders only to disappear in a helicopter crash in the mountainous outskirts of town. The crash was never resolved in the Resident Evil timeline -- until now. RE0 kicks off with Bravo team's chopper going down. Before their crash, however, the Bravo gang makes two unusual sightings: the burning wreck of what looks like an overturned truck off in the distance, and an ominous but dormant train stopped in the thick of the forest. After their chopper bites the dust, the team splits up to investigate the strange sightings.

The first of two characters you play in RE0 is Rebecca Chambers, a rookie pipsqueak medic out on her first real mission. (You may recall her brief appearances at the Umbrella mansion in RE1). She stumbles upon the seemingly derailed mystery train in the woods and boards it, only to have it lurch into motion and hurl her toward a destination unknown. "The train itself contains a secret about what it's being used for," says Kobayashi. "You don't know that when you first hop on board, but the reason the train even exists will all be revealed as you advance in the game."

Enter Billy Coen: ex-Marine, escaped convict and playable character number two. A survivor of the overturned truck glimpsed by Bravo in the air, Billy pops up early on in the game, even before the train level. By the time they reach the train, both characters will be under your control. "Billy's story is deeply related to the game's plot, but that's all I can say right now," Kobayashi says. "Players have to start with Rebecca. Then soon there's an event that brings the two of them together. Some may think Rebecca is the main character, but Billy is just as much a main character too."

Pretty Ugly

Originally intended for release on the Nintendo 64, RE0 went through several delays before Kobayashi and company decided to finally scrap development. "We got pretty far along in the N64 version," he tells us. "We'd already finished many of the backgrounds in the game, and we started to realize that one ROM cartridge might not be large enough to contain everything we wanted to include." Fortunately, around that same time, Nintendo officially announced the GameCube. "We knew right away we had to move the project onto the more powerful system," he says. It's a good thing they did: RE0 now looks every bit as sexy (or grotesque) as the recent RE remake on the GameCube.

But you'd think that having just played RE on the GC, we'd be used to Capcom's newly mastered art of creating animated 2D backdrops. Not so. As we played RE0, we spent a ridiculous amount of time pausing along the way to admire the fine visual details. Subtle touches of background animation specific to the moving train--the flutter of curtains hanging off an open window, the slight rocking of tipped-over bottles on a kitchen counter, the flicker of candlelight fighting to stay lit, the shaking of the screen when the car hits a bump on the tracks--really make you feel like you're on a locomotive bound for hell. Just outside, the weather has taken a turn for the demonic. Heavy lashes of rain and moaning wind complete RE0's awesome and disconcerting ambience.

But it isn't all just pretty backdrops and creepy atmosphere: For a bunch of essentially 2D environments, the game feels incredibly three-dimensional. Gun down the undead in the train's narrow, claustrophobic aisles and zombies will actually slump back against the seats and slide out of sight--until they clamber back up for round two. Then you see the dynamic shadows cast by players and enemies alike. Walk by a light source and watch your shadow trail, elongate and wrap onto the walls around you. It just feels frighteningly real.

Billy and Becky

Not that you'll have a lot of free time to admire the graphics; you'll be too busy getting your hands dirty with new gameplay features that let you strategize beyond just traditional ammo management. What's this? Strategy in an RE game? It all comes from RE0's new zapping system. For instance, leave Rebecca alone for too long and you'll hear her panicked voice over the radio minutes later, asking you to get off your ass and lend some backup. That's when you make a choice: Do you run all the way back with Billy and his 12-gauge boomstick, or "zap" over to Rebecca and fight the zombies alone with her dinky 9 mm pistol? "While RE0 has a scare factor, it's different from RE on the GameCube," Kobayashi tells us. "Since this game contains two characters, you always have to consider the safety of one or the other. To me, that's where the scare comes in." Kobayashi also said that at some points in the game, you will be completely alone, making RE0 a unique combination of experiences.

Even with the new zapping system, Evil fans will still find RE0 comfortably familiar. All the series' staples--including the dreaded "stand-and-rotate" controls, the different-colored healing herbs and the typewriter save-game ribbons--make a predictable return to the game. "We know a lot of gamers want to see true 3D controls, but we believe RE'S radio-control-style game-play is the best for a game with frequent camera switching and pre-rendered backgrounds," Kobayashi contends. Still, Kobayashi and his team were able to squeeze in one last innovation for RE0: the ability to drop items anywhere. For years, fans have been screaming for the end of those ugly, nonsensical inventory chests that magically hold all your leftover items, regardless of location. Now, they've been put to death. It's a welcome innovation, to be sure, but we've also noted that you can't just drop stuff with wild abandon; you must make sure there's enough space on the floor for all your clutter, which can sometimes be tricky to eye with RE0's busy backdrops.

Kobayashi says he hasn't decided yet whether this installment will be a tougher game tailored for the Evil hardcore or more easy and accessible. From what we've played, squeezing past the undead in the train's cramped boxcars is hardly a cinch. "RE0 will have more enemies and you'll need to shoot most of them," Kobayashi says, "but I'm planning to put in enough ammo so you won't have to run from zombies all the time." Nevertheless, he says the game won't deliver the "Hollywood-style action" of RE2 and will instead feature suspenseful moments and tricky puzzles more in tune with the GC version of RE1. In other words, if that remake gave you nightmares, expect more sleepless nights while playing this prequel.

But with RE0, Dino Crisis 3 and RE4 all creeping from the shadows, Kobayashi is far too busy to have nightmares. He credits that mostly to the dedication of his talented staff. "Now that I'm no longer a programmer but a full-time producer, I don't get those bad dreams anymore. But perhaps," he says with a grin, "these nightmares have been passed on to the members of my team.

I read an article in a gaming magazine a few years back, that included a poll that readers had taken in regards to franchise games. The poll showed that out of several gaming series, Resident Evil had the least chance of succeeding past its 3rd game. Well, that poll pretty much blew it. Nintendo scored a big one by getting the new chapter in the Resident Evil story to be a Gamecube exclusive.

When I got my hands on the latest Resident Evil Zero I was a little skeptical about what Capcom could do to make this installment as enjoyable as some of the others and to be quite frank, I had almost thought that it was time for the whole thing to end. Well then the game had to go all prequel on me start the storyline prior to the mansion AND prior to the movie (yes the movie is faithful to the games' timeline). So let's just start here with this simple sentence: I thought Resident Evil Zero was going to be a major disappointment and I am happy to report that it genuinely surprised me.

Resident Evil Zero is about as beautiful a videogame that you are ever going to see. Yes, it even looks better then the remake that came out earlier this year. Shadows are textured perfectly, flames flicker, monsters move, vehicles shimmy, chandeliers sway, and the paint on the wall looks fresh. Everything is really quite breathtaking. And if it weren't for the blood spattering everywhere, even your mother might enjoy looking at it. Honestly, the game does look fantastic, and it's complemented by the strongest voice work in the game to date. Additionally, the haunting music that cues up throughout the game really gave me chills as it came through my surround sound system. It's a really strong addition to the game.

Here's where some people may not enjoy this game. Resident Evil Zero has a long-standing tradition of using true form controls. Now what I mean by that is, if you are walking down the hallway and you want to turn right, you press the right part of the D-pad. Now, this also means that no matter which direction the character is facing, right always means right. Even if you are running towards the screen, the controls reflect the person's position from their point of view. Now I don't mind this configuration and I have played five Resident Evil Zero games and three Onimusha games with hardly a problem. But some players have really been turned off by this setup, option for a setup more akin to Eternal Darkness, wherein if you press right, the character will run to the right side of the screen. The Resident Evil Zero controller configuration has kept many players from enjoying the most popular horror video game franchise ever. Why isn't there a controller configuration setup that switches these two modes?

Additionally, this edition includes a new way of playing. Since every Resident Evil Zero game contains two main characters and you switch back and forth as the story progresses, Capcom decided to up the ante and make the character switch option completely up to the player. You can play the game as either Rebecca or Billy and do the necessary tasks as you see fit. Of course there are some puzzles that require that you use both players at the same time, which also made for improved gameplay. You can even have the one you are not controlling follow along side you and open fire on any monsters that may attack. I really enjoyed the options that were afforded with the new character setup.

Resident Evil Zero is a strong title that will play well with fans of the series and horror aficionados and gamers who like their adventures a bit more edgy. If you couldn't stand the controller setup from the other games, you probably should take a pass. But for the rest of you, Resident Evil Zero is another winner in what appears to be a franchise still going strong.

Snapshots and Media

GameCube Screenshots

PC Screenshots

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