Gaming Target - Dreamcast: Resident Evil Code: Veronica

Written by Eric Terrell on June 23, 2000

Review: A good ol' zombie ass whoopin never hurt anyone!

No doubt as a gamer you know about the Resident Evil series, it's humble beginnings on the Sega Saturn. Then as Saturn died, Capcom moved the series to Playstation and that's where things took off. It spawned many successful sequels including Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, Biohazard Gun Survivor *released in Japan only* So this sequel has a lot of good gaming history to try to match. Does this game have what it takes to dethrone the other Resident Evil games? Well take a look and decide for yourself...

The visuals being run on the newest and most powerful console in the U.S. right now does make a difference folks as the RE series steps out of the pre-rendered backgrounds of the past and renders the whole game real time! This means many more things can be done with the backgrounds. Also it means they can put lights on the backgrounds to make things look for realistic. There was one scene in the game, which is just awesome from a technical standpoint which features a hanging light swinging back and forth casting real time light on the room. The graphics are so good in this game; I had to check to see I wasn't watching FMV. Speaking of FMV the game did have some, but that's not a bad thing here...The FMV is spectacular! In the beginning opening with Claire in the cell I had to double check to make sure it wasn't a real model! With FMV being slowly phased out of games as real time cinema's are preferred with the advent of a powerful enough technology, I can only hope this is how all FMV will look in the future. Capcom put a lot of time in this and it shows as they did a bang up job!

The audio is nicely done. I myself don't have surround sound speakers so I can't hear what others have raved about. On a regular T.V. you can hear all the grunts and groans just fine. The sound is crisp and clear with no muddiness in the sound quality. The sound effects are great though, as everything sounds as it should. When the sound is combined with the atmosphere of the game it really heightens the sense of realism. With one of the points of the game is trying to scare you that extra realism is what puts it over the top.

The gameplay is the only thing I can knock a bit, and everyone knows what im talking about and that's control. It's good old Resident Evil control of old back with just a little twist. With this control you either love it or hate it. Myself I am right in the middle because sometimes I thought it was perfect for the game and at other times I died because I couldn't direct the character where I wanted to go! Casual gamers get turned off when they can't control the character right away, so that is a big no-no.

As far as features go, it just has the main mode and after you beat it survival mode. This isn't bad at all because this type of game can really have no other modes of play. The modes of play provided are fun enough that you won't feel like you've wasted your money.

Surprisingly a game of this type DOES have replay value. By beating the game the first time in normal mode you can unlock the "survival mode". This mode is great as it allows you to shoot zombies into little puddles of zombie goo with unlimited ammo. After conserving your ammo and having to run from these guys the whole game I was pretty happy to unload on them. The whole goal is to clear the stage with the best time to unlock more characters for use in Survival Mode such as Steve, Alternate Claire, Chris Redfeild, Steve Wesker, and alternates of them that use different weapons. My favorite is alternate Claire with the hot pants...mmm, hotpants...