Review Courtesy of Reno

The simply amazing introduction looks almost as splendiferous as the Final Fantasy movie. It's that impressive -- but with one important difference: the intro actually has a plot. A squad of soldiers known as the S.T.A.R.S. (Special Tactics and Rescue Squad) Alpha team are flying over the dense coniferous landscape of the Raccoon Forest, looking for the downed helicopter of their chums from the Bravo team, who in turn were sent off into the wilderness to hunt down a strange pack of dog-like entities that have chomped on the remains of ten families hiking in the area. After landing, the "Star Trek security guard" of the vignette -- Joseph Frost -- checks out the Bravo chopper, and almost becomes a cropper himself, gagging on his own bile after locating the larger chunks of the dead pilot, Kevin. This is shown from Frost's own shoulder camera, and instantly captures the feeling of stumbling into the remains of your teammate, complete with a verbal breakdown. Of course, in the classic horror tradition (and this happens throughout the game), the team decides to split up so they can be viciously slaughtered individually. This begins moments later, when Frost starts the old "rustling of bushes" routine. He looks around in mild panic, calms down just in time to be leapt on by four rotting canines, and his unceremoniously chewed to death. You see it from Frost's camera, which is thrown to the ground, splattered with blood, and films the hounds ripping Frost's legs apart. Classic stuff! In fact, it is a testament to the renderers over at Capcom Japan that the entire introduction looks much more tense and real than the original game introduction -- and that one featured real people and greasy dog heads on poles! The four remaining members of the team -- playable characters Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield, and the ice-cool Captain Wesker, and the heavyset weapon specialist Barry Burton -- leave Frost to gurgle quietly, and make a run for it. Their less than trustworthy pilot leaves immediately and strands them, and after another zombie dog close call, the remnants of Alpha team dives through the ornate doors of a massive gothic mansion. So begins your journey into this Umbrella Laboratory experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong. But only after you reset your GameCube and watch the introduction again. Yes, it's that damn good!

As before, you assume the command of one of two S.T.A.R.S. members: Jill Valentine or Chris Redfield. Firstly, though, you'll have to fill in a bizarre request form, asking if you prefer mountain climbing or hiking. Yes, really. Choose the hike, and you'll play the game through on easy mode, with less zombies, and more ammunition. Attempt a mountain climb, and the difficulty is upped to normal, where the undead appear more frequently, and ordinance is in short supply. Veterans should pack their crampons -- you'll be rewarded with more secrets if you opt to climb. Then comes the agonizing decision of which character to play as. Once you've made your decision, there's no turning back -- you complete the game without changing characters, and although the mission is almost identical with either S.T.A.R.S. member, Miss Valentine definitely has an easier time of it. Jill can carry eight inventory items (Chris forgot his combat pouches and can only juggle six), she can find and use a grenade launcher, can grab both types of shotguns earlier in the game, interacts with Barry Burton throughout the mission, and is a dab hand at unlocking some of the mansion doors. However, Chris does come equipped with a lighter, chats to young Bravo team medic Rebecca Chambers, and utilizes the flamethrower (for about three minutes). The decision of who to pick shouldn't be taken lightly, but you will have much less backtracking (and more fun) with Miss Valentine.

Now comes the most amusing part of this whole horrific experience -- attempting to play through the game as your GameCube chucks around masses of the finest animated enemies, shockingly photorealistic chambers, and phenomenally real looking characters, without sitting on your chair, gibbering at how superb everything appears, and being ravaged to death just to see how great it looks. The zombies in Resident Evil look more disgusting, pus-filled, and ragged than the zombies in Resident Evil: The Movie. From their shambling gait, their ragged pantaloons that crease when they move, their rotting eyeballs that actually roll around inside their heads, to their ravaging neck clamp and chow down; nothing will prepare you for how damn special the graphics are in this game. This is the first time that I've studied a video game from start to finish, and haven't seen a seam, an out-of-place texture, or a pixilated fire effect. There was only one occasion where I saw some teensy anti-aliasing problems in one room (a second floor elevator store room), but other than that, this blows every other video game into microscopic pieces in the "graphical prowess" department. Cut scenes are done in real-time. Characters actually have polygon eyelids that blink. Jill Valentine's chest heaves up and down as she breathes. Wesker's scary gaze can just be spotted through his almost opaque sunglasses. Heck, the characters even sport custom S.T.A.R.S. watches on their wrists, which Japanese gamers can even purchase! And . . . hot damn, I wasn't going to mention this, but one of Chris Redfield's alternative costumes (his "street" gear) comes with some shades that reflect and mirror gunfire explosions from the weapon he's equipped with! Add to this some truly unpleasant "melon squishing" sound effects (when a recently rotten adversary's head is separated from his body), and the ability to target (and blow off) a zombie's leg (which results in a scene too unpleasant but viciously enthralling to put into words), and you'll realize Mr. Mikami's team spent considerable time crafting every nuance of the game into a fantastic treasure hunt of gore and exploration.

And speaking of gore and exploration . . . there's more than enough blood spurts to keep even the sickest of human beings content. Zombies are now a little tougher than they were when the boxy polygon undead ruled Raccoon City. Floor a rotting corpse, and it stays on the moldy carpet. Plug it with pistol fire, and a pool of blood forms under it. Come back into the room later, and the prone zombie is still there, and may have shifted position. Wander too close, and it's pant-changing time, as the zombie flicks upright, now sporting red skin, a green haze around its head, and far-too-sharp claws. These deadly freaks move as fast as you run, lash out with hugely damaging talons, and generally provide a higher degree of anxiety than sharing a prison cell with Richard Simmons. To stop these "Crimson Heads" from appearing, there are two delightfully violent takedown tactics: beheading (usually a shotgun aimed at the head from point-blank range), or setting fire to the putrefying deviant. Blast your foe to the ground, fill a fuel canteen full of kerosene from canisters, lie next to item boxes in the save rooms and light them with your lighter. Whoops! The zombie burns to a crisp, leaving ash-filled remains, and you wondering how much more gross this game can get. The answer is, a lot more. Aside from the weapons that were present in the original game, including that hand cannon known as the Magnum that tears apart even the most unpleasant laboratory experiment, there are also defensive weapons. This game play innovation allows you to retaliate during a zombie neck feast (or a hunter pounce) by slamming a knife into the temple of the enemy, which is as unpleasantly awesome as it sounds. Then, as the entity staggers around moaning about its impromptu lobotomy, you can finish it off, or escape. In addition, Jill carries a taser to electrocute any undead that get too frisky, while Chris collects flash grenades that he stuffs into the mouths of his foes. Ten seconds later . . . an even more gruesome explosion occurs as flapping skin and sinew burst apart. This effect alone is one of the best reasons to play the game through again with Redfield.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that all of the meticulous sculpting went into the characters and zombies; there's a cavalcade of fearsome entities to thwart during the game (these are bio-organic weapons), including ominous ravens, huge reptilian gorillas, hideous mishmashes of skeletons, flies, spiders, and fearsome hounds. All of these beasts animate flawlessly, and get your blood pumping (both internally and externally) for the game's more gruesome greater entities. These freaks of nature don't take prisoners. Well, actually, they take the parts of prisoners they've ripped apart and eaten. There's an elder "Crimson Head" with bigger talons and a sunburn, a giant spider that explodes with a disgusting hiss as its thorax detaches, a massive and truly spectacular snake named Yawn, a mammoth shark, and the sickest of all survival horror creations (and yes, we're counting the inhabitants of Silent Hill here), a grotesque "thing" called Lisa Trevor. She's the daughter of the mansion architect, and she's been experimented on, locked away, prodded, mutated, and generally mucked about with until her mind snapped. A special virus injected into her means she's indestructible, and the most frightening parts of the game involve you attempting to flee her lumbering steps, fused wrist wallops, and inhuman groaning. She even wears her own mother's skin on her back, and the faces of Umbrella scientists she's taken a fancy to. Great stuff!

You've got yourself a fright-filled romp through a mansion, eerie woodland path, residence, water tank, and finally a laboratory. The graphics are indescribably good. But what about the game play? Is it really 70 percent different, as Capcom claimed? Certainly not -- around 30 percent of the game is all new. All the rooms are in the same place (except the closet where extra costumes are found), but most of the puzzles are different, except the Moonlight Sonata piano recital. There's more than enough variation in the two quests to play the game again with the second character, including memorable encounters with the remains of former teammates. Also, the shockingly inept former dialogues between characters (which involved such classic lines as "Jill Sandwich!" and "Master of Unlocking!") has been completely redone -- this time using actual actors. Expressive discourse, inflections, and humor have all been utilized extremely well. This is close to the best video game chatter I've heard. But, with any remake of a six-year-old software title, there are problems. Love it or hate it, the laborious Resident Evil movement scheme remains unchanged. Turn the character on the spot and the imprecise maneuvering this creates means tight corridors and zombie dodging is impossible. You can twirl around 180 degrees (which is a godsend when facing fast opponents), but the main problem comes when you try to push an object or pick up an item. You must be facing it (and next to it) to pick it up, and this can cause problems when you're being pursued, or you're lost and haven't a clue where to go, and you missed lighting a candle because you weren't positioned correctly. And when you try to stop pushing an object, and run around it, you'll almost always begin to bend down and start pushing again. This was the only time when the dirty expletives that rang from my mouth weren't uttered after a fantastic enemy death sequence. The game is also dark, making this difficult to play during daylight hours, and the GameCube's first hardware problems also surfaces -- it cannot load cut scenes into memory in quick succession, meaning there's a weird pause just before the camera changes. Of course, the infamous five-second, door-opening, "suspense-making" transition between rooms is also there. Originally used to mask loading times, this is now there for effect, and can become tiresome, especially if you enter the wrong room by accident. Finally, even with this door opening malarkey, the game is pretty short -- something's gone terribly wrong with your game playing prowess if you complete this in more than ten hours. Professional S.T.A.R.S. members can actually waltz through the game in less than two hours. Yowsers! Aside from the two hidden modes, weapons, and deranged TNT-filled zombie, Resident Evil doesn't wow you with masses of secrets, but it is still an exceptional remake, with enough of a graphical overhaul, numerous game play tweaks, and outright changes to make one more romp an essential video game experience for this year. Items are placed logically and fairly, and providing you have rudimentary aiming ability, you'll find it tough, but never impossible, to battle through the many puzzles, undead ambushes, and run-ins with critters. Buy this, Eternal Darkness, the GameCube itself, and you'll be in survival horror heaven!

SCORE 9.1 OUT OF 10

The flaming idiot
Reno