Publisher: Capcom

Genre: Survival Horror

Year Released: Spring 2002

Number of Players: 1

ESRB: M (Scenes of Violence and Gore)

Save: Memory Card Uses 8 Blocks

MISC: N/A

Resident Evil, the game that started it all in the Survival Horror genre, makes it's first appearance on The Gamecube, and boy an appearance it is. The Story starts off with a group of a Special forces division of the Raccoon Police Department known as S.T.A.R.S. going to a forest to investigate an accident when they are attacked by these strange creatures. The creatures then give chase to the members of S.T.A.R.S. leading them to a mysterious mansion were they are constantly stalked by zombies and other creatures as the fight to survive and find a way out of the mansion.

Visuals: (95%) Simply put, this is the best looking Gamecube game to date, never has the been such great use of prerendered backgrounds. The character models are so well done especially if you played the earlier entries in the series on the PS One. You will be in complete and utter awe watching this game in motion.

Sound: (87%) The sound of the game is just as good as it has always been mostly silent, with tense moments for tense situations, and the always cool and soothing save room music when you've been searching for so long for one that you are near death, that's when it so good to hear that music. Sound effects also are top notch you can hear the difference in what's in the various rooms by the sounds they even made the regular zombies and the crimson head zombies sound different (more on that later).

Gameplay: (90%) I will start off by saying that the control scheme has not changed on this game, so if you didn't like it before, you will not like it now. I personally like the controls, the R button raises you weapon and the A button fires, holding down B allows you to run and Y brings up the menu.

Now the good stuff, this game has a lot of changes, first would be the difficulty, the game is much harder and a bit longer than the original for the PS One. There are now two types of Zombies, you have you original zombies which after you kill them you must burn their bodies using gasoline which is located in various locations in the game. If you do not burn them, they eventually will become crimson head zombies, that run much faster and take much more ammo to kill. There is also a new enemy known as Lisa Trevor who has a very interesting back story and is a real pain every time you run into to her. Also new to the game are defense items, when you are grabbed by a zombie, Chris will pull a grenade and stick it in the zombies mouth, and Jill will stab with a dagger to get a zombie off of her. These items are limited so you must use them wisely.

Replayablity: (88%) Although the game is already tough you do have the option to play through the entire game with an alternate character. Both Chris and Jill are available from the outset, but Jill has more items slots making it a bit easier for newcomers of the series.

Personal Score (93%)

Bottom Line: This game is great if you are a fan of the series, or never played a game in the series, this is a great place to start. Every Gamecube owner owes to themselves to at least give this game a fair shot.

Final Score (90%) A