Resident Evil: Code: Veronica X

The Good
Resident Evil: Code Veronica X is a pretty deep adventure game. The best part being is that there is no shortage of stuff to do or places to explore. The game heavily encourages you to step outside your normal zone of thinking in order to figure out how to get from one part to the next. Often times the solution to a puzzle involves more then pulling switches or box pushing (although both exist in the game) and the game can really challenge your brain.

Veronica X tells a pretty unique story and you don't really have to play the previous Resident Evils to get a kick out of it. The characters are a very unique bag and they all are very interesting to look at (Claire Redfield looks especially beautiful). The game does a pretty good job telling a story with the few characters it uses and really gives you that "you're all alone and nobody can help you" kind of feel, which is probably what this game was going for (since it is survival horror).

Finally, while the graphics are falling behind the times, they are still really... uh... graphic. Blood covers nearly every wall while bits of zombie are scatter everywhere, but it is done subtly enough for you to not expect anything will go wrong. The zombies and bosses are still gross and scary enough to make you feel uncomfortable playing this game after midnight in dark house. And the sound (though brief) is very haunting, and again, will really be harmful to sleeping patterns if played after midnight.

The Bad
Resident Evil: Code Veronica X features a lot, and I mean A LOT of backtracking (meaning going to previous locations in the game to further the game along). Several times I would not know if I was making progress or if I was just doing stuff for the heck of it. Many times I would have to go several places just find the one item I needed to unlock a door. For every one thing you need to do there are 50 other things you have to do first and without any objective list or any type of lead to go on the game just becomes a mindless wanderer. Often times I felt like I was in a giant box, having to go constantly back and forth between locations and feeling like I was going nowhere (those who are frustration prone will be quick to get a walk through, and by then the game starts to become boring- even Capcom put a 900 number hot line right on the disk itself).

The zombies themselves can start to become very annoying (although still pretty scary at the same time). Since Claire can only aim at the floor, middle, or at the sky, hitting a zombie in the head is next impossible (which is supposed to be the best way to kill them). Since head shots are extremely hard to pull off, Claire has to waste nearly all bullets in her inventory to finish off one zombie and since zombies always attack in groups, this can lead to really bad spots.

Often times the game uses past mistakes to screw players over. Not knowing weather or not to keep guns or conserve ammo will lead to some really frustrating moments and since the only other weapon that doesn't use ammo (the knife) doesn't kill zombies you will become more angry then scared. Health is also a rare item although it isn't as important since most basic enemies don't do a ton of damage but when you desperately need it is when it's least available. And since Claire can only hold a limited number of items (ever heard of a backpack Ms. Redfield?) it makes it even harder to determine what items are important or not. And while the controls are tank-like and a little slow they will start to wear on you pretty quickly.

The Bottom Line
Though graphically appealing, interesting to watch, and a few times scary, Code Veronica X is strictly for the most hardcore gamers who can think 5 counties outside the box and are able to put up with loads of backtracking.

While walkthroughs are available, they just make the game boring and dull and take the control right out of your hands.

The Good
Although Code Veronica has been available on the Dreamcast for over a year now, most gamers will be treating it as a new title because few have played the original. Conversion wise the game looks almost identical to its Dreamcast counterpart which, seeing as it looked so damn good then, means that it's still pretty good now. The gameplay is pure Resident Evil through and through which means you'll either love it or hate it by now. Code Veronicas biggest strength over the others is that everything is entirely in 3D which means cameras are no longer fixed. They can track you around corners and down corridors for added tension. The game is the biggest RE yet and takes over 10 hours to finish. Audio is fantastic. You'll want a beefy stereo rig for this one so you can appreciate the awesome music and eerie effects.

The Bad
The controls are still a bit iffy but if you're used to them by now then there's no reason to be put off. The biggest disappointment will come for Dreamcast veterans hoping for some new material in this game. The new material consists of 3 new cutscenes involving Wesker which add to his own development and to some loose ends left in the original version of CV. While they are good, they don't serve as enough to warrant a purchase if you already have the DC game and in some ways, the game flows a little more awkwardly with them than without. The game itself contains no new sections and is the same one us converts played over a year ago. The other changes are so minor they are not worth mentioning but I'd like to know why they bothered to make Steves haircut look different? He looks even sillier now.

The Bottom Line
Code Veronica X is a fantastic game and one no survival horror fan should be without. Except perhaps for players who already have Code Veronica on Dreamcast, the new material is simply not enough to warrant a purchase of this aswell.

The Good
First of all, here's anothe cliché that fits like glued to this game, "I haven't played such an awesome game for some time!". This definitely levels up Resident Evil™ series in both quality, extention and revelation of a story, voice acting (no, I'm not kidding, I find it great, even the giggling parts) soundtrack and duh, the graphic. I lack the knowledge of the original (but not for long) and haven't played RE3, but after finishing Resident Evil 2, I can clearly say that this is the continuation to the very sole ending of RE2. I must say that ever since I've known about the name of Resident Evil, I was the last person to walk this plaent who'd ever like any of the games from the series. But as a fan of horror-survival genre, it was only logical step that I get myself one of those games no matter what. Hence, RE2 changed my perspective on the series completely. And after finishing CODE: Veronica X, whow, I find RE series most definitely as one among the best out there.

So, what's to like, let's see... first, you play with Claire (as in WOMAN - who doesn't like that ;) Redfield who is searching for her brother. Unfortunately, she found a place in a prison cell on an isolated island under the control of none other but the Umbrella Corporation. Unaware of what is happening as she listens to various explosions on the surface above her, she sees a silhouette of a man approaching the cell. And as it is a trademark of RE characters, they all have lighter in their pocket. So that's the way the game opens. It is needless to say that after you've finished it once, you get more selection opened, including playing Battle Mode from both 3rd or 1st-person perspective mode. The story is so immersing (okay, at the start it's trying to be much more scary and less interesting, but soon afterwards you get tons of mysteries for which you cannot wait to see how they will end) that there's a very slim chance you'll postpone finishing this game entirely for some other time, and will probably play it like whole week with only 2-3 hours for sleep (you can use your gamepad as a fork while eating, though) until you won't start to resemble those who you fear in the game.

Strangely enough, music is very noticeable in this game, especially nice piano melodies or in action sequences. Much emphasis on the music have I only seen in Parasite Eve of the same genre, and the ending boss battle kinda resemble to Parasite Eve. Still, these are two very fine games to say the least. Control are... well, let's just say not as close as being dynamic as in Devil May Cry, which may not be as good as you'd probably like to jump whenever and bounce form the wall in another direction, but still, they are kept on the 'slow' level of a standard controls for horror-survival game. Graphic quality is something simply superb, from the great cinematics, to ingame cinematics which are just as great. I love MGS2, but I find graphics in Veronica to be of as much a high level quality. Well, just a little bit under. And to save the best for the last, just when you think you had your final boss battle and the game's credits will come, gues what? You're not even on one third of the game, literally. I guess I just expected something like 3-5 hours gameplay like in RE2, but no, there is at least 15 hours of gameplay and varietly of rooms, places, and characters is really astonishing. It is an A+ for sure.

The Bad
You must save on your ammo for the boss fights to come. That is not something which everybody may like, especially since that can mean you can stuck if you face some boss with pretty low stock of ammo. That can only mean one thing - reload who knows how far back. It was a neat option in RE2 as you could play Japanese version of a game in which you had unlimited ammo and already started the game with some powerful weapons. Yeahoow!

The Bottom Line
Stay away from the Resident Evil movie and get this game - and that is the final! It will give you more then you could expect from such a simple game... which turns out to be quite big and challenging.