Resident Evil 0 takes place before the mansion incident. It’s hard to describe the intro without ruining it, but the Bravo team operatives stumble upon a overturned jeep with dead military police inside, with orders for execution of one Billy Coen. Next, the team finds a train stopped, out in the middle of nowhere. Rebecca goes inside to investigate, and that’s where the game begins. A few minutes later, you will meet up with Billy, and he will team up with Rebecca.
Most people will be disappointed to know that the traditional Resident Evil tank control system has returned, and that the much-beloved Type C control method from the remake has been scrapped. The rest of us who didn’t care about the controls for the previous 5 installments won’t be bothered. Control between the two characters is very intuitive – there is a button to switch between the characters, one to tell them to stay behind or to follow you, and the C-Stick will move the other character around if you need them to be in a certain spot, otherwise the character is controlled by the CPU. Co-operative play between two players would have been nice, but we will have to wait for Resident Evil Online to see how that goes.
Play mechanics of the two character system have been constructed very well. For instance, there are a few puzzles on the train that require both Billy and Rebecca to be doing separate things for the puzzle to be solved. One puzzle requires Billy to run over and stand on a panel and press a button, while Rebecca needs to stay near the grappling hook item on the wall so she can retrieve it when the clamps rise. Another puzzle arises when Rebecca jumps down from the roof of the train into another level that Billy can’t reach, so she could get an object. She needs to send the object to Billy by way of a little kitchen elevator. Billy gets the item, and then gets the object he needs to free Rebecca, and continue the quest.
Each character has their strengths and weaknesses. Billy is strong and a good shot, but he is heavy and cannot mix herbs. Rebecca isn’t very strong, but she is light, and can mix herbs. There is a very good balance between the characters. An advantage of controlling two characters at once is that you have twice the inventory space, though now the item boxes have been scrapped, so you can drop any object anywhere at any time. The disadvantage of controlling two characters is in item management, as you need double the amount of ammo and healing items for when your characters get into trouble.
From what I have played so far, Resident Evil Zero is shaping up to be a strong title. These impressions have been taken from the final version released in the USA on November 12. The European release of RE0 is due on March 7th in Europe, and March 14th in Australia.
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