Resident Evil Zero

Resident Evil Zero
North American box art depicting the protagonists Rebecca Chambers and Billy Coen
Developer(s)	Capcom Production Studio 3 Tose Co., Ltd.
Publisher(s)	Capcom GameCube JP / NA / EU Capcom AUS Nintendo Australia Wii JP / NA / EU Capcom AUS THQ Asia Pacific
Director(s)	Koji Oda
Producer(s)	Tatsuya Minami
Writer(s)	Noboru Sugimura Hiromichi Nakamoto Junichi Miyashita
Composer(s)	Seiko Kobuchi
Series	Resident Evil
Platform(s)	GameCube, Wii
Release date(s)	November 12, 2002 GameCube NA November 12, 2002 JP November 21, 2002 AUS February 28, 2003 EU March 7, 2003 Wii JP July 10, 2008 NA December 1, 2009 AUS January 21, 2010 EU January 22, 2010
Genre(s)	Survival horror
Mode(s)	Single-player

Resident Evil Zero, known as biohazard 0^[1] (バイオハザード0, Baiohazādo 0) in Japan, is a survival horror video game that was developed and published by Capcom for the Nintendo GameCube in 2002. The game's plot serves as a prequel to the first Resident Evil and covers the ordeals experienced in the Arklay Mountains by Bravo Team, a division of the S.T.A.R.S police force. The story follows officer Rebecca Chambers as she investigates a series of murders, teaming up with convict Billy Coen along the way to survive the viral outbreak involving zombies. Resident Evil Zero differs from other titles in the series with its unique "partner zapping" system. The player may switch between Billy and Rebecca at will throughout the game to solve puzzles and take advantage of their unique abilities.

Gameplay

The main gameplay feature of Resident Evil Zero, dubbed the "partner zapping" system, is unique to the series: instead of choosing one of two player characters at the beginning, there are two protagonists to be controlled throughout the entire game. The player may switch between police officer and medic Rebecca Chambers and convicted ex-soldier Billy Coen. If they travel together, either one of them can be controlled while the other character is handled by the computer. The player may also control both simultaneously or split them up entirely to explore areas separately.^[2] This, along with the protagonists' unique abilities, is central to solving the game's puzzles. Rebecca can combine herbs with her mixing kit but receives more damage from enemy attacks. In contrast, Billy can move heavy objects, use a lighter, and has higher defense. Previous series installments had the player store items in boxes placed in fixed locations. Resident Evil Zero does away with this and instead allows them to drop items on the floor, freeing space in the inventory momentarily until they are retrieved at a later point. The locations of dropped items are displayed on the game map.

Plot

On July 23, 1998, an Umbrella owned train the Ecliptic Express is attacked by a swarm of leeches while a mysterious young man watches it over a hillside. Two hours later, Bravo Team of the Special Tactics And Rescue Service (STARS) police force is sent to investigate a series of cannibalistic murders in the Arklay Mountains outside of Raccoon City. On the way to the scene, its helicopter has an engine failure and crash-lands in a forest. Bravo Team discovers an overturned military police transporter and the mutilated corpses of two officers. After the team splits up to capture the murderer, field medic Rebecca Chambers finds the same train from earlier now infested with zombies and explores it. She teams up with former Marine Billy Coen, the convict who was escorted by the military police after he had been sentenced to death for killing 23 people. The two are confronted by the same strangely clad young man from the opening of the game, who sets the train into motion and attacks them with swarms of leeches under his control. Meanwhile a group of Umbrella soldiers are on the train with them and are taking it to unknown location while they are being contacted by two supervisors, Albert Wesker and William Birkin. The soldiers are then killed by leeches. As the train speeds out of control, Rebecca and Billy apply the brakes and avert its course towards an abandoned building.

The location is revealed to be a disused training facility for future executives of the pharmaceutical company Umbrella. Rebecca and Billy find out that the corporation's co-founder and former director of the facility, Dr. James Marcus, had discovered the so-called Progenitor virus in the 1960s and examined its potential as a biological weapon. He combined it with leech DNA to develop the T-virus that causes rapid mutations in living organisms and thus transforms humans and animals into zombies and monsters. After Billy repeatedly saves Rebecca's life, he sheds some light on his past as a soldier: One year prior, he and his unit had been dispatched to Africa to raid a guerrilla hideout. When they arrived at their destination deep in the jungle, they found that it was an ordinary village. The unit's captain was afraid of returning empty-handed and ordered the execution of the innocent villagers, ignoring Billy's objections. Back in the United States, Billy was unjustly blamed for the incident and sentenced to death. Meanwhile, Wesker and Birkin are arguing with each other that Umbrella is finished. Wesker decides to leave Umbrella and join its rival company. Birkin refuses to join him in order to complete his research on the G virus. Wesker will lead the STARS Alpha Team into the mansion and get the research data of the Tyrant while Birkin will activate the self-destruct system. Rebecca and Billy find an office underneath the facility and find an old photograph of the leech controlling man and they assume that he might be the son or grandson of Marcus. They find a gondola system, Billy is attacked by an infected primate and the two get separated. Rebecca rides the gondola to a water treatment plant, and encounters Captain Enrico who tells her that the rest of the team will meet up at an old mansion and lets her find Billy. She finds Billy, but they also find twenty corpses of Umbrella employees that Marcus used as test subjects for the T virus.

Rebecca and Billy eventually catch up with the leech-controlling man who is actually Marcus and the person responsible for the viral outbreak. Ten years ago, he had been assassinated by Wesker and Birkin under the orders of Umbrella co-founder Ozwell E. Spencer who stole his research to become the company's sole president. During his dying moments, Marcus' queen leech entered his body and revitalized it over the course of a decade, thus giving him a chance to take his revenge on Umbrella. Marcus mutates into a gigantic leech monster while the facility's self-destruct mechanism is activated. Just before the explosion, Rebecca and Billy defeat the creature by exposing it to sunlight. They escape to the forest where they see an old mansion used by Umbrella as a research facility. Rebecca assures Billy that her police report will list him as just another casualty of the incident. Billy thanks her and escapes as Rebecca heads towards the mansion to investigate the whereabouts of her fellow Bravo Team members, beginning the events of Resident Evil.

Development

While the original Resident Evil was still in development, the idea for a prequel came up shortly after the 64DD disk drive peripheral was announced in 1995. The 64DD's low sales four years later eventually made Capcom decide to develop Resident Evil Zero as a cartridge-based Nintendo 64 release. The real-time "partner zapping" system was designed to take advantage of the console's unique features and strengths, namely the lack of load times necessary for optical disc (non-cartridge) based gameplay encountered with the PlayStation.^[3]

After the script had been completed in early 1999, the production of a Resident Evil title for Nintendo 64 was revealed to the public by Yoshiki Okamoto, the president of Capcom's screenplay company Flagship.^[4] Resident Evil Zero was officially announced at 20 percent completion in January 2000, after which it was presented with a playable demo at Tokyo Game Show.^[5]

The game was expected to release in July 2000 and reportedly had an atmosphere close to the first Resident Evil.^[6][7] However, development began to slow down when it became apparent that the data for Resident Evil Zero would not fit on a single cartridge.^[8] Production then shifted to the newly announced GameCube, with the concept and story carried over but all of the data recreated.^[8] The platform change was confirmed in September 2000.^[9] The game's final version was developed by Capcom Production Studio 3 with support from outside company Tose.^[10][11] As a result of the transition to the GameCube, it was delayed so that the environments could be upgraded visually.^[3] Scenario writer Noboru Sugimura was called back to make some changes to the story.^[12] The character designs were also adjusted: Rebecca for example lost her beret and shoulder pads while Billy received a new hairstyle.^[13] The GameCube's use of optical discs reintroduced load times, so the programmers had to use sophisticated programming to make the "partner zapping" system work.^[3] Capcom announced its intention to release a game demo in Japan around August 2002.^[14]

Releases

Resident Evil Zero for the GameCube was released on November 10, 2002 in North America, on November 21, 2002 in Japan, on February 28, 2003 in Australia, and on March 7, 2003 in Europe. In late 2008, a Wii port with little to no changes was released exclusively in Japan, having deviated from its expected July release date.^[15] It was later released in North America under the Resident Evil Archives label on December 1, 2009. A novelization titled Resident Evil: Zero Hour was written by S. D. Perry. It is the seventh and final Resident Evil book to follow Perry's continuity but precedes the others in chronological order.

Reception

Reception

Aggregate scores Aggregator Score GameRankings 84.15% (GC)[16] 61.60% (WII)[17] Metacritic 83 (GC)[18] 62 (WII)[19] Review scores Publication Score 1UP.com B+[20] AllGame (GCN)[21] (WII)[22] Eurogamer 8 out of 10 (GCN)[23] 7 out of 10 (WII)[24] Famitsu 38 out of 40[25] Game Informer 9.25 out of 10[26] GamePro [27] Game Revolution B[28] GameSpot 8.0 out of 10[29] GameSpy (GC)[30] GamesRadar (WII)[31] GameZone 9.3 out of 10[32] IGN 8.2 out of 10[2] Official Nintendo Magazine 78% (WII)[33] X-Play Rotten Tomatoes 8 out of 10

Resident Evil Zero was generally well received by critics and has sold 1.25 million copies worldwide.^[34] However, many reviews were critical of some of the game's elements. 1UP.com felt that the game was predictable and formulaic in its puzzles, monsters and final battle. They also called the plot "lame". Regardless, the background artists' work was praised along with the item-dropping feature, earning the game a "B+" ranking.^[20] GameSpot focused on the "partner zapping" feature and pointed out that its strengths lie in strategy and puzzle solving. They believed that "the mechanic [did not] really feel very innovative or interesting", describing it as mostly puzzle-related but based around keeping one character standing still or sending items up a dumbwaiter to the other. Similarly to 1UP.com, GameSpot criticized the puzzle design further, noting similarities to previous titles.^[29] The Wii version was panned for not fully using the remote controller's capabilities such as pointer controls, instead relying largely on the Classic Controller. IGN gave it a "poor" 4.5/10.^[35]

References

External links

• Official website (Japanese)
• Resident Evil Zero at MobyGames