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Resident Evil Outbreak: File 2 PS2 Capcom/Sony  By my count 'Resident Evil' has spawned no less than four sequels (RE2, RE3, 'Code Veronica', and RE 4), a remake, a prequel (RE 0), an arcade shoot-'em-up series ('Gun Survivor'), a comic book series and two films. Not bad at all. Now, in the style of the Star Wars 'Tales From...' short story collections, we have the 'Outbreak' games, which tell the story of miscellaneous Raccoon City residents and their attempts to escape their doomed, zombie-infested town. You have a choice of playing as eight different characters, with two more NPCs to assist you. Each of these has different strengths and weaknesses. There's wisecracking RCPD cop Kevin, equipped from the beginning with a kick-ass .45; burly security guard Mark, whose speciality is melee weapons; doctor George can create medical items, plumber David weapons; while student Yoko, thanks to her backpack, can carry twice as many items as the others. The AI is very realistic - actually too realistic. The NPCs, most of the time, will not stay with you and wander off elsewhere, getting themselves hurt and not saving you from zombies. You can talk with them via a limited range of commands and comments ("Go", "Stay", "Help!", "Thanks") which can lead to amusing conversations, especially when you're trying to get the hang of the controls. "Help me!" I'll implore, as I stroll casually down a zombie-free alley, to which, quite sensibly, my confederate replies, "No." The game is divided into four complete levels (the first level is a little training scenario). This is nice, in a way, because you can give your all in a short space of time and don't have to worry about stocking up on health items and ammo for the more difficult later levels. Each of these has a time limit based on the length of time your body can fight off the T-virus infection. It's quite a long time on "Easy" difficulty level, but even so, I found myself having to play through each level twice: once to work out what the hell I was doing, and once to complete it within my allotted time. The limited amount of items most characters can carry was another annoyance, and the overly complicated system of transferring items between characters was time-consuming and frustrating. The game doesn't pause while you're in the menu screen, either; which is more realistic, but it does mean that you tend to get savaged by zombies while you're trying to persuade shy little Yoko to take a green herb off your hands to clear space in your inventory to pick up the Unicorn medallion in order to unlock the door into the office where the Ruby Plaque is kept so you can... you get the picture. Like all the recent RE games it looks fantastic, although this too comes with a price; the load time between areas is loooooong. The game is on the short side, too. In order to gain access to all the unlockable extras you're expected to play the game repeatedly with different characters and levels of difficulty and it's a good game but doesn't stand up to that much replaying. I wasn't able to explore the on-line multiplayer feature, but it looks interesting. All-in-all, 'Outbreak: File 2' is enjoyable, but no substitute for another full-length 'Resident Evil' game.  |
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