The Long History of Resident Evil (Part 4)

2000 - 2001

During 2000 a huge burst of Resident Evil games emerged from the cracks, such as Resident Evil: Survivor for the Playstation; it was a poor FPS which was meant to use a light gun, it also struggled to be a good game due to the fact there were no save points and so you had to play this shitty game in one go rather than taking a break to recuperate your senses, along with this Resident Evil 0 was announced for the Nintendo’s 64 bit console the aptly named Nintendo64. It was due out in 2001 and was set before the Mansion incident, and was set after Bravo team’s Helicopter crashed. The game would feature a new “zap” system so you could control two characters at the same time, also the fact that there was not item box was a first.

Also Resident Evil 4 was due for release at any moment (it had been rumoured to be in development since 1998), however the game that was released was Devil May Cry in 2001. If you have played DMC and Resident Evil 4 you can see the similarities in hairstyle and looks between Dante and Leon. Fans would have to wait yet again for an “official” 4^th instalment of the series.

In 2001 fans were treated to an un-cut edition of Code: Veronica on the Playstation 2, which made up for the huge disappointment by adding more scenes with Albert Wesker in and contained (for a limited time) a DVD with “Wesker’s Report” which explined how the hell he managed to stay alive. Unfortunately for the handheld community Resident Evil: Gaiden was released in Europe and later on a very limited release in Japan and North America. It was abonable, which was a shame, because I’d like a good game with Barry Burton in it.

With CODE: Veronica X came Resident Evil: Survivor 2: Code Veronica, released this time for the arcade – It flopped. The third in the series eventually turned to a Dino Crisis based game.

This year was supposed to be the birth of Resident Evil 0, which would bring us back before our original scare, with twice the graphical power. Maybe this would be Resident Evil’s salvation, from being completely ruined by stale game mechanics, voice acting and repetitive gameplay, and horrible attempts to change to game from TPS to FPS?

However by this time Nintendo brought out its slightly more powerful console: the Nintendo Gamecube, so Capcom decided to do an all exclusive deal with Nintendo to bring out the Resident Evil series exclusively for its console.

Many fans were shocked by this, many had got a PS2 with CODE: Veronica X in the hope that Resident Evil 4 would be coming to the PS2 as promised only to get Devil May Cry (as mentioned previously). Despite this Devil May Cry was a great game, and a great success.