- For old-school gamers that are
fans of the entire Resident Evil franchise, a nice-looking
upgrade that will provide nostalgic (and sometimes frightening)
gameplay – good and bad
- The most ridiculously difficult,
frustrating, aggravating controls I’ve ever experienced in any
videogame
- If gamers don’t use their ammunition/health supplies
conservatively, they may be caught in impassable,
no-way-to-advance stages of the game, forced to go back to
previous save points
- Great Resident Evil storyline, although a lot of the
voice-acting (here’s looking at you, Steve) is laughably bad
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Resident Evil: Code Veronica X HD
Score:6.0 / 10
Resident Evil certainly wasn’t the first
survival-horror gaming franchise, but it should be credited (or cursed,
depending on your perspective) for making the genre specifically the
zombie apocalypse survival-horror genre so popular, ranging from those
early Resident Evil titles and Alone in the Dark to Left 4 Dead, Dead
Rising
and Dead Island (and even Call of Duty’s
Zombies mode).
With the zombie game popularity still high, Capcom decided it was time
to reintroduce one of the classic Resident Evil adventures, Resident
Evil Code Veronica X, released on the PlayStation 2 back in 2001, as a
downloadable Xbox Live Arcade title: Resident
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Evil Code Veronica X HD (they added the HD
for the new high-definition graphical facelift). While old-school fans
of the original will most likely enjoy the chance at replaying a classic
on a modern console, especially with a nice graphical upgrade, those
unfamiliar with the control mechanisms of the 2001 version (as was I)
will be completely frustrated with the ridiculously difficult controls
that make fighting off attacking zombies and especially many of the Boss
fights an extremely aggravating gameplay experience.
Reissuing the fourth in the chronicle of Resident Evil gaming releases,
Resident Evil Code Veronica X HD is set in December 1998. It’s been
three months since Raccoon City has been decimated by the zombie
destruction, and Claire Redfield has somehow escaped the city alive. She
resumes searching for her brother, Chris Redfield, but is captured by
the Umbrella Corporation and sent to an island prison, Rockfort Island.
She gets freed from the prison, but once again has to deal with a zombie
outbreak along with experimental BOWs (Bio-Organic Weapons).
With the help of the annoyingly irritating Steve (who’s seemingly always
causing more harm than good as they both look for a method of island
escape), who somehow is charming enough to Claire to initiate a few
steamy romantic moments. There is a wacko island ruler that has a most
unusual identity crisis, and a few other malevolent forces hell-bent on
revenge on the Redfields.
Overall, the entire storyline is
exceptional, giving gamers an outstanding survivor-horror tale – one of
the best of the Resident Evil franchise filled with plenty of scares,
plot twists and engrossing Boss battles, although there are a few
unintentional chuckles along the way because some of the voice-acting
(here’s looking at you, Steve) is laughably bad.
Accentuating the solid storyline are the challenging puzzles. Gamers are
going to need to pay attention closely to clues along the way, and be
able to combine items collected during the adventure, to solve the
game’s many perplexing problems. None are too easy or too difficult,
balancing complexity and deductive reasoning to ascertain the answer
that solves the puzzle. There’s added incentive to complete puzzles and
objectives with Xbox 360 achievements, too.
Unfortunately, there are a few disruptive flaws to Resident Evil Code
Veronica X HD that survived the zombie hostilities, too. The most
egregious is the most absolutely ridiculously difficult, frustrating,
aggravating controls I’ve ever experienced in any videogame.
Controlling the characters is either done with the left control stick of
the directional pad, with the directional pad being the less terrible of
the two. Moving around is difficult enough. Put the pressure of a
attacking zombie or two or five or a large and deadly Boss that puts the
horror in survivor-horror, and fleeing or fighting becomes such a
frustrating “cheap death” enterprise that it will cause literally each
and every gamer who plays this game at least a few exasperating,
scream-out-loud-in-anger gameplay experiences. And the unresponsive
controls are made even worse by the lack of ammunition and supplies
gamers will discover around the island.
Limited doesn’t even begin to describe the feeble amounts of ammo and
supplies (especially health-boosting supplies) that gamers must deal
with. If gamers don’t use their ammunition/health supplies
conservatively, they may be caught in impassable, no-way-to-advance
stages of the game, forced to go back to previous save points. Nothing
causes more fist-clenching, hair-pulling angst for a gamer than to have
to backtrack, maybe quite a time distance in gameplay, because there is
literally no way to advance if ammo/supplies are used too liberally
earlier in the game.
It looks great with the upgraded visual treatment, and has a strong,
full-of-surprises storyline along with challenging puzzles that both
old-school Resident Evil aficionados and new fans will enjoy. However,
the controls are so bad that absolutely everyone that plays Resident
Evil Code Veronica X HD would rather be attacked and consumed by a
zombie horde than use these terribly inadequate controls. Both the
exasperating controls and misuse of resources can be unforgiving and
crippling to the gameplay progress, but careful and patient gamers that
acclimate to both will find an amazing survivor-horror story with plenty
of hours of gameplay.
