Video games - Resident Evil 0

Home > Listing Index > Video games > Resident Evil 0

	Video games - Resident Evil 0

Resident Evil 0 or Resident Evil Zero, known in Japan as Biohazard 0 (バイオハザード０), is a survival horror game that was developed and published by Capcom for the Nintendo GameCube and released in 2002. It is the fifth game in the Resident Evil series by release order and was the last of the core titles to use the original Resident Evil gameplay system prior to the release of Resident Evil 4
.

The game's storyline serves as a prequel to the original Resident Evil
, covering Rebecca Chambers' ordeal a day prior to the Spencer Mansion incident.

Story

On July 23, 1998, S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team is sent in to investigate a series of grisly murders in the Arklay Mountains region. On the way to the scene, Bravo's helicopter malfunctions and is forced to crash land in the forest. Luckily, there are no fatalities. The team soon discovers an overturned Military Police transport truck, along with the mutilated corpses of the police themselves. The team soon splits up and Bravo team's field medic, rookie member Rebecca Chambers, begins to wonder what she has gotten herself into. She quickly hooks up with the man the Military Police were escorting to his execution; ex-marine Billy Coen, and the two of them face off against a band of Cerberus, swarms of strange leeches, and a mysterious individual with possible links to the disaster.

Other recurring Resident Evil characters present are Alpha Team leader Albert Wesker and Umbrella scientist Dr. William Birkin. The two make appearances in a few cutscenes, but never interact with the main characters. The game also introduces Dr. James Marcus, one of the three founding members of Umbrella and the true creator of the T-Virus.

Gameplay

Resident Evil 0's main gameplay feature, the partner zapping system, is unique in the series in that instead of choosing a single character to play through the whole game, the player controls both Rebecca and Billy thorough the entire game. Both characters can travel together, with one character being controlled by the player and other by the computer (who can also be partially controlled with the C stick), or split up and search separate areas each at the same time. This dual control is central to solving some of the puzzles in the game. The difference between both characters is that Rebecca can acquire chemicals with her mixing kit and can get into tight spaces, but is more fragile to enemy attacks. In contrast, Billy can handle heavy objects, has an oil lighter and can sustain more damage than Rebecca, but cannot mix herbs (in contrast from previous games, in which any character could mix herbs).

The game also does away with the use of "item boxes" placed in fixed locations for the player to store items in. Instead, the player can now drop items on the floor to make room for new ones, and must retrace their steps back to the room they previously dropped the discarded item when they need it later in the game. The locations of dropped or "touched" items are displayed on the player's map.

Weapons

Handgun
Combat Knife
Hunting Gun
Shotgun
Grenade Launcher
Magnum
Molotov Cocktail
Submachine Gun (Unlockable)
Magnum Revolver (Unlockable)

Unlockables

After the player completes the main game, the following is unlocked:

Alternate Costumes (Complete the game with any rank on Normal or Hard mode).
Submachine Gun(Complete the game in 5 hours or less on Normal or Hard mode with an A rank)
Rocket Launcher (Complete the game in 3.5 hours or less on Normal or Hard mode with an S rank)
The "Leech Hunter" Minigame.

Leech Hunter Bonuses

100 Leech Charms: Infinite ammo for all weapons.
90-99 Leech Charms: Magnum Revolver will appear in Room 202 of the Train.
60-89 Leech Charms: Infinite ammo for the Hunting Gun.
30-59 Leech Charms: Equipped Handguns will have infinite ammo.
1-29 Leech Charms: Ammo for the Submachine Gun will be available in the main game.

Development history

Resident Evil 0 was first unveiled during the Tokyo Game Show in 2000. The game was originally slated for the Nintendo 64, as it was believed by the developers that the platform's cartridge-based media would be more capable in handling the item dropping and partner zapping systems proposed for the game than the disc-based medias used by the Sony PlayStation and Sega Dreamcast due to the lack of loading times. However, production of the game shifted from the Nintendo 64 to the GameCube as a result of the transition to "128-bit" consoles. Since the GameCube made use of a disc-based media, the programmers were forced to rely on clever programming methods to shorten the loading times. The graphics were improved dramatically due to the platform change in order to compete with the Resident Evil
remake, also for GameCube.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Resident Evil 0 ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Resident Evil 0; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.