Resident Evil Zero

Resident Evil Zero is a 2002 survival horror game developed and published by Capcom for the GameCube. It is a prequel to Resident Evil, following S.T.A.R.S. officer Rebecca Chambers and convict Billy Coen as they explore an abandoned training facility for employees of the pharmaceutical company Umbrella in the outskirts of Raccoon City. The gameplay is similar to other Resident Evil games, but adds the ability to switch between characters to solve puzzles and use unique abilities.
Development for Resident Evil Zero began for the Nintendo 64 in 1998. The partner system was created to take advantage of the short load times possible with the capabilities of the Nintendo 64 Game Pak. The cartridge format also provided limitations, as the storage capacity was significantly less than that of a CD-ROM. The team had to approach the design differently from previous series entries to conserve storage space. Resident Evil Zero was designed to be more difficult than previous Resident Evil games. Inspired by Sweet Home, the team removed the item storage boxes present in earlier games and introduced a new item-dropping feature. Production was switched to the recently unveiled GameCube after development slowed due to memory storage issues. Only the concept and story remained from the original game, which had to be rebuilt.
Resident Evil Zero received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the graphics and audio for building a haunting atmosphere. Opinions on the new partner and item systems were mixed. Some found the changes were an improvement and added new layers of strategy; others believed the changes were cumbersome or non-innovative. The game's tank controls were criticized as outdated.
The game was ported to the Wii in 2008, and a high-definition remaster was released in January 2016; the rereleases received mixed reviews due to lack of improvements. Resident Evil Zero was commercially successful, having sold over 4 million copies across all platforms.

Gameplay

Resident Evil Zero is a third-person survival horror video game. The gameplay remains largely the same as previous entries in the series. However, unlike controlling one sole character like the previous games, the player controls two protagonists throughout the game. The player may switch between police officer and medic Rebecca Chambers and convicted former Force Reconnaissance Officer Billy Coen. If they travel together, either one of them can be controlled while the other character is handled by the game's artificial intelligence. The player may also control both simultaneously or split them up to explore areas separately. Each character has unique abilities. Rebecca has a mixing kit which allows her to combine herbs and other chemicals, but she is weak defensively. In contrast, Billy can move heavy objects, use a lighter, and has higher defense, but cannot mix herbs. The partner system is central to solving many of the game's puzzles.
The characters can run as well as perform quick 180-degree turns to evade danger. The player may examine objects such as doors, other characters, and items in order to find clues to proceed through the game. Some objects can be pushed or climbed upon to investigate higher levels. Items held by the characters can be examined in the inventory screen. Some items such as weapons can be equipped, and other items can be combined to create more effective items or replenish ammunition. When Rebecca and Billy are close by, they can exchange items between one-another. Previous series installments had the player store items in boxes placed in fixed locations. Resident Evil Zero has no item boxes, and instead allows players 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. The number of items that can be dropped in a room is limited.

Plot

On July 23, 1998, a train owned by the pharmaceutical company Umbrella, the Ecliptic Express, comes under attack from a swarm of leeches. As the passengers and crew are attacked, a mysterious young man watches from a hillside. Two hours later, the Bravo Team of the Special Tactics And Rescue Service, a tactical unit of Raccoon City Police Department's, 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. Searching the area, officer Rebecca Chambers of Bravo Team comes across the Express, now motionless. She begins to investigate the scene, only to find the passengers and crew transformed into zombies. She is unaware their transformation is a result of exposure to Umbrella's T-virus contained within the leeches. As she explores the train, she teams up with Billy Coen—a former Marine Force Reconnaissance officer, who was to be executed for killing 23 people until the military police van transporting him crashed in the region.
The pair notices the mysterious young man, moments before the train suddenly begins moving again. Unbeknownst to the pair, two soldiers from Umbrella, on the orders of Albert Wesker and William Birkin, attempt to take control of the train and destroy it, but are killed by leeches before they can complete their mission. As the train speeds out of control, Rebecca and Billy apply the brakes and avert its course towards an abandoned training facility for future executives of Umbrella. They discover that the former director of the facility and the corporation's co-founder, Dr. James Marcus, was responsible for discovering the so-called Progenitor virus in the 1960s, and decided to examine 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.
As the pair continue to explore the facility, Wesker decides to leave Umbrella and join its rival company, and makes plans for further research on the T-virus. William Birkin refuses his offer to join him, instead opting to complete his research on the G-virus. Later, Rebecca becomes separated from Billy. On her own, she encounters Captain Enrico Marini, who tells her that the rest of the Bravo team will meet up at an old mansion they found, but allows her to stay behind to find Billy. Just after Enrico leaves, Rebecca is attacked by the Tyrant. After temporarily defeating the Tyrant, Rebecca meets up with Billy again and, together, they defeat it and continue on towards a water plant.
Eventually, Rebecca and Billy catch up with the leech-controlling man, who happens to be Marcus' final experiment, the Queen Leech. In 1988, Marcus was assassinated on the orders of Umbrella's other co-founder, Oswell E. Spencer, who sought his research. After his corpse was dumped, the Queen Leech entered his body and reanimated it, gaining his memories and the ability to shapeshift, thus believing itself to be the resurrected Marcus and orchestrated the T-virus outbreak in the facility and on the train as a means of revenge against Umbrella. After temporarily defeating it, Billy and Rebecca attempt to escape to the surface via a lift, just as William Birkin trips the facility's self-destruct mechanism. Pursued by the Queen Leech, the pair eventually kill it and escape before the facility is destroyed. Following their escape, Rebecca notices the mansion that Marini mentioned and prepares to head for it. Before she does, she assures Billy that her police report will list him as another casualty of the incident. Thanking her for his freedom, Billy departs as Rebecca heads towards the mansion to seek out the whereabouts of her fellow Bravo Team members, setting the stage for 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 peripheral for the Nintendo 64 was announced in 1995. Following the 64DD's low sales four years later, Capcom developed Resident Evil Zero as a cartridge-based Nintendo 64 game. Capcom started development on the Nintendo 64 version in mid-1998, one of many Resident Evil games being developed at the time. One of these was Resident Evil – Code: Veronica which was taking full advantage of the capacities of the GD-ROM format. The Nintendo 64 cartridge could only store 64MB of data, one tenth that of a traditional CD-ROM. For these reasons, the team approached Resident Evil Zero with different ideas for gameplay and visual design that would function better with less storage space. After the script had been completed in early 1999, the production of a Resident Evil game for Nintendo 64 was revealed to the public by Yoshiki Okamoto, the president of Capcom's screenplay company Flagship.
Resident Evil Zero was designed to be more difficult than its predecessors, removing the item boxes to make the game more like Sweet Home. 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, which are necessary for optical disc-based gameplay as with the PlayStation. In an effort to make 1-on-1 zombie fights more intense, Capcom experimented with giving the zombies different reactions when they were shot and allowing the player to counter-attack when bitten. The team also toyed with faster zombies, a precursor to Resident Evils crimson head enemies. The prototype also supported local co-operative play. 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. The game was expected to be released in July 2000 and reportedly had an atmosphere close to the first Resident Evil, focusing more on suspense than the more action-oriented gameplay of Resident Evil 2. However, development began to slow down when it became apparent that the data for Resident Evil Zero would not fit on a single cartridge.
Production shifted to the newly announced GameCube, with the concept and story carried over but all of the data recreated. The platform change was confirmed in September 2000. The game's final version was developed primarily by Capcom Production Studio 3 with additional support provided by Tose. As a result of the transition to the GameCube, it was delayed so that the environments could be upgraded visually. More CGI videos were created as a result of the increased memory capacities, and the voice acting was re-recorded. The iconic sounds of the leeches were actually from recordings of cooking hamburgers. For the gun models, the modelling team was provided realistic-looking airsoft guns to base their designs from. Their designs were so close to the source material that the models, at first, featured replica markings and gas refill inlets. No one on the team noticed until half-way through development. Scenario writer Noboru Sugimura was called back to make some changes to the story. In the prototype's story, either Rebecca or Billy could die with the other character surviving and completing the game. This idea was scrapped as Rebecca dying would ruin the canon of the Resident Evil timeline. Billy was also originally designed in the prototype as a more ambiguous character, possibly becoming friend or foe as the story progressed. This idea was scrapped. The character designs were also adjusted: Rebecca for example lost her beret and shoulder pads while Billy received a new hairstyle. 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. Capcom announced its intention to release a game demo in Japan around August 2002.