Resident Evil Archives: Resident Evil Zero

This one should have been left in the back-room archives

Words: on December 17, 2009

GameCube titles as varied as Mario Power Tennis, Pikmin and Resident Evil 4 have all recently made the transition over to Wii with some degree of success. Some have fared better than others, but the general consensus is that if judiciously applied, motion controls can make a good game even better. The defiantly old-school Resident Evil Zero, on the other hand, was always unlikely to benefit from this treatment. The last of the traditional Resident Evils, Zero’s flick-screen scrolling and awkwardly robotic third-person movement seemed dated even back in ye olde 2002. But cram it into the Wii’s luminous blue cakehole today, and you won’t know whether to play it or to call an archaeologist.

Worse still, there has been absolutely no attempt to bring it up to date on the new architecture. There are no motion controls, the pointer goes unused, and there isn’t even a widescreen option. In fact, the only notable change is that the text is now in that really ugly default Wii font (you’d know it if you saw it). Oh, and it now comes on just one disc instead of two, which is a massive bonus in some sort of parallel universe where swapping a disc over every four hours is a kind of grave hardship.

Resident Evil Zero isn’t terrible, but the games have moved on so much in the last decade that there’s really no value in revisiting it in this form. The zombies are still pretty scary, but blow a wad of cash on this relic, and you’ll be the one vying for blood.

Dec 16, 2009

You'll love
  • Original graphics still pretty nice
  • Zombies are still pretty scary
  • Decent gameplay for what it represents
You'll hate
  • Jerky, awkward controls
  • Lots of fruitless rooting around for tiny switches
  • Staggeringly lazy and a bit cynical

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Resident Evil Zero (Wii)

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Platforms:

Wii

4 Comments
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  • crumbdunky

    crumbdunky  - 2 years, 1 month ago  - Report

    Certainly there's no shprtage of decent Wii games now you've three years worth of titles to peruse and there's more a'comin' in 2010 with RS2, NMH2 and FFCCCB all arrivinf in Q1 post Xmas.Pick up Muramasa too when you pick up your little white box as , along with the slew of good current(2009) games like NSMBWii or Extraction, there's good stuff to keep Wii owners busy. Don't accept "Wii has no gamez" when there's just fewer Ninty releases right now til Other M and SMG2 turn up in NSMBWii's shadow.

    Archives, though, is NO reason to buy anything other than maybe some aspirin to soothe your mind after Capcom have convinced you with this that only cynical marketing exists in the gaming industry these days by just slopping out any old rehashes with RE on the box hoping to sell a few cheaply ported versions of the games they have left lying around the old [place. Darkside Chronicles isn't much better, imo, either. The pair of RE messes top off a western release year for Capcom that saw a real DR2 getting closer to PS360 while Wii owners got CTYD!!?!

    Frakly the great new games made by Capcom for the Wii are non existent if you ifnore what they spent on Tri in making their own online community to suoport pay to play in Japan. Re4 and Okami are, fair enough, the best versions of two great games but, again they're just ports really and the fact we haven't even got Tri or Capcom Vs Tatsunako in the west yet really winds me up when these cash ins get here at warp speed. And where's the "if it has buttons it can play SF" love for the white box? Surely all that statement rules out is Natal and not Wii, no?

    Whatever, noone should be surprised that while everyone else is looking forward to RE5's directors cut, SSF4 and LP2 wii owners are still getting REheats like this without even any bloody MC added either. WTF is the point in this release bar some very cheap sales for Capcom a dev/publisher that once prideditself on the strength of it's relationship with us gamers? When will Capcom listen to it's Wii gamers? After the, grankly, pretty insulting Chop Til You Drop debacle I' surprised Wii owners ever buy anything from Capcom these days. It's just so weak and lame, imho.
  • Metroidhunter32

    Metroidhunter32  - 2 years, 1 month ago  - Report

    @allthegoodnameswheretaken

    Um. You don't need this as an excuse, gamesradar had plenty of lists of great wii games.
  • allthegoodnameswheretaken

    allthegoodnameswheretaken  - 2 years, 1 month ago  - Report

    Awwww I wanted an excuse to get a Wii this isn't it i guess =(
  • CreeplyTuna

    CreeplyTuna  - 2 years, 1 month ago  - Report

    fail
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