GrayChild
Member
With the release of Resident Evil: Requiem coming closer, I thought it's a good time to revisit some of the older game in the series I either haven't touched in a while, or I haven't finished completely.
Well, Outbreak fits both of these criteria, in addition to being semi-prequel story-wise to what Requiem is shaping to be:
I remember I managed to finish only the first two scenarios before giving up, several years ago. The game was interesting and unlike a lot of claims, actually quite novel in a lot of the concepts it introduced. So much in fact, that it occasionally it crumbled under the weight of its own ambitions. Running on the quite underpowered for the needs of a game of this magnitude PS2 didn't help things much either.
Disclaimer: I'm playing offline and yes, I know there are fan-made servers, but:
- I'm using a PAL copy which is incompatible with them.
- I still don't feel confident enough to play against people who know these games much better than I do.
Anyways, as I type this I've cleared the first half of the Hellfire chapter. After all these years, the game can still be described as both absolutely brilliant, and having some of the most outright infuriating moments I had in a horror game. I can't think of many other games I adore and hate in equal measures.
- For starters, the team AI is still hilariously broken and incompetent as ever and in 90% of the time they completely ignore everything you ask them to do. Honestly, I wish they've simply rebalanced the game for 100% solo play with no teammates when you play offline. Would've saved me a lot of gripes. As of now, they don't do much outside being used as carrying mules.
- The loading times are bad. Really bad. Most of the indoor areas are even smaller than the ones found in the classical PS1 trilogy while there's also quite a lot of backtracking. Which makes more than 30% of my active playtime spent in watching loading screens.
- The save system is really weird. You have these very limited typewriters scattered very sparsely on each chapter, where you can save your progress once. But once you continue... the save is gone. So no going back if you die. This might work for online play, but once again, it's a very bad decision for those of us who play on their own.
- 4 non-special items per character, unless you play as Yoko? This sucks!
But at the same time, there's so much good about it.
- I'm thoroughly impressed with how many and how well thought-out puzzles are there. The only negative part is that you really can't tell which ones are mandatory and which ones are fully optional.
- The atmosphere and art direction are surprisingly well-made and hold up nicely even 20+ years later.
- Raccoon City never felt more real and lived in. That's the main highlight of the game, as Outbreak gave me something I felt the remakes were severely lacking and failed to capitalize upon (yes, even RE2).
- Pretty much every character is extremely charismatic and is worth trying at least once.
- The replay value is INSANE. Every character changes the way the game plays (and often how the story progresses) in a meaningful way. Completing every sub-objective for a single chapter would probably need 10+ retries. The only bad thing is the amount of RNG events, so sometimes you're left at the game's mercy. Not to mention the huge amount of unlockable materials once you're done.
Honestly, if Capcom decided to continue with the remakes, I'm hoping they give Outbreak another try. There's so much potential here that's still untapped simply because the game was something way too novel and ambitious for the time and platform is was released.
Well, Outbreak fits both of these criteria, in addition to being semi-prequel story-wise to what Requiem is shaping to be:
I remember I managed to finish only the first two scenarios before giving up, several years ago. The game was interesting and unlike a lot of claims, actually quite novel in a lot of the concepts it introduced. So much in fact, that it occasionally it crumbled under the weight of its own ambitions. Running on the quite underpowered for the needs of a game of this magnitude PS2 didn't help things much either.
Disclaimer: I'm playing offline and yes, I know there are fan-made servers, but:
- I'm using a PAL copy which is incompatible with them.
- I still don't feel confident enough to play against people who know these games much better than I do.
Anyways, as I type this I've cleared the first half of the Hellfire chapter. After all these years, the game can still be described as both absolutely brilliant, and having some of the most outright infuriating moments I had in a horror game. I can't think of many other games I adore and hate in equal measures.
- For starters, the team AI is still hilariously broken and incompetent as ever and in 90% of the time they completely ignore everything you ask them to do. Honestly, I wish they've simply rebalanced the game for 100% solo play with no teammates when you play offline. Would've saved me a lot of gripes. As of now, they don't do much outside being used as carrying mules.
- The loading times are bad. Really bad. Most of the indoor areas are even smaller than the ones found in the classical PS1 trilogy while there's also quite a lot of backtracking. Which makes more than 30% of my active playtime spent in watching loading screens.
- The save system is really weird. You have these very limited typewriters scattered very sparsely on each chapter, where you can save your progress once. But once you continue... the save is gone. So no going back if you die. This might work for online play, but once again, it's a very bad decision for those of us who play on their own.
- 4 non-special items per character, unless you play as Yoko? This sucks!
But at the same time, there's so much good about it.
- I'm thoroughly impressed with how many and how well thought-out puzzles are there. The only negative part is that you really can't tell which ones are mandatory and which ones are fully optional.
- The atmosphere and art direction are surprisingly well-made and hold up nicely even 20+ years later.
- Raccoon City never felt more real and lived in. That's the main highlight of the game, as Outbreak gave me something I felt the remakes were severely lacking and failed to capitalize upon (yes, even RE2).
- Pretty much every character is extremely charismatic and is worth trying at least once.
- The replay value is INSANE. Every character changes the way the game plays (and often how the story progresses) in a meaningful way. Completing every sub-objective for a single chapter would probably need 10+ retries. The only bad thing is the amount of RNG events, so sometimes you're left at the game's mercy. Not to mention the huge amount of unlockable materials once you're done.
Honestly, if Capcom decided to continue with the remakes, I'm hoping they give Outbreak another try. There's so much potential here that's still untapped simply because the game was something way too novel and ambitious for the time and platform is was released.
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