When console franchises make their way online, they usually jump to a massively multiplayer format, like Final Fantasy XI, or they stay more or less the same as their offline installments with the addition of a multiplayer function, such as Bomberman Online. With Resident Evil Outbreak, it's the latter. The game keeps most of its fundamental aspects from previous releases in the series, such as the controls and basic gameplay conventions, and it adds in a number of new systems. Getting into Resident Evil Outbreak doesn't present much of a learning curve for experienced players, and Capcom has made numerous modifications to make the game suitable for online and team play.

In a first for the series, Resident Evil Outbreak will let you battle the ubiquitous zombies with your friends.

One of the fundamental changes in Resident Evil Outbreak is the structure of the game's scenario. Instead of having one main storyline, like in previous installments of the Resident Evil series, Outbreak is composed of five short stories. There doesn't seem to be any relationship between each of the scenarios, aside from the same theme--escaping from Raccoon City--which allows the stories to have a variety of unique settings. For example, one scenario is about escaping from a zombie-infested bar and riding out of the city with the cops. Another scenario is about getting out of a hospital, which just happens to be the hiding place of a leech man, who's more obnoxiously persistent than even Nemesis from Resident Evil 3. None of the stories are very long; they can be finished in about 10 to 30 minutes once you know how they work. Considering that the game is targeted at online play, it seems Capcom designed the stages to be played as single sessions, beatable in a short amount of time. In order to give the game replay value, Capcom has added a lot of unlockable bonus features, such as special costumes.

The characters in Resident Evil Outbreak are ordinary citizens, like a waitress or a plumber. This means that most of them don't have a gun at the beginning of the game, unlike the characters in previous installments in the series. Fortunately, it's not hard to find the weapons that are scattered throughout the maps, which can be traditional weapons, such as pistols and shotguns, or household items, such as broomsticks and bug spray.

The civilians' relative inexperience at fighting zombies justifies the game's focus on cooperation, but the characters in Resident Evil Outbreak aren't really inferior to the fighters from past games. They can tackle zombies when they don't have any weapons, eventually make the zombies fall to the ground, and then kill the zombies with enough stomps of their feet. Each of the characters also has a couple of specialties, one for use during combat and one for normal use. For example, the reporter, Alyssa, has a lock pick that can be used for opening locks without a key, and she also has a sharpshooting skill that causes extra damage when she's using a gun.

The inventory system has changed significantly. Aside from Yoko, who has a backpack to keep additional items, the characters can only hold up to four items, and the storage chests seen in previous games have been eliminated. These changes were made to encourage player cooperation; you must hold onto items for one another. A number of other changes have been made to the gameplay to allow players to help each other out, which seems to be the key to Resident Evil Outbreak. You can give or ask for an item by selecting the item from the inventory window. This window displays the inventories and health conditions of all the partners who are nearby, so it's easy to figure out who has something that you want or who is in need of an item. But the game moves in real time while the inventory screen is open, so you need to be careful that an enemy isn't nearby when you're giving or trading items. You can also lend a hand when a partner is hanging off a ledge or getting bit by a zombie, and you can also carry a partner around when he or she is limping from damage.

When your back's to the wall, only your trusty piece can save you.

To further create circumstances for cooperation, Capcom has made the player characters in Resident Evil Outbreak more resistant to damage than in previous releases. While the characters go limp as easily as in previous Resident Evil games, they don't die right away after they take too many hits. They continue to stay alive, though in a crawling position from which they can't open doors, attack enemies, or pick up items. A partner can help a player to recover from this position simply by lending a hand and pulling the player back up, in which case the player will return to the limping position again.

However, the citizens of Raccoon City don't seem to be as resistant to virus infection as the main characters in previous Resident Evil releases. In a new twist for the series, Resident Evil Outbreak implements a "virus indicator," which starts counting from the beginning of the stage and runs like a time limit. The virus indicator runs constantly, and the infection increases when you receive damage from the zombies. When the infection reaches 100 percent, your character dies and the game is over. There's a little bonus if this happens in online mode, since you get to control the character as a zombie and can attempt to attack your former allies. But the transformation to a zombie is relatively insignificant to the gameplay, since the time span during which you can control the character is short, the zombies are slow and weak, and players often turn into zombies together. The transformation to zombie usually happens near the end of a stage, around the boss battle, when your infection reaches its limit from the progress of time and accumulated damage.