Code: Veronica X makes an already great gaming series even better.
In Resident Evil: Code Veronica, you play as Claire Redfield, one of the two protagonists from Resident Evil 2. This occurs three months after the Raccoon City incident, in which Claire Redfield is caught infiltrating an Umbrella building in search of her lost brother Chris, and is caught, arrested, and thrown on a prison island far south of the equator. But then the T-Virus is unleashed upon the prison island, turning vitually all of the people there into zombies. You must now take control of Claire and get out of the island.
When the game opens up, it goes into a spectacular cinematic in which it shows Claire in the Umbrella building, fighting for her life against the Security Guards. The detail in it is amazing, and other cinematics in the game are simply pale compared to this one.
When you are stuck on this island, you are forced to battle against Zombies. You must find a variety of weapons in this game to battle against the zombies, or Living Dead, as a few may call them. They are slow, but are deadly in large groups, and you will need to preserve ammo in some situations to fare well in other situations.
There are also many puzzles that need to be completed in order to advance. Some are extremely easy, such as the matching of two of the same items when trying to free Steve, to the infamous Seven Paintings puzzle, where you are expected to hit Seven Painting Switches in a certain order.
A problem that I usually have is the fact that you have to preserve ammo for much of the game so you never fall short. But the fact is that your enemies never drop and ammo or healing items, so there may be situations where you are completely stuck, and whatever you do, you cannot get past it for an extremely long time. Another flaw with this game is the terrible camera angles. It is a fixed view that cannot be changed until you leave the area, and what direction buttons that you are supposed to use may be the opposite of what you believe they are. This may not be much of a problem for veteran Resident Evil players, but may be extremely annoying for newcomers to the series or those that are used to Resident Evil 4's over the shoulder camera aiming. Plus, there is no laser targeting, so you may have no idea of where you are shooting. Not only that, but your character moves like a tank.
Despite all of those faults, there are still plenty of great things about Code: Veronica.
The Gameplay has its camera faults, but other than that, there really is no problem with it. You go around, killing or dodging zombies as they come by, collect weapons, fight the occasional boss and complete puzzles. There are many things in CV to keep you entertained for a while.
The Graphics are fantastic. The colours and environment are better looking than in the Dreamcaster version, but have just a little less detail. The characters, background, buildings and characters all look very well done. The graphics are hard to beat by games released around its time.
The Sound is also very good. The sounds of zombies and the music give this game a creepy feel, and the firing of guns in a large battle sound awesome. There is however, one fault that has plagued the Resident Evil series forever, including this game: the dialogue. Here are just a few examples of bad dialogue in this game:
Steve: Tisk, tisk tisk. I don't want you following me lady. You'll only slow me down.
Claire: Oh, you must be one of the lower commanders of Umbrella to be in charge of a backwater base like this one.
Wesker: Come to my hook, you little fishy.
As you can see, the dialogue is pretty bad, but also at the same time, pretty funny.
The replay value in this game is also unparallelled. It takes a while to beat this game, but it never hurts to beat this game the second time around. Depending on Game Time, # of times saved, and the Number of First Aid Sprays used, you get a Ranking. It is always good trying to beat your old record with an even better one. There are also a number of things to unlock after you beat this game, but if you tend to kill games, this game may fall victim.
But overall, Resident Evil Code: Veronica X is a fantastic game, and can't be missed by any Resident Evil fan.