While may require a fair share of patience even for RE fans, its certaintly makes up for it with great replay value.
None the less if you feel RE is really starting to change too far from your liking, Outbreak is good recap of the old school survival horror style of what it all began with.
RE Outbreak is certaintly not canon though to the main series and very much a side project of sorts. So don't enter expecting alot of new twists and detail being added to an already deep overall story. While in Outbreak you will visit some familar locals its probably best you see it as some sort of alternate dimension due to certain areas not making sense to the original canon.
Still Outbreak's overall story is pretty weak at best so your best bet is to focus on the gameplay.
Outbreak plays out through five different scenarios that aern't really linked to each very well but as i said again you should ignore the how and just roll with it. They vary from the opening level at J's Bar to revisiting classic enviroments Umbrella's underground medical lab from RE2 and the Raccoon City Hospital from RE3. Other scenarios take place in the newly introduced Raccoon University and a burning down Hotel.
They all start off with you selecting one from eight characters and then what difficulty you wish to play on.
The characters are all very varied in every aspect from their personalitys to there overall stats. Each character has their own strengths and weakness' and might take you a while to find him/her, but eventually there will be definately one that suits you better than the rest. Though sadly if your in Europe (well i spose anywhere now due to the closing of the servers) the roles of your character will always end up as the leader, whether playing as someone who would suit to lead the way like Kevin, to even playing as Yoko, who obviously was designed to be a pack mule more than anything and can be very boring indeed to play through as her.
Once you've selected your character as i said you move onto your difficulty selection, which indeed has it set for every type of player be it die hard RE veterans (like myself :P) or maybe someone new to the series. Initially theres only an easy and normal mode though more tougher difficulties can be unlocked each with there own significant jump in overall difficultie.
Now when all thats done you of course enter the world of Raccoon City, each scenario not just having different enviroments also of course have different goals and varieing tactics in need to survive to the end. While the Outbreak scenario sets a much more realistic play-style with you having to set up borders and really keep an eye on your ammo and possibly even try and escort a fellow bar patron, the University scenario has a much more classic feel with you requiring to solve puzzles and find keys.
So overall each scenario has there own feel and pace to it which combined with eight characters to try out with and 5 difficulties to play through, each having there own set places for items and puzzle answers adds up to 'alot' of reply value. That is if you can cope for that long, while I'm happy with the way it plays due to growing up with it I know that most are put off with the controls and camera angles ect. so if you didn't like the classic RE's you certaintly won't get any enjoyment out of Outbreak.
Completing scenarios in Outbreak so many times of course leads you to possible rewards, each scenario has its own unlockables usually consisting of skin's, movies, soundtracks and some miscellanous, though instead of unlocking them you merely have them available for purchase, completing scenarios always awards you with points with the better outcome of the scenario predictably rewards you with a larger sum of points. Plus most of the unlockables can be rather deer in comparison to the average amounts of points you'll get so multiple play-throughs is a must to be able to unlock everything.
Another addition to the scenarios is a 100% meter than when for example watching a cutscene or reading a file will increase it by a percantage to maybe 5%. While on your first run each one your likely to get around 60% it'll again take alot to look for and see with many different characters to get the total 100%, and while maybe a little frustrating since there isn't exactly a checklist, everything is hidden, it certaintly is worth what becomes available.
Onto sound, overall it is the usual RE quality with a brilliant soundtrack and very reasonable sound effects though unintentionally funny dialoque, never has a RE game has such ridiculous lines spouting from the characters since the original RE.
That moves me onto the team-work of the gameplay, each scenario after choosing a character gives you two AI's to 'try' and work with. Though CAPCOM tryed to give each character a specific AI to help individulise the characters it really doesn't work aswell.
Being civilians this time around they won't tend to follow your orders and most of the time just go off their own getting themselves bitten and wasting ammo. Though with enough patience and skill it is possible to sort of try and understand the AI and have them able to become useful compadres. You communicate using the right analog, you are limited to simple commands such as ''follow me'' ''go'' ''wait'' ect. and also maybe to ask them to help you from an attacking enemy. While they probably won't always follow they are luckily always willing to help if your in trouble and will fight along side you if their equipped. Still it just doesn't work as much as what i would of prefered, maybe some sort of trust meter when high enough then they will follow your every command instead of the apparent ''realistic'' AI of actual civilians in a terrifying situation.
Though I'm pretty sure in a situation like this a leader would obviously of been nominated and people wouldn't just run off on their own then come back on low health expecting you to heal them then just run away again :?.
Still bad AI aside it is a nice change to actually have some other characters to occasionally tag along and fight with unlike the typical 'lets split up untill a serious story event occurs...'.
Graphically of course it won't impress many by todays standards but in the day and tbh even to this day I see them as excellent graphics and a real acheivement for the ps2. The cutscenes too are handled well though the gore is rather embarresing in the cutscenes and doesn't help set the mood. An example would be a Tyrant plunging its claw through a soldier, though what you see is just a claw go right through a solider with no actual blood or wounds, just a hand going through the soldiers torso like a ghost hand.
So on an ending note, this game is a must have for RE fans and newcomers alike to experience some of the last elements of the old RE survival horror, though it won't bring any new fans and people who worship RE4 for all its revelations will probably despise Outbreak, but for its target audience it is a very great purchase.
Final Score: 9.3