Survivor simply gives no meaning to the genre and any idea of having to use a Light-Gun for this is much better off.
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Game Title: Resident Evil: Survivor
Platform: PSOne
Developer: Eidos Interactive
Publisher: Capcom
Genre: Horror
Age Rating: 15+
Release Date 31st March 2000
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Game Score: 3.5/10
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Summery:
Survivor simply gives no meaning to the genre and any idea of having to use a Light-Gun for this is much better off.
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For the past few years the Resident Evil Series has been giving off some the genres most infamous scares and laughs and now all that scenery changes with the series first spin-off concept named Survivor. Does the concept fell like new flesh or an experiment gone horribly wrong.
The story of survivor takes place sometime after the T-Virus outbreak on Raccoon City as the game takes place on Sheena Island. You play as a stranger who survives a helicopter crash but loses his memory. Trapped on Sheena with his only chance for survival a gun in hand, the stranger has to find out who he is why he's here and stay alive as possible. There are a few twists to expect as there are some clues hidden around to know about the character. The story falls flat thanks to some awful written and bad dialogue that sounds out of place. There's very little exceptions of having attraction to any of the characters thanks to some broken English.
Survivor plays much differently other Resident Evil games. The campaign you'll go through is quite short in comparison with other games. During these segments you'll spend time going through generic hallways shooting wave after wave of zombies that appear on the screen. One minor change from the other games is that instead of one path you got multiple paths that you can chose along the way but the scenery is the same, shoot zombies, solve a puzzle and on the next checkpoint. There are no save points to speak off in replacement of that you continues so you try again when you get killed and they are limited to the difficulty level, if you're out of credits it's game over and you'll have to start over from the start but you can save items and weapons you acquired through the game for the next attempt. This idea gives the game more of an arcade feel but it's far to short for a Resident evil game. The game will only last about over an hour before the game ends so if you're looking for any extras besides playing with acquired weapons and items from your play-through there's simply nothing else to see here.
Survivor has two different control options of having to use the Standard Analog Controller or using the Namco's G-Con 45 Light-gun, Although it's fun to use a light-gun to shoot zombies with but moving around with the gun is a chore to get around with. You move your character by pointing the gun away from the screen and pulling the trigger and backwards by pressing the trigger off-screen twice quickly, the A and B buttons turn around, Both buttons pressed simultaneity brings up the menu and also pressing either button does a quick search around to the nearest exit, a monster or an item nearby. Until you ever get used to the controls it's a pain of having to point the gun to shoot the enemy and then quickly pointing the gun off so you can dodge an attack. You're simply better off using the Analog controller to play the game but the controls on that don't improve much. Although it's easier to move around but shooting enemies is annoying cause the lock on feature simply goes off making you have to turn around to hit them. Also the movements are bad because you can't strafe, look up or down, crouch or jump. Either controller you use, the controls are awful and simply the Light-gun controls is among the worst idea ever to use for an FPS title.
(I would like to mention that only the Japanese and European releases of this game had light-gun support but not the US which I think Capcom should have done for the European release as well.)
The game's environments are conceded as generic looking with blend textures and bad pixellated details. Most of enemies are straight designs from Resident evil 2 which up close they look awful and pixellated not to mention the bad animations enemies have. The music is passable with some fitting tunes but the in-game dialogue suffers from bad voice work and some of the writing is laughable.
Resident Evil Survivor is just missing a few points that made the other games come together. Survivor simply gives no meaning to the genre and any idea of having to use a Light-Gun for this is much better off. You're simply better off with Sega's House of the Dead 1 and 2 on Saturn or Dreamcast or better Resident Evil Code: Verconica on the Dreamcast.
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The Pros:
1. At least you can use a Light-Gun to shoot Zombies with.
2. Multiple paths to chose from.
The Bads:
1. Moving controls on the Light-Gun is terrible making it pointless to use.
2. Poor story with bad dialogue.
3. Controls are terrible compared to other shooters.
4. Too many Pistols.
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Reviewed by Anthony Hayball (BlaZer91)
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