Game reviews: Resident Evil Zero and Oxenfree
Survival horror game remakes go from the sublime (Oxenfree) to the predictable (Resident Evil Zero)
Night School Studio
Two trends are currently dominating video games: a ridiculous amount of remakes (see the second review) and a sometimes innovative, often uninspired spate of survival horror (ditto). It’s the latter we’re concerned with here, and the genre’s proliferation makes sense: small-time developers, working in a context that embraces low budgets and features near endless creative possibilities.
Just look at Oxenfree, a fairly minor game available for the PC, Mac, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and far removed from any of its recent ilk. On the surface, it’s your everyday horror set-up – a group of high school kids explore a potentially haunted island – but it’s in the way it plays out and its inventive use of conversation that the game truly separates itself.
Your friends are constantly conversing and the novelty here is the speed at which it all plays out. You’re given mere milliseconds to choose a response, and if you don’t chime in, the conversation moves on and you’re ignored. Oxenfree’s dialogue flow is incredible, and banter is quickly eased in through superb writing and impressive voice acting.
There’s a lot going on in Oxenfree, a lot more than its seemingly humble surface initially shows. It’s not so much horror, as the horror of being a teenager, battling it out in the real-world setting of friendships, conversations and worries. Oxenfree is the kind of game that gives us faith in the gaming world: small and steeped in genre conventions, but filled with possibilities that go far beyond traditional set-ups
Capcom
Last year’s Resident Evil remake was a brilliant coup for Capcom amid a vastly oversaturated reboot world – an update that snuck its way onto screens with little fanfare, but shocked unaware fans by nostalgically sending us back into the bowels of the revolutionary survival horror game.
Maybe it’s our undue hype that’s let us down here, but the Resident Evil Zero HD remaster just doesn’t quite give us the same solid chills. Available for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One, it’s cut from the same Nintendo Gamecube cloth as last year’s “sequel”, but Zero unfortunately suffers from being a little too close to its original source.
When released in 2002, the game was seen as a satisfying throwback for a series gradually straying far into bizarre territory. Now, in a world where survival horror games are a dime a dozen and need something special to stand out, the seams truly show. They are most obvious in Zero’s terribly weak story – in classic prequel fashion, the plot is plagued by an over-reliance on the original follow-up, thoroughly explaining situations and building needless context to the point where the eight-hour campaign creates few surprises.
But where we can’t fault Capcom, is in its hi-def attempts: the game looks incredible, featuring vastly improved textures, sleek character models and heightened ambient lightning. While that impressive sense of visual fear is occasionally let down by the game’s sadly upscaled cut scenes, it at least gives us the appearance of a worthy remaster, if not exactly the full experience.
Resident Evil Zero is a bit of a washout, but possibly only in the context of last year’s brilliant original upgrade. If you missed it and have rose-tinted memories of this version, by all means, join in on Zero’s zombie fun.