Just look at that image. Such a fitting cover for the survival theme of this game.
Back when Capcom first decided to innovate the wheel that was survival horror for their series, they didn't go Over-The-Shoulder with Leon Kennedy; instead in 2003, they decided they wanted to release a game that had dynamic camera angles similar to Resident Evil: Code Veronica, a large, 8 character roster to choose from with their own distinct advantages and disadvantages in speed, health, infection rate and personal items, 40 extra characters that further change the stats and items of the original 8...tons of unlockables, from concept art to BGM music, extra modes and cut scenes...individual characters getting special cut scenes in certain chapters...
I even bought a collection of RE soundtracks just to find this one among many other tracks.
With every difficulty adding throwing something different into each chapter item-wise, this list goes on and on and ON. It's abundantly clear that the team at Capcom put their whole into this game, but they didn't stop there. Someone got REALLY ambitious, and decided that this Survival Horror game should go one step further in being unique, and utilize the HDD add-on for the PS2 (a story for another day) for something Resident Evil had not touched yet: "Online Play".
Outbreak was the first multiplayer Resident Evil game of the series, let alone online multiplayer. Now, take into account all the different characters available and 4 total spots for people to play in, and your gaming experience has tons of depth that prior games in the series couldn't hope to capture. While running a 4-Player game sounds like it'd ruin the tension, it doesn't. Once difficulty hits Hard or Very Hard, the ammo gets scarce and enemies get tougher, making teamwork all the more important. And when the health and ammo run out, and your virus gauge starts dipping into the red, it becomes a race to survive, desperately tackling past zombies and monsters alike to try to make it to the end before everyone dies.
Sounds great, right?
My face when I see the reviews.
Critical reviews would indicate otherwise. The majority of reviewers gave it scores around the B to C range, some even going so far to give it an F grade. Currently, the averages work out to 70%, 71% on Metacritic. Even if I'm being absolutely unbiased, I couldn't go lower than a B. The only thing keeping this game from an A-grade rely on two factors: The finicky behavior of the AI, and the complete inability to communicate with your team once you start playing.
That second part is the biggest problem. I get why it exists, but it shows why Outbreak is both a brilliant game and yet, one that couldn't work given the theme the creators were going for. They didn't want the tension to break under the weight of coordinated communication, which is the strongest asset a group of survivors could ever have. "You go with X to get Y and I'll go with Z to get J for door F....I have # of bullets, you have # of healing items, I have # of melee weapons, lets shuffle them around real fast..."
The ability to quickly communicate and organize items can kill any tension fast. However...the exchange for this was the communication wheel of commands. The right analog stick with or without L2 shouted a series of commands to generally address people. "Go, Wait, Come, Help, Name 1-2-3, Thanks". This did not add to the fear, it just gave us unrelenting frustration. We yelled commands that people might not have understood, implying things they might not do once an objective was reached.
Given the circumstances of easier difficulties, the fear is undercut already by ease of obtaining weapons and ammunition to survive with. Tension comes not from a lack of communication but figuring out the level before you die. On harder difficulties, where precise teamwork is necessary, the players already KNOW the game well enough to not feel fear, just the tension of survival in a minimalistic environment. You don't NEED the artificial difficulty of using a chat wheel.
You want to know how you could've alleviated this problem? Allowing the keyboard to be used to type out messages. That way, you could at least had the option to type things out. Even if you were REALLY being adamant about communication being non-negotiable, then just allow it to be used only in "safe" rooms, the rooms where typewriters normally are in single-player. That way, you allow players to regroup and understand what the situation is among fellow players. This is a game where if someone failed to go to one room a hell-of-a-long way away to get x or y items, you could be sidetracked a good twenty minutes.
Worse, imagine if they died with a key item. Imagine they died with a key item on very hard mode. Do you understand the ramifications of this in games where the maps can be fairly large? You now have to:
A: Complete the objective you were supposed to along the way.
B: Backtrack to where the other objective is.
B2: If the objective is an item AND the player took it, find him and save him.
C: Survive with limited ammunition/health BACK to where you were supposed to do this in the first place.
D: Not chew your own face off with severe loading times taking 6~8 seconds per screen transition....this adds up. A lot.
E: Continue on and hope this doesn't happen a second time...and hopefully you have the ability to still win with what supplies you managed to keep.
Be reasonable: you know survivors in a situation like this are likely to have SOME form of communication. Kevin and Mark are more than likely to have a radio, maybe even Jim. David has the handy-man skills to fix a SHOTGUN, don't tell me he couldn't fix up a radio or two for the group. Worse, when you die, you aren't allowed to even watch the rest of the game. You died, here's your game over screen.
Outbreak is great in the fact that its got depth. But one simple design choice killed its multiplayer twice over...and realistically speaking, it shouldn't have at all. How many Youtube Gamers have filmed themselves using multi-chat programs? Even back in 2003 Ventrilo existed...it was an unnecessary handicap then and it shouldn't ever have reared its ugly head in the sequel.
This franchise ended with File #2, which wrapped up all the loose ends of the Raccoon City game (I'm not even going to dignify Operation Raccoon City). It showed how the information about Umbrella was leaked and what sparked the events of Resident Evil 4 (yes Outbreak had the bad Yoko/Alyssa ending but I'm counting the good Yoko ending from #2). I could bitch about ORC, but I'm dropping it.
Good Idea: Take Resident Evil and throw it online, and add tons of depth to characters, weapons, costumes etc.
Bad Idea: Not take into account the limitations of the technology, and impose a terrible communication system for "fake" fear and tension.
Outbreak was a game ahead of its time...which is a shame. The PS3 would've solved any lingering online issues. It doesn't matter these days; in early 2007, the official servers were closed. Word on the web is that people have tried to emulate the servers themselves, but I haven't found anything concrete. Maybe in the future, the ability to emulate off of a console or PC will become possible, and people may be able to enjoy this game free of the inhibitions of poor load times and communication flaws. Until then, its a solid single-player game, and worth picking up. Both are easy to buy at prices for $10 or less. So for the die-hard Resident Evil fan, or a casual Survival Horror gamer, its well worth a look.
