Resident Evil Code: Veronica
Template:Gamebox inizio Template:Gamebox titolo Template:Gamebox tipo Template:Gamebox sviluppo Template:Gamebox distribuzione Template:Gamebox data pubblicazione Template:Gamebox piattaforma Template:Gamebox sezione Template:Gamebox fine Resident Evil: Code Veronica (Japanese: バイオハザード コード：ベロニカ, Biohazard Code: Veronica), spesso abbreviato con RECV, è un videogioco della serie survival horror. Resident Evil è uscito originariamente per Sega Dreamcast nel 2000. Successivamente è stata prodotta anche la versione per PlayStation 2.
Secondo alcuni è l'episodio migliore della serie, e sicuramente il più lungo. Si parte impersonando Claire Redfield (una dei protagonisti di Resident Evil 2), la quale si trova prigioniera in una base che non a caso diverrà territorio di caccia di zombi e mostri, per poi continuare l'avventura impersonando il fratello di Claire, Chris Redfield incontrato anche nel primo gioco.
Il gioco si rivela estremamente appassionante, con richiami a film famosi (da Psycho a Matrix, e molti altri) e con il ritorno di Albert Wesker, il cattivo del primo Resident Evil. Per una breve parte del gioco si impersonerà anche un terzo personaggio, Steve Burnside, che avrà un ruolo importante nello svolgersi degli eventi.
Trama
Il gioco è ambientato tre mesi dopo gli eventi di Resident Evil 2 e Resident Evil 3. La storia comincia con la spedizione della protagonista Claire Redfield in uno dei quartier generali della Umbrella Corporation. Viene scoperta e inseguita dalla squadra di sicurezza, e infine fatta prigioniera da Rodrigo Juan Raval e inviata in una sperduta prigione sull'isola di Rockfort, che è parte delle proprietà della Umbrella.
However, shortly after her imprisonment, the island is suddenly attacked by an unknown force and becomes contaminated with the T-Virus. During the outbreak, Claire is released from her cell by a sympathetic Rodrigo and she teams up with fellow prisoner Steve Burnside. During their exploration of the nearby Military Facility, the two are hunted down by the head of the facility, Alfred Ashford. Claire briefly encounters the former commander of STARS, Albert Wesker, now revived and red-eyed, and working for one of Umbrella's competitors. He is intent on extracting revenge on Claire's brother, Chris.
Claire and Steve manage to find an escape plane, only to find out that the plane was programmed to land into Umbrella's secret laboratory in Antarctica. Within the lab, Claire and Steve face off against Alfred one last time, who sics Nosferatu (formerly Alfred's father Alexander) on them. Claire manages to destroy the creature's exposed heart, effectively killing it. While mortally injured during his struggle, Alfred watches as his twin sister Alexia is released from cryogenic sleep, and then dies from his wounds. Alexia captures both Claire and Steve.
The second half of the story begins with Claire's brother, Chris, arriving on Rockfort Island after receiving information about his sister's captivity. Immediately upon his arriving, Chris encounters an injured Rodrigo and is informed that Claire has already left the island and is in the lab in Antarctica. Shortly afterwards, Rodrigo is eaten by the Gulp Worm. This takes place unless Claire killed it before. While exploring the facility, Chris is confronted by his former commander, Albert Wesker. Wesker fought Chris briefly and overpowered him before being interrupted by one of the facility's B.O.Ws.
Chris eventually finds his way to Antarctica and is reunited with Claire. The two are then briefly separated by Alexia again. While fighting Alexia, Claire finds Steve confined in a nearby hallway. Unfortunately, Steve has been injected by the T-Veronica virus by Alexia and is transformed into a raging mutant, and gives chase to Claire. Eventually, Steve recognizes Claire and spares her, only to be wounded mortally by Alexia's massive tentacles. After reverting back to normal, Steve professes his love for Claire and dies. Chris manages to save Claire by activating the facility's emergency self destruct system which opens all escape doors. Chris confronts and destroys Alexia with a linear launcher.
Before Claire and Chris escape, they are confronted by Albert Wesker once again. Chris and Wesker fight, but Wesker, with superhuman strength easily pummels his rival. Chris only manages to weaken Wesker by dropping a series of metal bars on top of him. The two are separated by an explosion. Chris vows to finish it the next time they meet.
Chris and Claire make their escape from the facility through a jet. Chris knows now that Umbrella must be stopped once and for all. The entire facility explodes as the jet streaks across the sky.
Gameplay
Code: Veronica is the first Resident Evil game in the main series to use 3D backgrounds instead of the traditional pre-rendered ones (similar to the original Dino Crisis). Despite this, the camera does not follow the player around, but swings between semi-fixed angles similar to the previous games. However, two weapons in the game (a sniper rifle and a linear launcher) can be fired from the character's point of view and a first person view mode is available in the game's unlockable Battle Mode.
Gameplay remained largely unchanged from Resident Evil 2, although features from Resident Evil 3 (which was developed in tandem with Code: Veronica) are carried over to this game such as explosive oil drums and a 180-degree turn.
The zapping system from Resident Evil 2 was reused in Code: Veronica. However, instead of playing two concurrent scenarios like in RE2, the player plays one long scenario as Claire in the first half and as Chris in the second half. All of Claire's items left in the item box will be available for Chris during his portion of the game.
Items from RE2, such as upgradable handgun parts and "side packs" for larger item capacity are featured here, as well as new types of weapons such as crossbow arrows mixed with gun powder and Anti-BOW rounds for the grenade launcher. A unique feature of RECV is the inclusion of twin weapons, which the player character could equip on both hands, allowing the player to target two enemies at the same time.
Some of the more subtle improvements in RECV includes the addition of continues, allowing the player to retry a scene after a game over, and the ability to pick and use a healing herb when the character's inventory is full.
Trivia
- Viene reintrodotta l'abilità di vedere e analizzare gli oggetti e le armi dell'inventario in 3D (una caratteristica dell'originale Resident Evil, non presente nel 2 e nel 3).
- All'inizio della metà gioco di Chris il giocatore può notare le tombe di "Robert Raval" e "Maria Raval" nella stanza di salvataggio nel sottosuolo. Queste sono le tombe di qualche parente (presumibilmente di genitori) di Rodrigo Juan (la guardia di sicurezza).
- L'"Edizione limitata", uscita solo in Giappone per Dreamcast include una versione diversa della schermata dei titoli, in cui il volto di Wesker appare sullo sfondo. Questa versione della schermata dei titoli è stata riutilizzata per la versione "X" del gioco.
- La versione giapponese del gioco è stata censurata: le teste degli zombie non esplodono e il loro addome non viene più separato dal corpo a causa un colpo ben assestato.
- L'acronimo H.C.G. (che si può vedere sull'uniforme di Wesker) significa "Hive or Host Capture Force" (Forza di Cattura dell'Alveare o dell'Ospite). Non è chiaro se H.C.F. sia il nome di un impiegato di Wesker o una task force che lavora per loro.
- Nelle prime fasi di sviluppo del gioco Alfred e Alexia erano chiamati rispettivamente Hilbert e Hilda. Il loro cognome era Krueger anzicchè Ashford.
- Claire indossa un costume simile a quello indossato nella versione beta di Resident Evil 2. I tester pensavano che fosse troppo noioso, quindi la Capcom le diede un nuovo costume. Questa è la seconda apparizione del personaggio nella serie.
- Sul retro della giacca di Claire c'è la frase: "Let me Live", che è il titolo di una canzone tratta dall'ultimo album dei Queen, "Made in Heaven". Anche in RE 2 la giacca di Claire aveva la frase "Made in Heaven", una canzone dello stesso album, sul retro.
- Questo è l'unico titolo della serie Resident Evil sviluppato esternamente dalla Nextech Corporation [1]. Comunque lo Studio di Produzione 4 della Capcom ha avuto l'assoluto controllo artistico e direzionale sul progetto.
Differenze tra le Versioni
La differenza principale tra la versione Dreamcast e la seguente versione X è l'aggiunta di nove minuti di scene tagliate, all involving Albert Wesker, that are integrated into the main game. They were added to the game due to Wesker's minimal screen presence in the original version of the game. The three new cutscenes in the game are as followed:
- A confrontation between Claire and Wesker during the first half of the game.
- An extended version of the fight scene between the mutated Alexia and Wesker.
- A longer ending featuring a fight sequence between Chris and Wesker.
Ci sono anche altre differenze tra le due versioni, ad esempio la pettinatura diversa di Steve, a different ending theme during the closing credits, slightly different result screens for Wesker and Claire in the "Battle Game" and different face shots of the characters on the game's status screen. The Japanese Dreamcast version contained most of the game's unlockable (including Battle Game with all the characters) content available from the start.
The Japanese versions of the game also contained two difficulty settings ("Easy" and "Very Easy") in addition to the default "Normal" setting. "Very Easy" started the player off with the Rocket Launcher and unlimited supply of ink ribbons.
Resident Evil Survivor 2 - Code: Veronica
- Main article: Resident Evil Survivor 2 - Code: Veronica
A light gun game released in 2001, based on Code: Veronica developed by Namco in conjunction with Capcom. Originally released for the NAOMI 2 arcade hardware, it was ported to the PlayStation 2 and released only in Japan and PAL territories. The game stars Claire and Steve in a two-player coop situation on Rockfort Island and is canonically a dream that Claire had after crashing in her plane over Antarctica, and as such has no real bearing on the series plotwise.
Wesker's Report
Bundled with the Japanese release of Complete Edition in Japan (as well as the Biohazard: Collector's Box for GameCube) and sold as a pre-order bonus with Code: Veronica X in North America, Wesker's Report is a fictional documentary which examines the events of the previous Resident Evil games from Wesker's perspective. The film reveals a few hidden plot insights from the first two games, including Wesker's unseen resurrection at the end of the original game (explaining his presence in Code: Veronica) and his allegiance with Ada Wong during the events of Resident Evil 2.
Novelization
S.D. Perry's novelization of Code: Veronica was the sixth book in her series of Resident Evil novelizations. The novelization was based on the original version of Code: Veronica and written before the X edition of the game. As a result, the added scenes where Wesker confronts Claire in front of the Palace and the final fight sequence between Chris and Wesker are not just ignored in the book, but contradicted as well; in the former case, Wesker behaves as if he'd never seen Claire before when first encounters Chris; in the latter case, Wesker is unaware that Chris and Claire escaped from the Antarctic Facility, nor does he recover Steve's body as a specimen.
The end of the novel reveals that Wesker acquired his new job at the Organization due to Trent's manipulations, similar to the revelation that Ada Wong worked for Trent in City of the Dead. This was before the release of Wesker's Report, which ironically featured a similar revelation that tied Ada with Wesker and the same Organization (see above). When seen in context with Wesker's Report and the more recent games in the series, this would lead readers to believe that Trent is also a member of the same organization (regardless of Perry's original intentions).
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