I actually liked certain things about this game. I loved the first person perspective and wish we had had that choice in the first three games. There's nothing like seeing the monsters up close, in your face. The graphics really weren't bad, but I would have liked more things to interact with even though it was just a shooter. The music was fine. The things I hated were: The movement kind of sucked and aiming was a total pain. The story was too lame for words and too much of the same old thing with no originality. The inability to save was awful!!! Some of us do have a life and would like to save to finish the game later. I thought the weapons kind of sucked, too. This game is fun for awhile, but it's nothing like the first three and only good if you just want to shoot stuff. I'd recommend it for the novelty of playing in the first person, but that's about it. Play it at your own risk.
12 Reviews
To be taken with a grain of salt...
TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews1 October 2005
Compared to the other Resident Evil games, this has poor graphics, less scary monsters, less challenging game-play and less... well, just less. Does this mean that the game is bad? No. It just means that is less than what you'd expect from a typical Resident Evil game. And that seems to be more than enough reason to write it completely off for many RE fans, it would seem. Let me make one thing completely clear; in my life, I doubt I've spent more than a few hours of gaming time playing any of the RE games. I don't care much for them. The camera angles often work directly against you, posing more of a threat to your safety than the walking dead around you. The door opening animations break the intensity and lower the pace. The aiming is painfully and unnecessarily hard. Because of my general dislike of the RE games, I enjoyed this game. Quite a lot, actually. The story may not be terribly original(in fact, it's one of the handful or so of those stories that writers fall back on using... but hey, it did become an element of the plot in the first Resident Evil movie, so at least it made a lasting impression on Paul W.S. Anderson, and judging by how he paces his movies, he suffers from extreme ADD and believes that every young person today does as well), but it keeps the game fairly interesting. The game contains tidbits of information about the other in the series, about their time-line and the events which took place. Not awfully interesting to me, but I'm sure most RE-fans will enjoy reading them and piecing the whole story together. There's even an attempt or two at tying this game and its story into the regular RE franchise. The game-play is somewhat unique(well, not anymore... but I believe this game was the first of its kind) in combining the genres of first-person shooter and light-gun shooter. Of course, US players will have to import this game from Europe in order to use it with a light gun(something about PAL vs. NTSC coding... technical stuff, a censor thing, I think(and a fairly logical one at that, since the game does reward *firing a gun*))... but that's a small price to pay, not counting shipping. Control is highly entertaining with the light gun; you point at the screen, you shoot, you point away, you move. This is surprisingly easy to master, and you'll wonder how you ever enjoyed a shoot-em-up game without the light gun. If you don't have/don't want a light gun, the controller control is fine, too. If you hold down R1, you can fire. Release it, and you can move. Moving is as simple and easy as any other first person console game... the controller isn't really made for it, and you'll miss your keyboard and mouse(well, I did... never really got why they make first person games for consoles, anyway)... but it's fine. Sound is pretty good; from what I understand, if you use headphones, you'll be able to hear where the zombies' moaning is coming from... very cool. Graphics are fair, but not impressive compared to the other games. The game has far less emphasis on puzzle solving than shooting than the other RE games. Pretty logical, considering the first person camera and the fact that you can control it with a light gun. Not much room for adventure elements, really. It's not really about survival either, the game is incredibly easy... it's just about shooting, and finding out exactly what has happened(not that it's particularly hard to piece the "mystery" together... I had figured it out long before the main character, and, well, that's *never* a good thing in a story-driven game). The shooting isn't as entertaining as, say, the House of the Dead games, where you can actually blow the zombies apart, but it's quite good nonetheless. The freedom of movement is pretty good. The game is very easy(you can beat it on your first try without much of an effort) and pretty short. I beat it in about an hour and a half, and you can't really spend much more, there's little time spent looking for the way, and even less on figuring out puzzles. There's no in-game save feature, but it's really not necessary. The only thing you can save is how many guns you picked up. That's one of my favorite things about the game; there are plenty of different routes to go through it(and a pretty good amount of guns... all of which you can keep at all times(none of that limited inventory stuff of the regular RE games), which is good). There are three different paths to go. Each has a different piece of the story and some enemies and areas the other ones don't(though one of them is, admittedly, pretty lame). Each one has one specific gun to collect, too(I believe all the other weapons can be picked up no matter which way you choose to go, or how many times you play, as each path takes you through many of the same areas). As such, there are four main guns... one you start out with, the other three you pick up... and they all have unlimited ammo(as the only guns in the game), but each has different specs(speed, reload time, accuracy, damage done and such). Obviously, you have to beat the game at least three times, each time going a different route to get all of them. Not much replay value apart from the three routes, though. The voice acting is just... bad. The writing and dialog is painfully poor. Fair shooting game. I recommend it to fans of shooting games. Fans of Resident Evil should think twice before playing this, as it's barely even a game that belongs in the franchise. Had it been an unrelated game, it would get less negative words for it, but it would probably not have had as wide sales. 6/10
The worst Resident Evil game ever?
Nuclear-Atom13 August 2001
It's true. This is probably the worse Resident Evil/Biohazard game I've ever seen. The story isn't top notch like RE, RE CV, RE2, and RE3. It's short(you'll can beat it within an hour and obtain an A ranking) and the graphics is just terrible(think Dino Crisis' graphics in 8-bit graphics...terrible isn't it?). The replay value isn't great to Resident Evil standards and the game lacks on puzzles. The only puzzle is finding a key to open a locked door. And include the fact that the American version doesn't have the GunCon features(due to the recent school shootings) which gives Gun Survivor "the game with the worst controls ever!"
Don't waste your money on this Playstation-only game. Rent it first. Rating: 5/10 Pros: A different look to the Resident Evil world with an OK story. Cons: Terrible graphics and bad controls(unless you have the Jap or Eur version)
Don't waste your money on this Playstation-only game. Rent it first. Rating: 5/10 Pros: A different look to the Resident Evil world with an OK story. Cons: Terrible graphics and bad controls(unless you have the Jap or Eur version)
Why couldn't they have just left it alone?
Rabical-919 March 2016
Warning: Spoilers
When Raccoon City was eradicated in 'Resident Evil 3: Nemesis', you would think that Capcom would have had the good sense to stop there, with all the loose ends tied up and everything ending on a high note, but no, in 2000, 'Resident Evil: Survivor' appeared. I don't know why Capcom bothered. It was an absolute disaster, it had nothing in common with the previous games, apart from the fact that they stole every monster ( even including the alligator from 'Resident Evil 2' ) from them. The fact that they were blatantly using old monsters rather than creating new ones tells you how low they were running on ideas.
It takes place on Sheena Island. A helicopter has just crashed there and just before it bursts into flames, out falls the barely alive body of Ark Thompson, the pilot, who as a result of the crash is left with no memory of who he is or what he is doing on the island.
After bumping into a man named Andy Holland ( who is attempting to frame him as Vincent Goldman, the man responsible for bringing the T-Virus over to the island ), Ark starts to believe that everything that has gone wrong on the island is all his fault. Ark also later meets two teenage kids Lott and Lily, whose parents used to work for Umbrella Inc. He later rescues them when a self-destruct system, set off by someone at the Umbrella facility, is about to destroy the entire island. Notice a direct lift from 'Nemesis' here.
There is no thrill or suspense whatsoever. The acting is painful ( yes, even more painful than the first 'Resident Evil' game ), the storyline is lazy and banal ( basically just a messy mish-mash of ideas from the first three games ) whilst the graphics are abysmal. Two other flaws are the inability to save your progress and also the way the game is performed in first person view. It does the game absolutely no favours whatsoever.
As far as I am concerned, this was the precise moment when Capcom drove a stake right through the heart of the much loved 'Resident Evil' franchise. Despite the poor sales and reception of 'Survivor', Capcom released a sequel the following year - 'Resident Evil: Code Veronica' - which saw the return of Claire & Chris Redfield, as well as the addition of a new character, Steve Burnside. It was more successful than its predecessor but overall failed to recapture the freshness of the original games.
With more and more remakes of classic computer games appearing at random, I sincerely hope someone out there is not dim enough to engineer a revival of this damp squib.
Not worth having in your collection.
It takes place on Sheena Island. A helicopter has just crashed there and just before it bursts into flames, out falls the barely alive body of Ark Thompson, the pilot, who as a result of the crash is left with no memory of who he is or what he is doing on the island.
After bumping into a man named Andy Holland ( who is attempting to frame him as Vincent Goldman, the man responsible for bringing the T-Virus over to the island ), Ark starts to believe that everything that has gone wrong on the island is all his fault. Ark also later meets two teenage kids Lott and Lily, whose parents used to work for Umbrella Inc. He later rescues them when a self-destruct system, set off by someone at the Umbrella facility, is about to destroy the entire island. Notice a direct lift from 'Nemesis' here.
There is no thrill or suspense whatsoever. The acting is painful ( yes, even more painful than the first 'Resident Evil' game ), the storyline is lazy and banal ( basically just a messy mish-mash of ideas from the first three games ) whilst the graphics are abysmal. Two other flaws are the inability to save your progress and also the way the game is performed in first person view. It does the game absolutely no favours whatsoever.
As far as I am concerned, this was the precise moment when Capcom drove a stake right through the heart of the much loved 'Resident Evil' franchise. Despite the poor sales and reception of 'Survivor', Capcom released a sequel the following year - 'Resident Evil: Code Veronica' - which saw the return of Claire & Chris Redfield, as well as the addition of a new character, Steve Burnside. It was more successful than its predecessor but overall failed to recapture the freshness of the original games.
With more and more remakes of classic computer games appearing at random, I sincerely hope someone out there is not dim enough to engineer a revival of this damp squib.
Not worth having in your collection.
Not as bad as it's made out to be.
vlad_davidov10 April 2003
First, I'll get the cons over with:
Yes, this game likely could have benefited from either an in-game save feature, light gun support, or CG FMVs, but that's about it.
The creators did go out on a limb with this project, and the end result is actually quite unique. The idea that the main character was stricken with amnesia and unsure as to who he is or why he was there ( Later stolen by Paul Anderson for the RE movie ) wasn't a bad idea, although it didn't really take a rocket scientist to figure out that he wasn't really 'Vincent'.
Another switch from the usual characteristics of the RE series is the weapons. In most Resident Evil games, your weaponry is limited to a Beretta, a Remington shotgun, and some random .357 pistol. Now they offer you three different sidearms ( I don't really consider the Japanese weapon worth using, but oh well. ), one having average rounds per minute and reloading time ( Glock 17 ), slow RPM and fast reloading ( Beretta Cougar ), and lighting-quick RPM and slow reloading time ( Czech-75 ). Gun nuts like myself will love this game.
One of the things with the normal Resident Evil games is that you always encounter it from a third-person perspective. Therefore, you know for sure if there's some evil low-budget zombie coming up from behind you. In this game, you won't know they're behind you until they take a big chunk out of your neck ( The sudden act of it all is more surprising/frightening than it sounds ).
Likely the reason that you cannot sidestep, or run and fire at the same time, is due to the fact that you can't do either of those in other Resident Evil games either. You always had to stop where you were, aim with R1, and then give whoever stands in the way, Holy hell. Plus it reminds me of the old nostalgia games where you had to beat the game all at once, like so many memorable NES games.
All in all, Resident Evil: Survivor is definitely worthy of belonging in a Resident Evil Junkie's collection, and even worthy of the casual player. Like all firsts of a genre, it has its lacking spots, but it's great to see how it's performed. I'd say four stars out of five.
Yes, this game likely could have benefited from either an in-game save feature, light gun support, or CG FMVs, but that's about it.
The creators did go out on a limb with this project, and the end result is actually quite unique. The idea that the main character was stricken with amnesia and unsure as to who he is or why he was there ( Later stolen by Paul Anderson for the RE movie ) wasn't a bad idea, although it didn't really take a rocket scientist to figure out that he wasn't really 'Vincent'.
Another switch from the usual characteristics of the RE series is the weapons. In most Resident Evil games, your weaponry is limited to a Beretta, a Remington shotgun, and some random .357 pistol. Now they offer you three different sidearms ( I don't really consider the Japanese weapon worth using, but oh well. ), one having average rounds per minute and reloading time ( Glock 17 ), slow RPM and fast reloading ( Beretta Cougar ), and lighting-quick RPM and slow reloading time ( Czech-75 ). Gun nuts like myself will love this game.
One of the things with the normal Resident Evil games is that you always encounter it from a third-person perspective. Therefore, you know for sure if there's some evil low-budget zombie coming up from behind you. In this game, you won't know they're behind you until they take a big chunk out of your neck ( The sudden act of it all is more surprising/frightening than it sounds ).
Likely the reason that you cannot sidestep, or run and fire at the same time, is due to the fact that you can't do either of those in other Resident Evil games either. You always had to stop where you were, aim with R1, and then give whoever stands in the way, Holy hell. Plus it reminds me of the old nostalgia games where you had to beat the game all at once, like so many memorable NES games.
All in all, Resident Evil: Survivor is definitely worthy of belonging in a Resident Evil Junkie's collection, and even worthy of the casual player. Like all firsts of a genre, it has its lacking spots, but it's great to see how it's performed. I'd say four stars out of five.
Decent, not the best...
TERMINATOR18013 August 2001
This game is good for one specific reason.. the Stereo sound. It has the best Stereo sound of any videogame out there. It is frightening, hearing which sides the zombies are coming from, but also just as useful. This isn't the best of the Resident Evil series, but it is,however, a terrific First-Person-Shooter.
It's not bad 'Bad' but could've been better. Missed opportunity.
WarMovieCollector24 August 2022
---{ Pros }---
---{ Cons }---
---{ Difficulty }---
- If you're a diehard Resident Evil fan, this is a must.
- If you like Oldschool Light Gun Shooter games, this is for you.
- Extra areas to explore to keep you around for a 2nd or 3rd playthrough.
- Creepy zombie moaning
---{ Cons }---
- Story is pretty short, you can finish in 1 day.
- The writing could have been better.
---{ Difficulty }---
- Easy to learn.
"Underneath the dead exterior is an extremely well-hidden goldmine of fear."
TonyIngham6 May 2006
Warning: Spoilers
I think that i'm the only one, but i love this Video game. So what if it looks like it was spat up by a cat; The story and characters are still descent and deserving of some good comments.
Story wise, it it just as good as that of Resident Evil 2. It's just that this appears to be far more less popular than any of the other titles in the popular series by Capcom. It may be lame to practically everyone but me, but even they have to accept that it has very strong connections to various themes of Resident Evil...
In the prequel to the massively successful original video game. Resident Evil Zero, which saw the story of how Rebecca Chambers; the youngest member of the STARS Bravo team, ended up in the mansion to meet Chris Redfield in the First game. The line in the reading in the opening of Resident Evil Zero, mentions; "Sheena Island": The setting of the Survivor game.
Also, if you have the patience of around a half-hour to play through the game you will hear the protagonist; who bears an uncanny resemblance to the character of James Sunderland in Silent Hill 2, by Konami: Ark Thompson mentions that he also has a connection to the main character of Resident Evil 2, and 4. Leon Kennedy. by calling him his 'friend'. This may be off-topic, but it had to be said :)
In the opening of Resident Evil:Survivor, it boasts a good point of it's technological outlets: The sound. Which, when listened to by headphones, IS remarkably realistic and almost frightening.
All-in-all. I can't help but give this a high score, not because of pity, but because underneath the dead exterior is an extremely well-hidden goldmine of fear. Do you ever wonder why Capcom kept making the Survivor series, even the first was so unpopular?
Story wise, it it just as good as that of Resident Evil 2. It's just that this appears to be far more less popular than any of the other titles in the popular series by Capcom. It may be lame to practically everyone but me, but even they have to accept that it has very strong connections to various themes of Resident Evil...
In the prequel to the massively successful original video game. Resident Evil Zero, which saw the story of how Rebecca Chambers; the youngest member of the STARS Bravo team, ended up in the mansion to meet Chris Redfield in the First game. The line in the reading in the opening of Resident Evil Zero, mentions; "Sheena Island": The setting of the Survivor game.
Also, if you have the patience of around a half-hour to play through the game you will hear the protagonist; who bears an uncanny resemblance to the character of James Sunderland in Silent Hill 2, by Konami: Ark Thompson mentions that he also has a connection to the main character of Resident Evil 2, and 4. Leon Kennedy. by calling him his 'friend'. This may be off-topic, but it had to be said :)
In the opening of Resident Evil:Survivor, it boasts a good point of it's technological outlets: The sound. Which, when listened to by headphones, IS remarkably realistic and almost frightening.
All-in-all. I can't help but give this a high score, not because of pity, but because underneath the dead exterior is an extremely well-hidden goldmine of fear. Do you ever wonder why Capcom kept making the Survivor series, even the first was so unpopular?
An entertaining shoot`em-up
action-61 May 2000
The three first Resident Evil-games are known for their high quality graphics, gameplay, atmosphere and story. Resident Evil Survivor takes the series in a new direction. Resident Evil Survivor is a game, which marries two different genres: the first-person-shoot`em-up(like Doom or Quake) and the light-gun-shoot`em-up(like Time Crisis and Point Blank). You play in a first-person-view and you are able to go wherever you like.
Survivor consentrates mostly on shooting and little on puzzles. The story is ok, but not as gripping as in RE 1,2 or 3. But that was never the point. Survivor has scary moments and it has a well-composed soundtrack up its sleeve. A very good game, but I don`t like the fact that you have to complete the game in ONE sitting, because you are not able to save your position. This small niggle can prove to be slightly annoying. Survivor is worth the money, and I will recommend fans of the RE-series and the survival-horror genre to get this game. (Americans should get this game on import from Europe). 8/10
Survivor consentrates mostly on shooting and little on puzzles. The story is ok, but not as gripping as in RE 1,2 or 3. But that was never the point. Survivor has scary moments and it has a well-composed soundtrack up its sleeve. A very good game, but I don`t like the fact that you have to complete the game in ONE sitting, because you are not able to save your position. This small niggle can prove to be slightly annoying. Survivor is worth the money, and I will recommend fans of the RE-series and the survival-horror genre to get this game. (Americans should get this game on import from Europe). 8/10
it was alright
HomeiJ896 August 2005
Warning: Spoilers
What can i say. The story is like this you play as a man that has memory loss.he wakes up and he runs though the streets of Shenna Island killing Zombies, hunters, Dogs birds tyrants etc.What i like about it is that You find out more about Umbrella and in workers because you find out that Umbrella is not only in raccoon CIty but other places.The graphics are not so great but the graphics are not the problem The first person view really ruined it for the series and the dialog was worse than resident evil one dialog. the weapon's are standard Resident evil but you cant kill them with head shots.
Graphics4/10 Scary 5/10 Gore 8/10 stoty7/10
Graphics4/10 Scary 5/10 Gore 8/10 stoty7/10
Worst playstation game period
cheeseboy8017 February 2001
This is simply the worst game ever made for the Playstation. This game is a disgrace to all the resident evil games. Resident evil survivor is a poor attempt at a sidestory I thought it was going to be more of a house of the dead type game but It wasn't and while the freedom of movement pleased me at first I soon came to realize what a pain it actually was. This because of the impossible aiming to the ground and it's rough to get around the corners. The monsters are laughable, not a bit scary one bit. This is one joke of a game. Avoid this game at all costs.
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