With eight diverse characters to choose from, each with their own unique strength (better weapon, rarely attacked, lock picker, can carry more, etc), it's possible to get a decent amount of replay value out of each scene, with different cut-scenes occurring and different objects accessible depending on who you choose. In the discarded online game, you would all work together (skill-related issues notwithstanding) and help fend off attacks while others players scouted for objects, lending them a hand in distress by swapping first aid sprays and the like, and generally sticking together to eventually get out of your current situation. From the off you're essentially trapped in a fairly closed environment and have to work out how to get to the next section while groaning creatures of the undead lurch relentlessly at you and sap your will to live. Set over five reasonably short episodes, or 'scenarios', the game has been designed from the ground up to be a co-operative multiplayer game for four players. Outbreak may share the common gameplay mechanics, such as a rough approximation of the lock/key puzzles, the same health system, and usual bugbears of limited inventory and vile control system, but it sacfrices timing, suspense and plot to just wade in with zombies that refuse to die, dull and exceptionally simple puzzles, and some of the most dim-witted buddy AI ever. The magic of the stubbornly old school RE titles is their sense of immersion, atmosphere, cunning puzzles and the gradual unravelling of a steadfastly B-movie-esque plot. We imagined the game would still play very much like all the Resident Evils we've played over the years, but it does only in the loosest sense. We've known this for a long time, of course - nearly a year in fact - but it's not until you sit down with the single-player mode that you realise what a depressing fact that is. Many felt that Outbreak, its PS2 online multiplayer Resident Evil title would prove to be a major draw for online gamers - only to find that this groundbreaking feature has been stripped out of the PAL version. Others, it would be fair to say, are merely dipping their toes into the water to see what the potential is - and one of those companies is most definitely Capcom, which has so far put out a couple of low key Xbox Live titles. Microsoft, in particular, seems to think that Halo 2's online features for Xbox will create an explosion in demand for its Live service.

For now, though, we're still scratching around waiting for the broadband installed base to creep up and for the likes of Sony and Nintendo to get their acts together before game companies really take it seriously. Online gaming, one day, will be the norm for console gamers.

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