X-Files Resist or Serve – PS2 – Review

That
wasn’t likely to happen though.  What was more likely to happen is that,
instead of converging storylines, they converge gameplay.  Since The X-Files
is a show and has no gameplay, the convergence of X-Files and Resident Evil
means one thing: take Resident Evil’s gameplay and leave the rest behind.

I’m not usually in favor
of Resident Evil clones, but The X-Files: Resist or Serve has a great
soundtrack.  The music is very dark, very haunting.  It’s powerful enough to
carry the game through thick and thin, just as Parasite Eve’s soundtrack did
in 1998.  Parasite Eve also had a great story, great characters, and even
though the gameplay’s cheapness induced headaches, it was very unique.

This game has none of
that.  It’s not cheap.  It’s not challenging.  The story isn’t as good as the
show or as good as The X-Files movie.  What is it then that’s compelling about
this game?  I’d tell you now but that would make the following points much
less interesting.

With Resident Evil’s
gameplay at its core, you don’t really need an explanation of the controls. 
When a deformed creature approaches, hold the "draw weapon" button, press fire
a couple times, and watch the enemy drop to the floor.  This would have been
acceptable and even exciting at times if there was something scary about the
game.  It’s rated M, which is one rating higher than the show.  But they
didn’t take that rating and expand on it any way.  The intro is somewhat
horrifying, but that’s only because no one wants to see a baby get hurt.  (A
strange explosion kills a man and a woman, leaving their baby for dead.  The
baby looks terrified as this eerie purple goo begins to surround it.)

Then you enter the game
as either Mulder or Scully.  You walk around, shoot anything that looks
dangerous, and try to unravel another X-Files mystery.  The story is
supposedly a lost episode, and could have worked really well on the show, or
could have been turned into a TV mini-series.  But the game is too slow and
boring, the graphics are sub-par, and the CG movies aren’t effective enough to
make the story work in this game.

I’ve said many times
before that graphics aren’t nearly as important as gameplay.  That’s still
true.  But The X-Files: Resist or Serve made me realize that, in the case of a
survival/horror game, where the eerie setting can enhance the gameplay,
graphics are very important.  Resident Evil wouldn’t have been scary if the
graphics were dull and washed out.  The same goes for Silent Hill.  Gamers
can’t be attached to a world that doesn’t emulate their own.  That’s the
problem with this game.  The lighting effects alone are nearly a console
generation old!  It’s the kind of thing that could have been achieved at PS2’s
launch.  The backgrounds are too grainy to be scary.  And most of the
characters look like they were made using a DDK (Dreamcast Development Kit)
and then ported to PS2.

As far as the voice
acting goes, The X-Files: Resist or Serve is fairly decent.  This isn’t the
actors’ best work, that’s for sure.  Voice-overs in games differ greatly from
those in movies due to time and budget.  For example, Pixar records their
voices no less than two years before completing a film.  That kind of planning
is not currently possible for video games, at least not with a lower-budget
title like this.  So I’ll give the actors the benefit of the doubt on this. 
We all know they’re capable of great things.

So what is it then that
makes The X-Files: Resist or Serve compelling?  The answer is any number you
can come up with times zero.  If you don’t know your math, then you’re just
going to have to play the game yourself to get the answer.

Gameplay: 5
Can you resist
the temptation…to laugh at this game?  Probably not.  It’s not every day
that a survival/horror game is released without using any scare tactics. 
Maybe that wasn’t their purpose.  But this game has Resident Evil-style
gameplay and a spooky soundtrack.  What could they have possibly been trying
to achieve?

Maybe
they wanted to make it a thriller.  That would make more sense, except for the
fact that there’s nothing thrilling about it either.

Graphics: 4
The X-Files:
Resist or Serve is ugly.  Not just the monsters – it’s okay if they’re ugly,
in a realistic and creepy sense.  Everything you see is lacking in PS2 power. 
It could have been a Dreamcast game.  If it had been released a few years ago
that’s what most people would have thought it was…

Sound: 7.5
Very good music,
so-so voice acting.  You can skip the story and avoid the voice-overs, but
that would only bring you back to the gameplay.  Is that really what you want
to do?

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
Nowhere near the
challenge of the game it borrowed all of its assets from.

Concept: 3
It’s one thing to
copy Resident Evil and improve the survival/horror genre (as done with Silent
Hill).  It’s entirely another to copy a game and butcher it.

Overall: 5
Incase you didn’t
get the message, this is not a game I would recommend for purchase.