Carrier for Dreamcast Review

The Story

Sometime in the future, North America and South America are in a terrorism war. The South is relentless on the North, so the North builds the Heimdal, a super-cruiser battleship to eliminate the Southern Cross’s main base of operations. But something sinister is at work on that ship...

The South bombs the Heimdal and lets loose ARK, an ancient organism bred for the extinction of humanity. It attaches itself to hosts and turns them into slobbering, sluggish monster that only want to spread the word... and the disease. Can you say Zombies? You play a member of an elite force sent into investigate the ship after receiving no communications for some time.

The Gameplay

Carrier is survival horror akin to Resident Evil. So akin, in fact, you’ll notice a lot of similarities. You goal is to traverse the ship to find out what’s going on with all the zombies. In your travels, you’ll meet secondary characters that might have been bitten by the bug, so you’ll probably have to shoot them. You’ll also discover ‘research papers’ left behind by a doctor revealing the timeline of the experimenting. Hmmm... Resident Evil anyone?

You do a lot of backtracking in order to find keys that unlock doors you discovered a while ago. Resident Evil? You are able to play two characters. Okay, you have to be getting the glue right about now.

The Graphics

Even the graphics resemble Resident Evil, and in a good way. Character models are funny to look at, but the rest is fine. The backgrounds are smooth and dark. You go down long terrifying hallways and turns corners not know what to expect. I’d say the graphics are a little better than the first generation of PlayStation games. I think the Dreamcast can push better, but the graphics found here are good.

The Controls

The controls run just a tad better than Resident Evil. The main difference is that there is a lock button for your gun. You can aim it high and low and a target indicator lets you know if you aiming at the head or the heart of anywhere if you’re aiming below. The targeting systems gets a little muddled if you shooting at something that’s crawling at you, but for the most part you’ll kill zombies much better and faster using Carrier’s system.

The Sound

This section is by far the most deplorable. The voice acting is terrible and mostly due to the fact the animators kept the mouths moving long after the line is spoken. But still, the lines sounded like they were delivered tongue-in-cheek and I know Jaleco wanted this to be a serious contender to RE. All it managed to be was a copycat in sound, especially dialogue.

Thompson’s Two Cents

The only reason you may buy this game is you are desperate for a survival horror game on the Dreamcast. Stick with Resident Evil: Code Veronica or Resident Evil 2 on the Dreamcast and you’ll be fine. While I found the controls okay and the graphics okay, that’s not enough to warrant an outright purchase. I’d rather inject myself with the same zombie-making organism than play this game.