Scans: Resident Evil: Gun Survivor (PlayStation) + Review Score | Famitsu PS Issue #76 (JP) | 2/11/2000

Front Cover of Famitsu PS Issue #76

I'm a fairly big fan of old-school Resident Evil. Anyone remember that spin-off that came out for PlayStation in 2000, where you're actually controlling your character in a first-person viewpoint without any pre-rendered backgrounds? I didn't. I never cared about the spin-offs but some fans do, and its those fans I have a treat for tonight.

Issue #76 of Famitsu PS contains both a six-page strategy guide and a scored review of the critically-panned light gun shooter Resident Evil: Gun Survivor. Along with a reprinted review of Resident Evil 3 from an earlier issue of Famitsu PS, there are also other articles of Resident Evil: Code Veronica and the Nintendo 64 port of Resident Evil 2.

Tonight's focus will be Gun Survivor however and once again I do not provide translations.

So let's go over this quick. Pages 32 to 37, starting from the left at the top row to the right and following that same orientation on the middle and bottom, are just strategy guides with supplemental maps and enemies of the game.

Review Scores
(Click to enlarge)

The common format for Famitsu reviews are presented in a four-score column with four reviewers in a row providing their scores, individually. On page 39, Gun Survivor scored a 8, 6, 6, and 5, totaling 25 out of 40.

The average-level scores given by Famitsu PS' reviewers do reflect the same overall attitude toward the game at the time of it's release. It actually got a lot of venom from many publications, particularly from Game Informer who called the game one of the worst horror games ever made. Interestingly, Weekly Famitsu scored the game six points more than its PlayStation-specialized publication. How interesting indeed.

Page 39

I've never played so I didn't care much for scanning these articles at first. But I figured, I should just archive and scan all Resident Evil content from this magazine for the sake of archiving (I'd be happy to look into other games that I haven't scanned and released on my blog too).

Having just sampled a video of the game in action though, it does have that consistently dark, industrial atmosphere of Resident Evil 2 that I adore so much. Maybe I'll give it a try myself sometime.

Coming up next are scans of magazine coverage for Code Veronica, the Nintendo 64 version of Resident Evil 2, and a review of Resident Evil 3.