Resident Evil is on the verge of an outbreak, and in many ways, the Capcom series always has been. These games have always been good, but one could never shake the feeling that something was going to click, supposed to click, and make it phenomenal. The original was a breakthrough title of survival horror (if not in originality, than at least in sublimation) which took an isolation motif to a running extreme, creating herb-consuming, memoir-typing, one-man armies out of people against a world that had gone corrupt, mad, dead, or worse. But for every reasonably giddy thrill felt though the sights and sounds of dogs crashing through windows or the ricochets of a zombie head off a wall, there were those tiny pinpricks of illogic, the fact that nobody seems to prefer the company of other survivors, splitting up for no real apparent reason even amidst all this dread. The big fun in zombie flicks, after all, is seeing the collective breakdown and an ultimate failure. But then along came a Thing, Computer Artworks' masterful exercise in survival horror that proved that you can fight in and manage a group without losing the sense of anxiety and adrenaline, and now it's hard to go back when we had a taste for something better and bloodier.

The newest in the RE series has the best of both of these lugubrious worlds: the high production values and the tightly knit community of survivors - and if the current build is reflective of the final product, Resident Evil: Outbreak (still a working title) will prove to be the series' breakout title.

After a fantastic FMV opening (a camera swooshes along drain pipes and through the ceilings showing scenes from Resident Evil 2, including the massacre of the Umbrella units and Birkin's mutation), the player is prompted to choose from eight characters in a character select screen, each one with his own special ability: one starts out with a firearm, another is good at mixing chemicals, one is proficient at non-firearm weapons, and so on. Maybe it's just me, but these characters seem to reflect Capcom's tendency to make creations that resemble real-life actors and singers. I wanted to pick the ersatz Tom Cruise (he starts out with a gun), but since he was already taken, I went with the posh British pretty boy (he can mix chemicals well). Other characters include a teenage girl, a journalist, a mechanic, and a train operator.

The game starts out in a bar, and who you chose affects your starting position. For example, my character was sitting on the stool having a pint while another player, who was playing as the girl, started out in the ladies' room. Everyone has about a minute to get acquainted with each other, search for items, and even barricade the door by pushing a barrel over it before the zombies break through (there will also be opportunities to board up the windows, so the classic horror staple is now in a Resident Evil game!).

I entered the restroom where I found a broom (if worse comes to worse, I can always sweep them under the rug) and a hidden first-aid spray. I was going to search for the key that would unlock the door to the stairs, but somebody already beat me to the punch: by the time I got out, I was surrounded by zombies and everybody had already fled up the stairs so I followed suit. Slowly, I might add, since it's impossible to run indoors. That seemed like an odd design choice at first, but not being able to run isn't a terrible nuisance considering the small confines of the interior rooms.

There are multiple rooms upstairs and if one isn't careful or attentive to the map, the shifting camera angles (they're still stationary and static) and the sizable cavalcade of zombies can be confusing. The rooms reveal that the game is not thrifty in windfall: first-aid kits, lighters, bottles, weapons (guns are extraordinarily rare, but brooms and steel pipes - a nice nod to Silent Hill - are in ready supply), ammunition, documents, and herbs. I picked up a steel pipe since my broom had snapped in two after keeping the seemingly endless number of zombies at bay. It was at this point I noticed an ascending percentage that occasionally appeared in the corner of the screen, prompting the player to move on; once it reaches 100%, you succumb to the virus and die. Presumably, this death will also turn you into a zombie (unfortunately, the E3 build didn't have the posthumous transformations implemented, so I couldn't tell for sure).

Out on the roof top, we were all attacked by those ravens. One person took a few too many pecks to the scalp and fell over, but wasn't quite dead yet. If a person is pulled up by another player (like I did) he can continue but he will be at a red-critical, so it'd be unwise to help up, or get help, if everyone is surrounded by monsters. I was also pretty close to death at that point and took a first aid kit from someone who was offering it to me (the action is selected from the menu and once the item is selected, the person stands with his hands extended for anyone to take it). Going through the menu itself is something of a risky proposition in an area with a lot of enemies since the game never pauses, not even in the menu or looking at the map.

Jumping over to the next building, we shimmied down the stairs and were out on the streets. An NPC police officer (I think we were all waiting for him to die since he had a shotgun) ordered us to barricade the streets by pushing some police cars and creating a barrier. Everyone was unfocused and scattered, so by the time we did get a few people to start pushing a car, the zombies had already broken through and we had to retreat further down the street. From there, we had to break down a gate by slamming it with our sides and shoulders (press the Square button repeatedly) as quickly as we could, since the zombies were rapidly approaching.

Having broken through the gate and entered an enclosed street, we saw an overturned tanker leaking gas. The police officer quickly turned into some jerky for the zombies and we were scrambling around, trying to figure out what to do next. It was a dead-end street and we had next to nothing to defend ourselves with. The Capcom representative (who I admit had been guiding me throughout the game) was kind enough to tell me that the officer's carcass had a lighter on his belt, so luring the zombies away to the other players, I ran back (picking up the shotgun first, of course), picked up the lighter, and lit the fluid on fire, which led to the grand finale cut scene where the zombies went up in flames. There was a little bit more walking after that, but no more monsters to fight, and the scenario (or, at least, that portion of the scenario) ended.

That first portion took about forty minutes to complete - not too shabby considering Outbreak will include five or six scenarios (if extra scenarios are ever made, they will most likely not be downloadable, but will come on separate discs), which will reintroduce the wide breadth of the Resident Evil players: zombies and birds as has been seen, and then those dogs and the hunters. And Tyrant will probably show up, too. To prevent stagnancy, which seems to plague a lot of online console titles, the game will branch off in different scenarios depending on what decisions are made and what paths are taken . Those without a connection can play the game offline, though I assume the scope and fun of the game would be severely limited.

Some people might also be disappointed that the game probably won't include any keyboard support and will use pre-written messages - things like "I have the key" or "I need first-aid" - but it allows the progress and focus of the game to remain in check. Plus, there will be a lobby where players can meet and join games or talk. Besides the limited communication, the biggest problem was an occasional hiccup of latency, where a zombie would stop moving for a second and then jump over a few feet, or our characters themselves would stop responding to controls for a little bit (which is strange, since I'd imagine that we would be networked for our game, if that's possible with the PlayStation 2). But I'll give the game the benefit of the doubt since this is just an E3 demo and will probably/hopefully be caulked up come early 2004, and not let that ruin my personal hype and conception that this will be one of the most bloodily addictive games, Resident Evil, online, or not.