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Why Everyone Hates It: By popular opinion, Resident Evil: Outbreak is a terrible implementation of a terrible idea. A multiplayer online Resident Evil with no chat interface.
Legitimate Issues With the Game: Resident Evil Outbreak can be played online, and may indeed be less than satisfying in such form, given the degree of cooperation required, and how strongly everyone is encouraged to stick together.
Why I Like It Anyway: Resident Evil Outbreak does not need any multiplayer elements to be enjoyable. As a single-player experience, it is tremendously satisfying, and honestly not the sort of game which really could be enhanced by handing control of the extra characters to other people. As such, I have never personally even attempted to play it any other way. The general obscurity of the PS2 modem may also have been a factor.
Going in, one must first understand what sets a good Resident Evil game apart from the more embarrassing entries in the series. Across the board, we have a series of action/adventure games, where the player wanders around through a series of interesting somewhat maze-like environments, solving puzzles and having to either fight or dodge past a fair number of zombies and miscellaneous other monsters. What sets the better three (1, 2, and Code: Veronica) apart from 3 and 0 is an understanding that the "survival horror" label applied by the original's marketing referenced a major strength of the gameplay. One can't simply shoot their way through the entire game, as resources and inventory space are simply too limited. Resident Evil 0 in particular missed the mark. While it featured the interesting gimmick of having two characters with different strengths and weaknesses, rather than pose extra challenge, the player was essentially just given double the inventory space, and upgraded damage on all their attacks, assuming they had the good sense to maintain control of the more combat oriented of the two.
Outbreak puts three characters in play at any given time, but remembers to balance this all out by weakening them all quite a bit. Inventory space is severely limited, just four slots per character, and there is precious little to fill it with in terms of weapons and healing items. More significantly, the characters are a fair deal more vulnerable. While the other games feature a cast of special forces types who never have to worry about becoming infected with the virus creating all these monsters. Here, it takes less effort to drop anyone's HP, and everyone must also contend with an infection gauge, constantly ticking away, and getting faster the more of a beating they take. Proper melee weapons were even added into the game, balanced by breaking after a fair number of whacks, and generally being less effective than guns in general.
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In addition to differing movement speeds and resistance to damage, each of the game's eight characters has a different item they start with and unique special skill. The security guard for example always starts with his own pistol and gets extra usage out of melee weapons, while the plumber has a tool box with which he can repair otherwise useless weapons, and create makeshift new ones by taping knives to broomsticks or lighters to cans of bug spray. Each character also has their own distinct personality when under AI control. The student whose main strength is a double sized inventory will meekly follow close behind the player, constantly on the look out for new items, while the complete loser who's special skill is to cower and hide quite regularly gets himself killed. Then of course there's the way particular characters interact with each other. While the waitress seems to have a bit of a crush on the cop, constantly sticking by him and helping him out, the plumber can't stand him, and will run off alone rather than help pull him up if he's dangling from a ledge. These interactions add a lot of charm to the game, and add some variety when replaying scenarios.
This ties into the game's real strength. Instead of a single continuous experience, it's divided into five relatively short scenarios, each roughly offering up about a third of the gameplay of a mainstream Resident Evil. The hook however is that each scenario prides itself on a large amount of optional content. The first for instance is by and large centered on fleeing an overwhelming horde of zombies. The group starts in a bar, as the city-wide zombie outbreak is first starting to reach critical mass out on the street. You can immediately get ready to make a break for the stairs in the back, or you can take the time to barricade the door, buying you more time to loot your surroundings for any items of value. A wounded NPC patron in addition to your three characters can be left to die, distracting the horde, or you can lend him your shoulder and help him limp along with you. At one point, a nail gun can be found next to a pile of wood near a narrow doorway. You can use this to quickly board up the door, again slowing the infinite supply of zombies dogging you through the area, or you can simply grab the nail gun as a new weapon. This all eventually leads up to a finale where countless zombies are spilling over a police barricade, at which point you can rush in, fight your way through, and activate a series of explosives to clear them out, or just plain turn around and run for alternate ending. A general theme of brute force or thought also tends to run through the game as a whole. Dangerous areas can sometimes be avoided by searching around for keys and passwords to unlock alternate routes. Meanwhile, the game is quite fond of offering up locked doors which can be opened either with keys, or simply by spending enough time pounding on them to eventually break them down.
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Between all these alternate solutions, optional goals, variations based on character selection, and some occasionally significant changes by difficulty level, quite a lot of milage can be gotten from any given scenario. This is then used as the basis for an extensive collection of unlockable features, including art collections, sound tests, and alternate outfits, with various things opening up based on triggering certain events, finding various random items, and amassing points scored at the end of each scenario based on your general competence.
A followup was eventually made, with the obvious title of Resident Evil: Outbreak File #2, which managed to fail in a rather novel way. In addition to allowing the player to select which AI characters accompany them in each scenario rather than each character being partnered with particular allies in each scenario, a decided effort was made to make each scenario longer, with more explorative gameplay. Under any other circumstances, this would be a clear improvement. Here though, we have a large emphasis on replaying scenarios several times, and again, a constantly decreasing timer in each scenario, counting down to the point at which you will become a zombie. Sprawling exploration does not compliment this sort of gameplay. It does however deserve some credit for including a scenario set in a zoo, centered entirely around a rampaging zombie elephant.
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Neither Outbreak game was received very well at the time, despite doing some very impressive things with the classic Resident Evil design approach, and getting right a number of concepts which earlier entries in the series struggled with. Abandoning plans for a third and fourth game in the sub-series, we were eventually given the astoundingly well received Resident Evil 4. A game which dropped the adventure elements, resource starvation, and even the zombies for a much more action-oriented experience. The result was a wonderful game, but much of the charm found in the series was lost.
Some mention is also warranted here towards the success of Left 4 Dead. Some parallels are obvious. Both were marketed as multiplayer cooperative games, where a small group of average people are attempting to escape from a city overrun with zombies. Both are divided into a number of short independent scenarios. Both allow people to play as zombies when playing online. Half-Life 2, the game on whose engine L4D runs was even released within a few months of Outbreak in the U.S. This all makes it rather odd that of the two, the game which is just a strictly linear dash from point A to point B through what feels like a hastily made mod for a first person shooter is more or less universally beloved, its fully fleshed out and surprisingly nuanced predecessor remains an obscure and unloved game.
