Survival horror has been a popular genre ever since Resident Evil came out for the Playstation back in the early days of Sony’s first system. It’s been wildly successful on virtually every game system it’s come out on...except the Dreamcast. Excluding Resident Evil: Code Veronica, the Dreamcast has nothing but survival horror failures available for it. Failures in the sense that the games didn’t sell well of course, not that the games themselves are bad. Which leads us to this week’s Sleeper of the Week. Today we’re looking at Carrier for the Dreamcast. You’re part of an elite antiterrorism unit sent to board the aircraft carrier Heimdal, apparently lost at sea two days from port due to a mysterious explosion. You have your choice of the standard male or female character, and the game begins with a flight to the carrier itself.
Carrier isn’t really non-standard. It’s a very typical early offering for the survival horror genre. The control is similar to Resident Evil, but you have to aim a bit more, and there are some tricks in it. In general, survival horror isn’t a fast moving genre and this is no exception. What it does very well though is set the mood. The entire game has an excellent ambiance where you feel very much like you’re in an abandoned aircraft carrier. The gameplay is challenging but not too difficult, the environments are moody and organic (as the carrier has been taken over by some sort of bizarre plant life) and then music really sets the stage for the game. For a Jaleco offering, there’s a surprising amount of quality here. I was surprised as well by how interesting the story became as the game went on. The plot isn’t deep of course, but it does manage to hold your interest quite well, and there’s just enough thrill to keep the pacing fairly stable. Carrier is a game that tries very hard to be scary without going overboard and does a fairly good job. It won’t have you on the edge of your seat, but chances are you’ll definitely have some fun.
For control, Carrier is unfortunately, similar to Resident Evil. Not the new Resident Evil 4 that we all know and love, but the clunkier old Resident Evil. Perhaps this is why the game didn’t sell so well, or perhaps it’s because it was offered up by a company such as Jaleco, who knows. But whatever the reason, the interface for Carrier is fairly awful. You’ll find yourself wanting to have a lot faster motion available to you on occasion, and you’ll wonder how a trained antiterrorist can move so amazingly like a rather stiff puppet. And on top of that…they aren’t joking about the survival part…this game is tough! Don’t expect a pushover of a game from Carrier…you’ll be struggling to survive! Aside from that however, the game is fun as hell, mixing quite surprisingly good graphics with excellent music and decent story. Slogging through the overgrown environments made me paranoid of every plant and creeper and of all sorts of doors and openings. And that’s what you want from a survival horror game…a feeling of suspense, a palpable nervousness. It’s fun to be scared, and Carrier is a decent game for it. By no means is it heart-poundingly disturbing in the way that, say, Silent Hill is, but it’ll definitely make you more than a bit creeped out!
Carrier is definitely worth a run-through if you’re a fan of the survival horror genre. At around $5-15 for a mint complete copy, you can’t really go wrong either. Not too many people bothered to buy the game at all, and a fair percentage of those that did never played it. If you can dig up a copy, pop it in the Dreamcast! You’ve played enough Chu Chu Rocket and Jet Grind Radio anyway, haven’t you?