[Emu]

I had a lot of fun with this game, although it has a lot of glaring problems that really brought down the experience. The AI is quirky at best; the dog is ridiculously difficult to control a lot of the time, and I ended up wasting a lot of my items because of the difficulty of aiming. I'm not too pissed about those things because they contributed some sense of realism and futility to the game, adding to the scariness of encounters.

The biggest bring-down is that so little of the story is revealed to you. It seems to me like the story was really well-developed, and that the creators were well-read in terms of alchemical lore, but so little of it was put to use. I think this is probably more due to development constraints than anything. The game overall recieved next to nothing in publicity and was overshadowed by the glorious release of RE4 a few months earlier. I had never heard of it until I ran across it mentioned briefly in a Wikipedia article.

I think this game could've been done better on the Gamecube due to the GC having more buttons that would've allowed more options with Hewie's AI. Plus, the Gamecube kicks PS2's ass anyway.

If you have a big horror collection like I do, I'd say definitely pick it up, becasue it'll probably become a collector's item in the next few years due to its relative obscurity. Otherwise, rent it, if you can find it.

I want a white german shepherd now, though. :<