The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Resident Evil

Zombie Time!

Believe it or not, but Resident Evil was the first and foremost reason I bought myself a Playstation way back when. I'd rented a Playstation before, to see what all the fuss was about, and I picked up a game called BioHazard (at that time, videostores and game shops still imported things from Japan) that I'd never heard of, and even the genre "Survival Horror", which was proudly displayed on the front of the box, didn't ring any kind of bell. But it said Capcom on the box, and pictures looked pretty, so I decided to pick it up anyway.



Needless to say, I loved every second of it, and so did the rest of the world, and so the genre became popular and everyone wanted some of the action.
And, yes, I KNOW Alone in the Dark was first, but Alone in the Dark also completely SUCKED and noone's ever played it, so Capcom rules.

Many games would follow, not only in the same franchise, but from other companies as well. Capcom showed Survival Horror was a great and entertaining genre, Silent Hill showed that it could be beautiful, haunting and intelligent, the Alone in the Dark series showed that it could do nothing but copy Capcom's versions of their own idea, and Tecmo even showed that Camera's can be goddamn scary, if I am to believe the reviews, although I have yet to play any of the Fatal Frame games.
And Nintendo showed that Fat Italian Plumbers can be cute, which is probably even more scary.

But, like any other Capcom game, it has aged considerably, and has been improved upon so many times, that the first game that started off the whole craze, is now bland and kinda dull. It's hard to believe that these graphics were EVER impressive, and these are RENDERS we are talking about, and later installments have added so many improvements that this one has become hard to play indeed.

It's hard to believe the Resident Evil series ever had to work WITHOUT Auto Aim (excluding RE4 of course, which didn't need it, because it was too goddamn good), Quick Turn and Leon Kennedy.
The lack of an Auto Aim is probably the most painful problem with this game, since the fixed camera often does not give you a good angle. In fact, more often than not, you can't even SEE the enemy, because he's not in reach of the fixed camera.
He could be right in front of your nose, but you wouldn't be able to shoot him, because you can't bloody see him!
But even if you CAN see him, it can still be hard to target. The fight with Plant 42 is one of the most atrocious examples, where you can clearly see yourself AND the huge Poisonous Piece of Lettuce, but you cannot judge your angle AT ALL, at least, not without wasting some ammo, to see where your bullets end up. And this is a battle where you have to keep moving, so you have to adjust your position EVERY time.

But you know what's worse? Bloody Goddamn Fucking HUNTERS.
These assholes have been the thorn in the eye of every RE player around the globe, since day ONE. They're really damn fast, really damn strong, can take a shitload of bullets, and in this game THERE'S NO AUTO AIM. Thanks, Capcom.



And when you're suddenly confronted with a Huge Green Clawed Monster, with a gold medal in 100 yard dashing, it doesn't really help that you don't have a Quick Turn either. Bastards. God, I'm getting angry just WRITING about them.

Also, the series' famous Magical Boxes, which allow you to store items and pick them up somewhere else, are a LOT fewer and further between in this game, than in the sequels. There's a particularly nasty part of the game, where you have to go without any kind of item management for a LONG time, constantly picking up new stuff that you NEED, NO discarding function, and a goddamn Boss Fight coming out of NOWHERE, and THEN afterwards you need your combat knife, which NO sane person EVER carries around, unless you want to waste a shitload of ammo taking cobwebs off a door.
Damn, that bit sucked.

Furthermore, there has been a Director's Cut on PSX, which is already better, because it has more stuff in it, and an arranged mode, and THEN there's the absolutely fantastic Gamecube Remake, which basically deletes any kind of need for the original, unless you can't stand those Crimson Heads, which is understandable.

And of course, this wouldn't be any kind of review of Resident Evil, if I didn't take some time to point out the absolutely brilliant Voice Acting.
Brilliant, in the "so bad it's hilariously funny" way. Really.
This game has become legendary because of its totally awful voice acting, which is really some of the worst EVER.

The actors sound like they've only ever watched crappy B-movies in their life, ITALIAN B-movies at that, but it's not like they have anything to work with either.
I mean, how do you say "You were almost a Jill Sandwich!" or "It might be handy if YOU, the MASTER of Unlocking, take it with you", without sounding like a moron?
As shown by the above quotes, Barry is by far the worst, but then, like I said, he gets the worst lines to work with.
But Jill Valentine is horrendous as well, I mean, you just have to hear it, it's really incredibly funny actually. Many of the lines in this game have become infamous quotes Nerds like me use all the time.
From lines like "NO! DON'T GO!" to "I can't figure this out AT ALL", it's a riot a minute.

Also, there are some other things that make this game stand out from the rest of the series. First of all, to my knowledge, this is the ONLY Resident Evil that got censored. The opening movie was gory and full-color in the Japanese original, whereas the gore was edited out, and it was turned into black and white, for the West. Also, during the Character introduction, Chris is seen smoking in the original, but that was replaced by a cut of him from the movie itself.
And the first CG movie, showing the first Zombie eating at someone's corpse, does not show the head being severed and rolling to the floor.

Secondly, and most interestingly, this is the ONLY Resident Evil to use ACTUAL real(ly bad) actors. The opening and ending movies are all done by real human beings (altough they might be robots, I'm not sure), which is kinda cool, cos that makes it slightly more legitimate to have the hots for Jill Valentine. She IS pretty though.



I will acknowledge this game for setting a standard, and being totally cool for its time. It "immortalized" the Undead in Video Games, and it became a staple of the genre, despite it's sluggish controls.
Every rerelease and sequel are better, but I have to give credit to the grandfather of all Survival Horror, despite the fact that it's not that much fun anymore.
A nice round 8 seems sufficient.

posted by Ingen! @ 11:22 AM