Retro|Spective 021R: Resident Evil

[Neon Ignition]

We move on but continue flirting with danger in the survival horror arena with arguably the crown bearer of the genre.

Resident Evil
"You were almost a Jill Sandwich"


Game 01 - Resident Evil
The members of S.T.A.R.S crash land their chopper in the woods and scramble their way to a nearby mansion, not knowing the horrors that reside inside. Beginning life as a SNES project, the game eventually made its way initially to PS1 following the template that Alone in the Dark has laid out with fixes backgrounds and polygon characters moving on screen. It was a successful beyond Capcom's dreams and received multiple ports and a remixed Director's Cut edition. One of the most acclaimed games ever made, it would go on to spawn a long run of subsequent imitators and follow ups.







Were you won over by your first step into horror?

[Dogg Thang]

The original RE is a stone cold classic. The aiming was so tough until the director’s cut though. But even the original game is superb and a defining game of that era. The intro was wonderful using FMV, then the early parts of the game were a real treat with more atmosphere than was ever really possible before this generation of gaming. Yes, the dialogue was pretty terrible and the story wasn’t exactly top notch but it all worked. Every time it risked becoming a bit too familiar, it threw something else into the mix. Giant spiders, the hunters and so on. And it was a pretty meaty game - there is quite a journey through it. I find it really rewarding. A classic for all the right reasons.

[Atticus]

Resi was so huge during those early 32-bit years. This introduction to the world of Resident Evil set out its stall from the get-go and at the time was a horror film fan's dream. It was harder than I expected and the controls didn't help at times, but like the anxiety of resource management it all added to the tension. I never played the Director's Cut so missed out on the tweaks but I did try the REmake on the Cube and found it much harder than I remembered.

[nakamura]

Yes Resi 1 is an all time classic as Dogg explained.

[Colin]

On release it was definitely one of those games that really showed gaming had taken another big step visually. Will never forget cacking myself playing it in the dark for the first time and that ****ing dog jumped through the window.

[Dogg Thang]

Yep, that dog. And one of the nice things about the directors cut was how they played a little with things like that. Nothing big, just throwing in some surprises for those who played the original.

[Neon Ignition]

It wasn't too long before Resi that I'd played Alone in the Dark so the praise at first felt a little annoying AITD was much less well presented but it felt like everyone treated Resi like it had invented the genre rather than copied what had gone before. I had a few attempts at it with mixed results so it was some time later that I ended up appreciating the game more.

[Dogg Thang]

It wasn't too long before Resi that I'd played Alone in the Dark so the praise at first felt a little annoying AITD was much less well presented but it felt like everyone treated Resi like it had invented the genre rather than copied what had gone before. I had a few attempts at it with mixed results so it was some time later that I ended up appreciating the game more.

Yep. I liken this to Wolfenstein and Doom though. Doom may not have been first but it did it in such a fantastic way that it was the one that was genre-defining.

[QualityChimp]

Resident Evil was an amazing game.
It's hard to remember how pioneering it was at the time, feeling like a real radical departure from anything before it.
Genuinely tense and scary, despite the hammy dialogue. That first zombie, the dogs, the lickers - argh!
I would say the control system added to the pain as you'd often be stuck behind scenery or trying to manoeuvre your character away from enemies like Austin Powers in that tunnel.

I also loved how replay meant that you got rewarded too.
The best section upon replay was the labs as there was more zeds to blast and you were tooled-up by then.
I did it under a certain time and was rewarded with the key to a room previously unavailable which contained the Commando quad-barrelled rocket launcher.
Definitely changed the odds in your favour and I relished the opportunity to exact revenge on them licking basts that caned me before. I recently played the RE2 remake and got all the special weapons in the sale that you'd normally get as a reward for fast completion of all the scenarios, but I made sure to not use them until the second run through as I knew the tension of sparse ammo is what made the game so thrilling.


The dialogue was awful, but so memorable because of that.
"You, the master of lockpicking" and "What is this?! Some kind of MANSION?!" are my faves.

A great memory I have of the game was a bunch of us watching one mate playing it and all screaming at the TV as he failed terribly from getting chomped by that first zombie.

[Neon Ignition]

Game 02 - Resident Evil 2
Two years later Capcom returned with a sequel that moved the action from the secluded mansion to the streets of Raccoon City itself. Like the original game, the sequel offered two characters to select from with their own stories but this time on separate discs as they scaled the game up. It's two months after the first games events and the undead surge up through the streets in the final title after the developers scrapped their initial attempt two thirds of the way in and miraculously managed to turn the final game around whilst keeping within the tight release window. A while into the game the action moves to the local police station to recreate a more familiar setting to suit the convoluted puzzles the original had become known for. The game was a massive success and saw ports to many formats including the Nintendo 64 despite the limited storage the cartridges had.








Did you prefer RE2 to the original?

[Dogg Thang]

RE2 is absolutely superb. The one big criticism could be that it is essentially a retread of the same game. Yes, it starts outside and it's all remade but as soon as you get to the police station and it's actually another mansion, the journey is so similar leading through that to the labs and the countdown and rocket launcher and so on. I don't think that was much of a problem in the game though - it's more that it caused repetition to set in later.

So yes, the game largely follows the same template and it builds on it all the way through. Some of the sequences are incredible. The addition of some enemies, such as the Lickers, helped to drop in some surprises and there were some cool boss sections too - I think everyone remembers the giant crocodile.

And I think it did so much more with the two characters than the original did, offering a new journey through the game and really rewarding playing through as both characters. And the introduction of Mr X would of course lead to Nemesis in RE3.

It's a great game. Very similar to the original but great nonetheless.

[QualityChimp]

Remember the George A. Romero trailer?
Would have loved a full movie!

[QualityChimp]

OK, so when I was at uni, there was a guy who always had these dodgy discs and he claimed he had a Resident Evil 2 demo where it said "Let's blast some zombies" and they burst into the room.
Problem is, this guy was a total bull****ter, the type to claim he was playing Sonic on his N64.

So, I know there was a totally scrapped version that eventually was replaced by the game we've all loved, but to this day, I'm unsure if the demo that Billy Bull****ter played was a real thing, or just one of those things some people said to gain currency with people, but by the time you're at uni, you're starting to get wise to that kind of playground mentality.

How the never released Resident Evil 1.5 survived 22 years to appear in Resident Evil 2 Remake

[QualityChimp]

As for the final game, I really loved it, but didn't play it straight away and had to live vicariously through reviews and my friend who was playing it.

I really liked the idea that you could leave stuff on the first play through, so that the second character could use it. "Scratch" system?

The opening section was particularly tense, with loads of zombies around, but not enough ammo to take them all down, so you were trying to dodge around them to get to the gunshop with the a-hole who won't let you in. That's why the solace of the police station was so great once you finally get there.

The soundtrack was brilliant too - something I thought the remake lacked (though, wasn't it included in the SE or you could buy it?). I didn't realise I'd miss it so much.

It's still hilarious that this police station was built with all these cryptic riddles awl o'er the shop.

[Neon Ignition]

I hugely preferred Resi 2 to the first game though definitely the repeated structure does get in its way somewhat. It's overused throughout the series, that naff countdown sequence at the end too, which retrospectively kind of takes the heat off Resi 2. I remember wishing at the time that the police section had been more concise but I suppose part of the issue was factoring Mr X as well in a way that made sense and worked so pushing it into a contained space covered that and playing into what made Resi 1 work