Resident Evil
Machine: Playstation, and many others
Otherwise known as Biohazard, Resident Evil is one of Capcom's most commercially successful games. Even now, new versions of the original are still being converted for the likes of the Gamecube. I still don't really 'get' the appeal of Resident Evil... I understood that it was supposed to be an interactive horror film, but one of the whole points of horror films is that you, as a viewer, feel 'out of control,' but that you also know that you're going to be safe at the end of it all. Resident Evil tried to be too clever with the whole idea, with the gameplay following a simplistic die-and-learn structure. I felt that the game fell between two stools in that it was supposed to be scary yet it presented itself as an extremely tacky 1950s horror film (the corny storyline, the poor acting.) So in scenes where you were supposed to be frightened or tense maybe a character would utter a line such as, "Take this Jill, master of lock picking." That's not scary. That's just rubbish.
To make things worse the actual gameplay wasn't even particularly well thought out: the awful PSX controller made a nonsense of movement: the inability to control your character properly was not only frustrating it was also faintly ridiculous as you watched Jill, master of lock picking, continually run into walls. The fixed camera angles themselves didn't help, with the Playstation's lack of power meaning Capcom having to take clever shortcuts to make the game look as if it was using real-time 3-D graphics.
I think one of the most infamous flaws in Resident Evil was how you were dealt with when you walked from one room to another. As you walked through, the game cut to an animation of a door slowly opening. While this was happening you heard the Playstation desperately loading up the next room. After a gap of 5-10 seconds you could carry on playing. But - oh! - you didn't mean to come into this room after all. So you have to go through the whole process again, waiting while some lame animation 'built atmosphere.' It was such a massive disruption that it made the game - for me - unplayable. For shame, Capcom.
Bubbaray 21 Jun '03
If you hate Resident Evil, bin it and try:
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