I remember when my friend invited me over to play the new game he had just gotten.
He told me that Resident Evil 1 was one of the best games he had ever played, and I had no reason to doubt him... this was a famous game, and even if you were like me (and were living under a massive mountain), you knew what this game was, even if you had never laid eyes on it yourself. So, I was quite eager to finally play it.
But as soon my friend handed me the controller, I thought that he was playing a cruel joke on me, even having me ask him directly where "the real game" was. I just couldn't conceive that something so unintentionally funny and
awkward to control could be hailed as one of the best horror games ever made. It just made no sense at all.
Within half an hour I was sitting on another room, playing Flash games on his computer whilst he kept going at it. And by the time he had gotten Resident Evil 2 that very Christmas, I didn't even bother coming over to play it. I simply wasn't interested anymore.
But then... a year or so later came the big one itself: Resident Evil 3.
My friend didn't even try to hype me up for this one, he just sat there and put the disc in.
Right off the bat I knew that I was in for something good, as the warning about extreme gore and violence dissolved into that phenomenal intro that actually got on my nerves. Even though I was no stranger to horror games, seeing that opening scene marked the first time I was actually afraid of a game. It was no longer about cheap effects, jump scares or half-baked psychological tricks designed to make you uncomfortable. This was a genuine effort made to get your heartbeat going. And I loved it.
That intro was everything I had hoped Resident Evil 1 and 2 to be, but I knew that it couldn't possibly support the whole game by itself. I was already used to games presenting themselves as the best things ever through their genius cinematics just to fall flat later on. I was no longer the little kid who had been blown away by Oddworld: Abe's Oddisey or Tequila & Boom-Boom's opening movies just to put up with some horrendous gameplay, hoping that the games themselves would eventually live up to their excellent presentations. But Resident Evil 3 largely didn't have that problem, and it actually managed to win me over before I even got a chance to control my character through the use of an in-game cutscene that set the mood perfectly by making me watch someone giving up on life entirely and actually choosing to starve to death after the hordes had killed his daughter. It was just a little thing, but it told me that the game was going to be very much worth my time.
Those first few minutes also introduced me to what I consider to be the game's best feature: its foreboding atmosphere.
Because I was used to other games (and consoles), I truly had no idea that the original PlayStation could look this good. Even today I'm blown away by that level of detail.
The use of super quiet environments and just enough unsettling sound effects, combined with a depressing (yet beautiful) soundtrack delivered in bite-size fragments really got my nerves fried as I managed to move around the first few screens, unaware of what would come next. I was super on edge during that first hour or so, and I even managed to crack a joke to mask my tremendous fear, chanting "DISCOUNTED CLOTHES! DISCOUNTED CLOTHES!" as a group of zombies rounded a boutique during one of the first in-game cutscenes. My friend laughed, but I could tell that he was enjoying every damn second of it... after all, I had twice disrespected his favorite franchise. He was all about watching me squirm as I managed to stumble into more and more stupidly dangerous situations, failing to dodge out of the way and having zombies latch on to me like I was their damn mommy.
When I finally (and predictably) died to a f*** dog (of course), my friend took the controller and never gave it back, showing me how it was done through the use of what he liked to call his "seasoned gaming instincts", making it to Nemesis in one go and then showing me just how scary this thing truly was, pausing just long enough to let me read the many files he had managed to collect around the police station and other areas. I was already a huge world-building nerd and those helped me find an aspect of the game I truly, unconditionally liked.
I enjoyed watching my friend play the game as we commented on the action, but even from that "co-pilot" perspective I could tell that there were aspects of this whole thing that I wasn't eager to try myself. The suspense and horror were on-point, but the inventory management, ink ribbon hunting and item-combining made me want to bash my head against the wall. For a game I had so thoroughly enjoyed, I was really content with just watching... which would actually be my official stance for the entire franchise from that point onward.
Not everything was great, however. This was the first game that made consuming random hebs into a chore, which I believe deserved some kind of medal.
Given what I have just said, it will probably surprise you to know that I own several Resident Evil games... and that's because this is a franchise that just refuses to stay buried for me.
Because I have always been on a budget, I often bought consoles long after they had made their mark. That meant that I would buy them secondhand and (usually) bundled with games that the owners would throw in to get a little more money out of the whole transaction... and every single console I had bought since included a Resident Evil game, starting with the PlayStation 1 I bought from this same friend and all the way up to PlayStation 3, which included a brand-new copy of Resident Evil 6 among the many titles that came with it.
Resident Evil 3 remains the only game on the entire franchise that I managed to beat, albeit with considerable effort. The game just won me over as soon as its beautiful opening cinematic started playing and could never destroy that first impression (hard as it tried to). And every single time I felt like giving up on it, completely exhausted by the annoying puzzles it put in front of me and my very own inability to manage my resources, it would do something so spectacular as to reignite my will to keep on playing, usually in the form of a pretty great pre-rendered cutscene that made me grab my controller with enough force as to almost shatter it.
If I had the right hardware for it, I'd totally go back and give Resident Evil: Zero an honest go, because I feel like it could totally make up for (and "avenge") the pretty poor initial impression Resident Evil 1 (and the franchise as a whole) left on me. As of right now, though? I'm still having way too much of a blast thinking about the memories associated with Nemesis, and the incredibly hard time it put me through as my friend laughed at me and I kept desperately trying to find some healing items to keep the adventure going just a little longer.
Maybe one day I'll get to play Zero and finally right my first impressions of this whole franchise. I have seen a longplay of it and it looks like something I'd throughly enjoy.
Even though I don't have a lot of love for Resident Evil (either individually or as a whole), I can't stop acknowledging the fact that it offered a pretty unique experience at a time when my games were much more kid-friendly and simple. Just the fact that the intro made a ton of questions materialize in my head set this one apart in a really good way, and I'd even argue that it was the reason for which I remember it so fondly, to the point of sitting through a truly horrendous movie based on it just to experience more of the same universe (and I would watch the movie again and again too, because I like its ridiculousness way too much to scoff at it). I have also read several of the books based on the games and a tremendous percentage of its official Wiki, because this franchise is a great read and watch, too.
What about you? What are your memories and experiences with Resident Evil?
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) and Resident Evil 5. I played RE 1, 2 and 3 on PS 1 and I finished RE 2 with both characters, RE 3, Code Veronica (on a PS 2), and RE 4 (PS 2) they were Fun albait scary games. I did not finish RE 1 at the time it play it, it was to scary for me so i didn't bother to play it again. I didn't remember why i didn't finish RE 0. I got to play RE 5 on my PC, when i encounter a hords of zombies at my first play through and i was pin down in an room (it was very scary moment) and eaten by zombies, i got traumatized and never touched the game again
. Soooo that my experience playing Residents evil series. I didn't touch other RE games again because the newer games (especially the RE 8) they looked a lot scarier then RE 5.
