Resident Evil

"The start to a great franchise"

Intro: I have been a huge Resident Evil fan my whole life. I think the dark style and scary setting of the game sets an unbelievable mood for video games. I think this game really started the survival horror genre of video games. It does have a few noticeable flaws, but they do not make you want to stop playing.

Gameplay 9: The main plot is this; you are searching for fallen Bravo members. They have landed in the forest of Raccoon City. During the search your group is attacked by rabid dogs. Running for their lives, they escape into a mansion. You can play as Chris or Jill. Throughout this mansion are zombies. You are equipped with a knife and a handgun. The knife is kind of worthless, but the handgun will be your weapon of choice for most of the game. Basically, you are searching the mansion for clues, tips, pretty much anything that may uncover what is going on in Raccoon city. There are tons of other monsters too, ranging from zombie dogs to big freaky lizard monsters. The bosses are plentiful and challenging, most of them are unique. You fight a giant snake and much more. Now I'm going to tell you something that will probably decide if you try and get the game or not. There are puzzles in this game. There are A LOT of puzzles in this game. Do not put this game off because of this. Mixed in with these puzzles are tons of zombies and monsters. The puzzles are not that hard anyway. You will do a lot of backtracking, but that means more zombie killing. There are a lot of other weapons. To name a few: shotguns, magnums, and the good old rocket launcher that blows things to bits and pieces. There are many more. The only problem is this; you will be saving these weapons for bosses because ammo is scarce for these weapons. Your health meter that is implemented is awesome. When you press the status button you will be shown an item screen. It will also show a health monitor. The colors of the lines indicate your health. Green is good, yellow is medium, orange is caution, and red means you are near death. To refill your health, you must find herbs that will replenish your health. You can mix green herbs with red herbs to make a super herb. There are also blue herbs to heal your poison status. Also, in this item screen you will notice that you can only hold a certain amount of items. Weapons count as items. You must be smart with what you bring with you. All other items will go in an item box. They are scattered throughout the mansion. The item boxes are universal, so what you put in one box, you can take out in a different box. Of course, things are different on hard mode. Overall, the gameplay is solid.

Story 10: The basic premise is this; you are searching for fallen Bravo members. During the search your group is attacked. Running for their lives, they escape into a mansion. Throughout this mansion are zombies. You can play as Chris or Jill. The games story is the same, you just do things differently. You are basically trying to figure out what the hell zombies are doing here. Wesker, the commander in your army, goes missing and now you must find him too. The game has a crazy plot twist at the end that will knock your socks off.

Sound/Music 8: The music sets a mood that is supposed to scare you. I would say it does that. Most of the tunes are quiet and suspenseful. Gunshots and zombie groans all sound like they should. My only gripe is the voice acting. It is terrible with little to no emotion showed. Some of the characters lines are really pointless and annoying.
Graphics 7: I know it was early for the Playstation, but come on. Everything looks bad. The screen is blurry and you can't really tell what is going on. There is no texture or polygons on anything. It is pretty bad. The zombies look really good though.

Replayability 10: Its two games in one because there are two stories. You can play as Chris or Jill. There are a lot of modes and bonus play options. Believe me you will want to play this game twice. Playing the game with the rocket launcher is a blast.

Rent or Buy: If you can find it and are a fan of the horror genre then buy it. It will not disappoint.

Final Score: 8.3

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/16/07, Updated 06/23/08

Game Release: Resident Evil (US, 03/30/96)