Resident Evil

"Zombies? Anyone?"

Back then when i played this game i thought Capcom had literally burst a new genre, and now i notice this is true. Resident Evil not only has a very intriguing storyline but the graphics (polygon over pre-rendered bg's) make up to alot of stuff, and not even mentioning the stunning sound effects and the gory side of it all. Resident Evil lets you play one of two figures, Jill and Chris, the latter being a bit tougher all in all. You start off with your team going over to Raccoon City to look into a series of bizzarre murders, once there you find yourself in a very tough situation and are forced to go into a supposedly abandoned mansion, right from the beginning you can notice horror's touch within the mansion's wall, and worse yet.. you need look into it in order to find the missing Chris or Jill (depending on whom you're playing). Even from the start, zombies lurk in every corner and demonic dogs fly across windows, this is just all too good... The main basics of the game is not only survival horror but also alot of puzzle solving, you get to piece out things in order to advance or look into others for clues as to where it'll all end. A nice touch in this game is graphics, you get to see nifty backgrounds all the game long (but lacking detail, which RE2 sorts out magnificently) and really well developed polygons to represent most of the characters, items or plainly things you can move or interact with, the other nice touch is gore.. lots and lots of it, most older games couldn't incorporate this (and MK was such a hit for a couple pixels of red tint) so this is a pretty breath-taking scenario. The chilling background music and sound effects are also a nice touch up, you get to hear zombies mumbling things or plainly walking around somewhere near you... even when they take a bite out of your neck, the effects are very.. real. As to voice-overs.. well i guess most have heard about this pathetic display; over-exagerated, emotionless, etc.. anyhow, everything else makes up for it.

The one thing i did enjoy alot were the overall places you visited, you get to see a mansion, guest house, a tunnel, basement (a lab-ish one at that) and th egrand finale.. a lab. Also, there are alot of pretty kewl situations, like when entering the water flooded laband getting to see it's sharks dying off when you level it down.. it's pretty fun. Along the game you also get to interact with other members of the team, usually either to tell you something or tell you stuff as well.. it's all in the sake of not feeling all alone.

Overally, the game is really exciting.. but i didn't wanna go over it all but a handful of times, so i guess the replay value isn't as much as its great graphics or storyline.. but anyhow, i guess after all.. Resident Evil is one heck of a game you won't wanna loose grasp of.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 01/13/01