Resident Evil

"This game isn't 'evil' at all..."

Can you stop a while and think back, trying to remember how many times one single game would spawn a whole new genre and, in consequence, countless imitators? This is a very rare occasion indeed. Such was the case with Resident Evil, the first ever ‘survival horror’ game. In a way, survival horror means nothing more than an action/adventure game with horror-movie-like themes and atmosphere. But, quite frankly, nothing had played like Resident Evil before. The only game that could be counted as a similar reference is Alone in the Dark. But this game introduced enough new elements and, mainly, strong gameplay improvements, becoming an instant hit.

The story goes like this: a special team of Raccoon City’s police called S.T.A.R.S. investigates the mysterious vanishing of another team, who was investigating strange murders in the outskirts of the town. The team is attacked by strange creatures and they find themselves trapped inside a huge mansion. The player may select one of two members of this team to play as: Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine. Their story is basically the same, with a few minor changes, as they search the mansion for a way out as well as clues to what is going on in the place. Of course, before the end they will meet and fight a number of strange mutated creatures and hordes of zombie-like monsters.

The whole game takes place in the mansion area, mostly in enclosed spaces. This factor certainly adds some tension to the game, creating a claustrophobic environment. However, for a horror-themed game, Resident Evil’s mansion just isn’t terrorizing enough. It isn’t terrorizing at all. The house is too bright, too good-looking, too friendly. Apart from the music, nothing creates a real horror atmosphere, so, in a way, the first survival horror game doesn’t actually have that much horror. Instead, for most of the time, it feels more like a traditional action/adventure game.

The gameplay is what made Resident Evil such a huge success. You guide your character through the mansion with remote-control-like commands (which can be a little confusing the first time around, but become quite intuitive in no time), and you view your character through fixed, pre-determined ‘cameras’, or points of view. These ‘cameras’ are intelligently ‘placed’ throughout the house, so that, in many occasions you can’t see what’s in front of your character, heightening the tension of the game. To help with the exploring, so that you won’t get lost, you can also use maps for the different areas of the mansion.

The goal in the game is to find items and solve puzzles that will unlock new areas until the characters can get the hell out of the mansion. Most of the puzzles are well thought and interesting, even if none of them is really too hard. Apart from that, you must also kill (or at least avoid) tons of monsters, including zombies, dogs and giant spiders. There are only a few bosses in the game. Also, you will find weapons, ammo and healing herbs you can pick up to make your life easier. To complicate things a bit, no weapon has infinite ammo, so that you shouldn’t recklessly start killing every single monster in front of you.

Resident Evil isn’t at all hard. None of the puzzles is really hard and most combat situations are pretty easy, including the last boss. Also, the amount of healing items you find during the game is pretty big. However, while you can’t choose difficulty levels in this game, the character you choose determines that, in a way: playing with Jill is really easier than playing with Chris. Not only she has two more spaces in her inventory (she has eight and Chris, six), which is by itself a huge advantage, Barry, another S.T.A.R.S. member, appears many times to help her or leave items for her. Chris, however, doesn’t have anyone helping him like that, because his ‘partner’, Rebecca isn’t nearly as helpful.

The graphics could be the worst aspect of Resident Evil. Not that the in-game graphics are bad. They are actually pretty good, with realistic human characters and well designed monsters. The house’s design is also pretty impressive. What bugs me is the fact that the house is too bright and nice looking and it looks like you could live there, or spend some vacations in it, instead of inspiring fear. There’s nothing scary about it. If the original intent of the game was to be scary, it fails miserably, specially in terms of graphics. Another bad point about Resident Evil’s graphics is the option of doing the cut-scenes with live action filming, instead of computer generated animations. Needless to say, the actors are terrible and the scenes are poorly done, losing the dramatic impact they should have on the player.

In terms of sound, the game fares much better. Music is pretty scarce in the game, playing only during the most tense moments, which creates a very involving mood for the game. Also, because, for the most part, the game is silent, sound effect become essential for the game to be effective and they were pretty much well-done also. For example, sometimes you can’t see the enemy, but you can hear their steps and other noises they make (and each enemy makes a different kind of sound), so you can prepare for what’s coming. So, if there’s any mood in Resident Evil it’s due exclusively to the sound design of the game.

On the bad side of the sound department, however, there’s the voice acting. The voices in this game are among the worst I’ve seen in a game, and that’s a lot of badness! Not one character gets a decent voice and some of this game’s scenes become downright pathetic for the voice acting alone, turning something that should be dramatic into just stupid and laughable. To make matters worse, the dialogue doesn’t help at all with stupid and corny lines presented to us one after the other. In a sense, you may still have some good laughs at the ridiculous voices the characters of this game have. But, considering this is a horror game, it’s not a good thing to be laughing while playing it, specially if you’re laughing at the game itself.

Overall, Resident Evil is definitely a strong game, one that created a whole new tendency in gaming, becoming an instant classic. However, its developers hadn’t yet mastered their own creation, something they would do in the future. However, being the first and original, nothing will ever take away this game’s important and well-deserved spot in the history of gaming.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/20/03, Updated 04/20/03