Resident Evil

"The beginning of the nightmare..."

This review was written with the original version of Resident Evil in mind.

Before March of 1996, if you wanted to play a game that scared you, your best bet probably would have been \'\'Alone in the Dark.\'\' The ultra scary Silent Hill series had not seen the light of day yet, and Fatal Frame wasn\'t even a thought in gamer\'s minds. Then along came Biohazard for Playstation. Titled Resident Evil everywhere else, this first of many zombie romps redefined the action/adventure genre, and created a new one: survival horror. Finding inspiration in an old NES game entitled \'\'Sweet Home,\'\' Capcom proceeded to tell the tale of a group of soldiers/policemen who were sent to rescue their missing comrades. For weeks, strange murders had ravaged their community, and the Bravo team had been sent to check it out. However, the Bravo\'s helicopter had crash landed, and the Alphas were sent in to see what had happened. Soon after they find the missing Bravo helicopter complete with dead pilot, all hell breaks loose, and they are forced to run toward a mansion. That\'s where the fun begins...

If you continue to read my reviews for the RE games, you will find that for many of the games I mention that the music is pretty good. Well, when it comes to music, the original RE is the best out of all of them. I can still hear in my head just about all of the various music tracks that are in this game. The music seems to have a life of its own; for every room that has a music track, the particular track that is playing is absolutely perfect for the atmosphere. Some of the sound effects may sound fake (like the Beretta), but the zombie\'s screams are simply chilling, and footsteps of the main character give the whole mansion an ominous feeling. However, you can\'t mention RE1 without bringing up the voice acting. Ok, the voice acting sucks. It does. Play Metal Gear Solid, then play this game; you\'ll see. But while playing RE1 and hearing the voices, they never bother me. Do you know why? Because like the music, the voice acting adds to the atmosphere of the game. Hearing Barry Burton talk about Jill Valentine being the \'\'master of unlocking\'\' is adds almost as much atmosphere to the game as an approaching zombie does. I still say that if RE1 would have had good voice actors we wouldn\'t talk about it as much today as we do. It just adds to the B-Movie nods that you will see throughout this trek into terror. The visuals, while surpassed by later PS1 RE games, are still very good for a game that came out in 1996. The one great thing about the visuals is that the zombies look a lot like how I would have made them if I had created this game. RE1 is also the only RE game to ever use real life actors. This adds more B-Movie bliss than anything, as I swear I could act better than the people they used. \'\'No, don\'t go!\'\'

The core of this game is so good, it has been recycled over and over again since its release. As either Jill or Chris, you run around the mansion either avoiding Umbrella\'s creatures or destroying them. You collect various keys and crests along your way, along with more powerful weapons. The herb healing system, while at first sort of confusing, quickly becomes second nature, which is good, because these herbs which were originally described as \'\'plants that grow around Raccoon City\'\' have found their way on cruise ships, on a few islands, and in Antarctica. The controls also take some getting used to, but with some practice you\'ll be able to run around with ease. The only minor problems I had with RE1 was that there was no quick turnaround and the fact that you couldn\'t shoot zombies while they were getting up, but those have since been fixed in later RE\'s. The main draw of this game is the feeling that if you can somehow, someway, make it out of this mansion alive, you are accomplishing a grand feat. Not only are there zombies, dogs, snakes, and spiders after you, there are the mansion\'s own traps trying to kill you as well. One wrong move and you are dead. That is what I really love about RE1, especially my first time through the game (which seems like ages ago). All of this, along with arguably the best RE final boss of all time, make for a grand adventure that will change your view on video games.

At first, Capcom had no plans to make any sequels to Resident Evil. They were just going to release RE1 and foget about the series (thank God they changed their mind). Knowing this, Capcom knew that they would have to weave an elaborate story that not only had a great villian, characters, etc., it also had to have a reasonable conclusion. All of this mixes in perfectly to make one of the finer RE stories available. Actually, this story is so good that it spawned a series of books about the various RE games, and two of the books are even original and are not about any of the games. So yes, if you want a good story, RE1 has a great one with a few plot twists and surprises.

Simply put, Resident Evil is one of the best games of all time. Anybody who likes games should definitely hunt a version of this game down, whether it be the original PS1 version, the Director\'s Cut (which included the original version), the Saturn version (which includes a battle mode), or the PC version (that has an Uzi added to it). While the GameCube remake of this game may still be a fine game, it just can\'t match the sheer brilliance that is RE1. Capcom\'s first stab at a Resident Evil game was their best thus far.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/08/03