Gaming Memories- Resident Evil: Part I

 Hi there, my name is Steve and I love video games. I have since I was roughly 4 years old and I held a Sega Genesis controller in my hands while playing through Sonic the Hedgehog for the first time. Anyway, I have a lot of random thoughts about video games, and here will be my outlet of opinions. Enjoy!

These will probably contain spoilers, so if you’ve never played any of the Resident Evil games, go play them right now. And then come back.

Gaming Memories- Resident Evil: Part I

The Resident Evil series. What's to say about it that hasn't already been said a million times before? It's become one of the biggest franchises in modern video gaming, helped bring the survival horror genre to the mainstream, has amassed a tremendous loyal fanbase, and has spawned an endless amount of merchandise and five (I think they're up to five now) pretty bad movie adaptations. So what unique insight can I provide to this game's storied history? 

Well, probably not a whole lot. However, I can say with pride that I've been there since the very beginning, and I certainly have a lot of personal opinions regarding where the series ended up and just exactly how it got there. But let's start at the beginning. 

In 1996 I was just eight years old, and like many gamers who were riding the glory of the 16-bit era to its very end, I was ready to make the jump to bigger, better consoles. The arrival of the Nintendo 64, the Sega Saturn, and a newcomer to the gaming market in the form of the Sony Playstation were spectacles like nothing we’d ever seen before. However, in the beginning, I didn’t know a single person who owned a Playstation. All of my friends had opted for Nintendo’s next-gen console, the N64 (as did I). It seemed that just about everyone I knew had gone straight for the N64 and had either ignored the Playstation, or had not even known about it to begin with. Perhaps it was the fact that Nintendo was already a big name in the video game market, as opposed to Sony, who everyone at my age only really knew for making VCRs and TVs. Or perhaps it was simply because the Playstation was more expensive at its launch compared to the N64 ($300 as opposed to $200). Whatever the reason, it went largely unnoticed by me after its initial launch. Thus, I didn’t know much about the Playstation or any of its games when they were first released. I was too busy collecting golden puzzle pieces in Banjo-Kazooie, throwing turtle shells at my friends in Mario Kart 64, and turning into a brick wall in Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey to notice. However, it all changed for me the day I first set eyes on Resident Evil’s gameplay. 

When I was much younger, I played on a weekend soccer team and spent nearly every weekend morning at a game. If our team won the game, most of us would usually end up at a teammates’ house for a sort of after-game mini party. One particular Saturday after a game, I was at one of my teammate’s houses where he was showing off his new Playstation that he’d just gotten for his birthday, and Resident Evil was the first game I got to see showcased. I’d never heard of the game before or had any idea what it was about. Little did I know that I was about to be terrified beyond belief, and before the actual game even started at that. The brief intro scene with the man walking down a hallway as something creeps up from behind and kills him, followed by blood splattering across the screen as the title of the game comes down was burned into my mind from the very beginning. 

Now bear in mind that in 1996, many of us gamers had never seen full-motion video clarity in a video game before; we were all used to seeing 16-bit pixels.  The only time I’d ever even seen it before was in the game Sewer Shark for the Sega CD, and I would hardly count that as “clarity.” Therefore, seeing a scene such as that was very much like watching a horror movie instead of playing a game. The introduction further reinforced that idea through another FMV in which the S.T.A.R.S. team is chased by mutant killer dogs into an abandoned mansion. The transition between the opening scene and the game itself seemed to come so abruptly that you might have forgotten you were even playing a game. Suddenly, it seemed like you were IN that horror movie that you were just watching a moment ago. That alone was a horrifying concept to me, and as I watched on, I grew more and more frightened by the game’s chilling atmosphere. The images of the doors opening every time you entered another room amped up the suspense of playing; you never knew what would be lurking behind the next door. The haunting music left you with the feeling that something horrible was watching you from the shadows. And when you came across that first zombie, you had to have nerves of steel not to throw your controller away and run like hell. 

But the real moment of terror, the iconic moment of the first Resident Evil game that shocked not only me, but gamers around the world, had to be the dogs bursting through the windows for the first time. I remember watching my friend playing the game and literally jumping out of my seat when those dogs crashed through the window and attacked. He ended up dying and played through another two or three times, both with the same result. Yet, each time, I was more and more terrified, even when I knew it was coming. And this was just the very beginning of the game; I hadn’t even seen what horrors were in store for the rest of the game. My friend stopped playing after getting killed each time he tried to take on the dogs, and eventually gave up and we moved on to playing Twisted Metal instead.  It was the last I’d hear of Resident Evil for a while, but I never forgot the terrifying images I’d seen that day. 

Fast forward to 1998. In the two years since the release of the Playstation, it seemed that the world finally caught on to the charm of the new console, and many people were starting to obtain consoles of their own. One such person was my good friend Dave, whom I frequently spent many an afternoon with after school playing video games non-stop.  I remember clearly the day I went to his house and he revealed to me the newest game he’d just gotten for his Playstation: Resident Evil 2. Of course, it conjured in my mind the horrifying memory of the first game that I’d seen years ago. Yet, somehow, this new one seemed even more frightening than the first. I distinctly remember picking up the CD case and reading the back of it, which chillingly stated: “If the suspense doesn’t kill you…something else will.” Those nine words resonated with me so deeply that I was once again scared before the game even started. Dave started up the game and as soon as the opening cutscenes had ended, we were thrust into the nightmare. I watched through my own fingers covering my eyes as Dave traversed the ravaged streets of Raccoon City, fighting his way through an army of bloodthirsty zombies. When he arrived at the R.P.D. building after what seemed like an eternity, I thought maybe we had reached safety. How wrong I was.

After unlocking the doors using the key card, Dave headed to the East wing of the station, entering an innocuous-looking waiting room. It seemed harmless enough. I let my guard down a little bit, seeing as we were no longer in imminent danger of being devoured by zombies. However, as soon as he walked in front of the window next to the door leading to the adjacent room, the most disturbing and shocking moment of my memories of playing video games (besides those of Silent Hill 2, but I’ll leave that for another time) occurred: something quickly darted across the window and out of sight. It was so unexpected, so out of nowhere, and such a surprise that we just completely froze with fear. There are no music or sound cues, nothing really building up to that moment when it just…boom, hits you out of nowhere. I will always remember that brief instant as the definitive moment of the Resident Evil series, the thing that both terrified and enticed me at the same time. 

Anyone who enjoys things like rollercoaster rides, skydiving, bungee-jumping, or some other death-defying act will tell you that fear is the best kind of adrenaline rush. I agree with that sentiment, though I’m way too chicken to do any of those things. However, I love the kind of fear a game, a movie, or even a good book can produce, and I think it all stemmed from that moment with the licker and the window. I was horrified, but I had to see what would happen next and what was behind that door. I was addicted to the fear. When the licker dropped from the ceiling in the next room, we promptly shut the game off and ran screaming out of his basement. But from that moment on, I was hooked on the series.

The following Christmas I obtained my own Playstation console and proceeded to buy both the original Resident Evil and the sequel. For the first time, I braved my fears and played through each game on my own, experiencing both in their entirety. Now, the fear experience is only half of what made Resident Evil so enthralling to me; the other half was the story. The pivotal moment comes in the first game when you reach the Umbrella laboratory and watch the slideshow report that documents each B.O.W. you’ve faced off with throughout the game. Suddenly, it hits you: these aren’t just random monsters that materialized from nowhere. They were all the product of an insidious corporation’s secret experiments, and not only that, but one of your own comrades was in on it all along. That plot twist hit me like a ton of bricks and instantly made me want to learn more about the universe of Resident Evil lore (hell, I still do!). 

The first game was great in many ways and will always receive credit for being the one that started it all, but in my humble opinion, it hasn’t really aged well. The dialogue between characters is beyond laughably lame (Jill sandwich, anyone?), the controls are pretty stiff at times, and the graphics aren’t quite as nice as 2 or 3. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a wonderfully crafted game and I’d play it over an overwhelming majority of the other games in the series, but admittedly, I prefer the remake for the Gamecube over the original (more on that another time).

Resident Evil 2, however, is what I will call a masterpiece of survival horror gaming. The cheesy dialogue was gone, the horror had intensified twofold, and the storyline was even more captivating than the first. The new monsters, the weapons, the characters, it’s all just so great. And now, there were four whole unique scenarios you could play through, as opposed to the two from the first game. That to me was always such a genius concept. It’s essentially the same game, but completely different at the same time. I’ll never forget finishing Leon’s A scenario and moving on to Claire B, only to find that I was suddenly being stalked by a humungous monster that was completely absent from the first scenario, I had to figure out new puzzles and fight new bosses, and that there was a completely different ending from the first one. And many years after first playing through, I even discovered that by completing certain actions in the first scenario, you could unlock some awesome things in the second, such as the extra machine gun ammo you can collect in the lab.

I can still play through Resident Evil 2 to this day and enjoy every minute of it. And it still even manages to make me jump at certain points. Even though I know it’s coming, when the licker bursts through the 2-way mirror in the interrogation room, it ALWAYS gets me. Every time. And that, in my estimation, is the mark of a truly great game.

Stay tuned for Part II of my Resident Evil retrospective!