Quick thoughts: Resident Evil 3 for Dreamcast

So yeah, I talk about Resident Evil a lot, I know. As if my four-part essay of general thoughts on the franchise didn’t make that obvious enough. Anyway, because of that and the fact that I already talked about RE3 in there as well, this will be pretty quick- it’s more or less because I just played through it, it’s fresh on my mind and I have a few lingering thoughts I’d like to get out.

Anyway, so a few days ago I picked up Resident Evil 3: Nemesis for the Sega Dreamcast for no real reason other than I saw it for a decent price at my local retro gaming store. Since, you know, I already own it on two other mediums (PS1 and Gamecube). Nonetheless, since I had some rare downtime this weekend to relax in front of the TV, I gave it a quick playthrough. Now as I mentioned in my massive article on the series, since RE3 was one of the few games in the franchise that I didn’t play when it was brand new, I don’t quite have the sentimental connection to it that I do with the other early games in the series. That said, I do like it a lot and still consider it one of the greats in the series.

The Sega Dreamcast port of both this game and RE2 are kind of oddities of the Resident Evil universe. It made sense at the time to start bringing the franchise to the console, as the release of the console-exclusive Code: Veronica a few months earlier was met with great success. They both offer up some unique features, one of which is the utilization of the Dreamcast VMU, a sort of memory card unit that plugs right into the controller.

This is really cool for RE2, as it displays status features such as amount of remaining health and bullets, which is awesome to be able to check without bringing up the status menu as you’d have to do in any other version of the game. However, for reasons that totally elude and mystify me, they left out the remaining bullet count from the RE3 version, leaving only the health status. The health status is a nifty little novelty, but it’s kind of totally pointless due to the fact that you can tell what health status your character has at all times just by looking at them- in caution they’ll clutch their side, and in danger they’ll limp slowly. By contrast, the ammo counter is extremely helpful, especially when carrying a weapon that reloads very slowly and is much easier to reload in the menu, making it imperative to know how many shots you’ve fired. Why they’d have that in the RE2 port but then do away with it for RE3 is beyond me. The RE3 port was actually released a few months earlier than the RE2 one, which I guess might explain it, but it still doesn’t make much sense to me why they wouldn’t have that feature for the both of them.

Left: RE3, Right: RE2

Having already owned RE2 for Dreamcast and expecting that feature to be there when I bought RE3 was a bit of a downer right off the bat. Another thing that made this game a little less than enjoyable as I played through was the difficulty. I don’t know if I’ve just gotten worse with games over the years, and this game has always been the hardest of the original ones I think, but I really didn’t remember it being as hard as it was for me this time around. Granted, I was playing on hard mode, but that’s only because easy mode is too easy. I mean, they give you a huge arsenal of weapons right as you begin. I do want some challenge from a game, but not so much that I want to smash the disc with a hammer. If there were a medium difficulty I feel like I would’ve had a better time, but there’s just no in between. Though this isn’t unique to the Dreamcast version, what is unique is the fact that I also have a hard time with the Dreamcast controllers. I have pretty small hands, so those big things do not work all that well for me. They’re not impossible to play with or anything, it’s just that when the game is already giving me enough of a problem by kicking my ass with the difficulty, having even the slightest control disadvantage becomes a noticeable problem. I ended up repeatedly dying at certain points of the game I never had a problem with before on the PS1 or Gamecube versions.

One interesting, albeit strange aspect is that alternate costumes and the mercenaries mini-game are both available right from the start of the game, as opposed to being unlockable features that become available upon beating the game for the first time. It is cool to see all those extra costumes I could never unlock because, like I said before, I’ve never been all that great at this game. It’s also nice to be able to play the addicting mercenaries game right away, even if it is just as frustratingly difficult as the main game and no matter what I do I still can’t get a damn A ranking in it.

Other than that, there are not many other distinguishing features from the other two versions. The graphics are definitely better than the choppy-looking PS1 graphics, but the Gamecube version has the best of the three. In fact, I think the Gamecube version is the best overall out of the three as well. If the Dreamcast version had the bullet counter that the RE2 port had, I might be able to make a case for it, but without that feature it doesn’t stand out too much on its own. So if you’re looking to pick this game up, I’d say go for the Gamecube one for the optimal experience.

And on one final note, I finally solved that damnable water quality puzzle at the end of the game without using a strategy guide. Even though the game kicked my ass up and down, at least I can take pride in that.

My Top 10 WTF Moments in Video Games

Welcome back to the game room dear readers, and prepare to travel to the weird side today as I discuss some of the strangest, outrageous, and most ridiculous moments I've experienced while playing video games over the years. Also, I should warn that this will contain spoilers for a lot of games.

10. Doom II (PC)- John Romero’s head

So the year was 1994 and I was just having a blast slaying demons from hell in this game. In fact, much of my childhood was spent exactly this way with the granddaddy of all first-person shooters. I hadn’t even really learned the term “Easter egg” yet, but probably the first time I ever experienced one was when I was having fun playing with the no clip feature of Dooms’ cheat codes that just about everyone on the planet knew. In the last level of the game, Map 30 (the Icon of Sin, as you Doom fans should know already), upon clipping into the hole fixed to the wall that is supposed to be the final boss monster’s head, you’ll be treated to the surprise of a small hidden chamber with a bloody, impaled head on a stick. It wasn’t until much later in my life that I discovered that this was the head of John Romero, one of the head programmers of the game who had craftily snuck his own image into the level, but at the time, I had no idea as a 7 year-old playing this game. I just remember being utterly shocked and disturbed not only to find it there after a bit of random futzing around, but also that the head actually screams if you shoot at it! Might not seem like such a big deal by today’s standards, but this may have been the very first time I ever really felt taken aback by something I saw in a video game.

9. Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (Sega Genesis)- Metropolis Zone has three acts

 

Sonic 2 is one of the all time great video game sequels and probably the most well known and beloved entry in the series (I personally like Sonic & Knuckles the best, but I’m an asshole). This game is always worth a playthrough if you’re bored with other games, but unless you’re a video game wizard (which I am certainly not), be prepared to die at least a few times once you get to the later levels- especially the freakin’ Metropolis Zone. Even if you’ve gathered the 7 chaos emeralds and blasted through the previous levels as Super Sonic, this zone simply has no mercy. You’ll find yourself lost in a maze of machinery, plagued by those goddamn mantis and crab robots, and begging for just one spare ring as you traverse the level. But the worst part about this wretched level? Unlike all of the previous levels you’ve been through so far, this relentless level has THREE ACTS! In the previous seven zones, you’ve already grown accustomed to navigating two levels and facing a boss at the end of the second, but not this time! As a kid, I remember wanting to break my Genesis in half over the shock that I had barely made it through the first two levels, yet it still wasn’t over upon entering that third act for the first time.

8. Resident Evil 3 (Sony Playstation)- Nemesis follows you through rooms

 

If you’re an adamant fan of the Resident Evil series, you’ve probably played through the first three games of the franchise at least once in your life. And what was one precedent that was set in the first two games that we could always fall back on when the situation got dire? That’s right- exiting a room will allow you to escape danger. I know I certainly exploited the hell out of this in the first two games when I found myself overwhelmed with zombies and other bio-organic monstrosities. But then RE3 came along and shattered that precedent before your very eyes as you encounter the Nemesis, a horrifically powerful monster that relentlessly stalks you throughout the game. If you’re low on ammo and health, running into this guy can be the worst thing ever- but hey, no big deal, right? Just use that newly implemented 360 degree spin on the controller and hop on outta that room, he can’t get to you that way. Right? Uh….right? Wrong. As soon as the door is off screen, you’ll hear it slam open and Nemmy will be right on top of you once again. This completely threw out the previously established rules of the first two games that monsters can’t follow you through different rooms. Well, as was in my case when I first tried this…it’s time to think again about that strategy.

7. Pikmin 2 (Nintendo Gamecube) –The Water Wraith

 

What’s worse than an enemy that relentlessly stalks you from room to room? Why, an enemy that relentlessly stalks you from room to room that you can’t even fight back against! Such is the case of the horrific Water Wraith enemy in Pikmin 2, which thankfully you will only encounter once in the game in the Submerged Castle dungeon of the Perplexing Pool level. The creature, which looks like the Pillsbury doughboy if he were made out of Jell-O and riding on a concrete steamroller, unexpectedly drops in on you in the second floor of the dungeon. Try attacking it like any other enemy you’ve encountered to this point and you’ll find that it’s utterly useless- the thing can’t be hurt at all. At the final floor of the dungeon, you’ll discover that only Purple Pikmin can destroy the beast- however, since the entrance to the dungeon is underwater, you’ll only be able to enter with blue Pikmin, meaning that until you get to that last floor, you’re at this monstrosity’s mercy. Not only that, but it can instantly flatten and decimate your entire Pikmin squad in seconds and it’ll actively hunt you throughout the dungeon while emitting horrible otherworldly grunts. It even has it's own horrific theme song. The first time encountering this thing, I had no idea how to handle it. All I could do was run around in circles scrambling to figure out what the hell to do and how to escape the wrath of this monster.

6. Halo (Microsoft Xbox)- The special legendary ending

 

Admittedly, it’s not too terribly difficult to beat the original Halo on legendary anymore, after playing it and it’s sequels for over a decade now. But back in the day, some of us first-time Xbox players had quite an ordeal escaping the clutches of the legendary difficulty in one piece. I distinctly remember my friend Dave telling me he’d heard a rumor that upon beating the game on legendary, a spectacular secret awaited those who managed to make it through. Nearly every day that summer, I’d get up in the morning and race over to his house, where we’d take on the horrible legendary mode playing cooperatively, dying over and over and over again through each level (The Library, anyone?) until one by one, we eventually conquered them. Finally, when at last the final level of the game was beaten, we eagerly awaited our prize. But for all of our hard work and dedication, what did we get? A 20 second clip of Sergeant Johnson fighting over an assault rifle with an elite, only to reconcile their differences with a big ‘ol hug as the Pillar of Autumn explodes behind them. And that’s it. Our jaws were on the floor as the credits began rolling afterward. Nowadays we joke about this and always have a good laugh, so I guess it did its job at being memorable- but back then, we felt anything but rewarded after going through that hell and back.

5. Bomberman 64 (Nintendo 64)- Sirius’ betrayal and Rainbow Palace

 

I have a lot of truly fond memories of playing this game, and unless I’m mistaken and this game is more popular than I know, I feel like it’s a criminally underrated N64 classic. Back in the day I played the shit out of this game, whether it was in the story mode or doing battle with friends in the insanely fun multiplayer. However, I had quite difficulty obtaining all 100 of the golden cards that are scattered throughout the levels and are awarded by beating bosses in certain ways. In particular, I couldn’t figure out how the hell to get one of them in particular in the 2^nd stage boss of Black Fortress, the final world of the game. I stuck with it though and one day was finally rewarded by obtaining it, at which point I promptly headed to the final boss to see if there was any extra reward. However, what I completely didn’t expect was that upon beating the game with all 100 golden cards, you’ll be betrayed by Sirius, a character who’d been previously helping you throughout the game. And not only that, but to my utter shock, the game wasn’t over yet and a secret 6^th world awaited! By this point I’d been playing the game for a very long time and was so completely stunned to find that there was more to it than I knew. And not just more, but a very surreal and dream-like world with extremely difficult puzzles to solve (and a very creepy 2^nd level boss, I might add).

4. Earthworm Jim 2 (Sega Genesis/SNES)- Jim Is Now A Blind Cave Salamander!

Earthworm Jim and its equally wacky sequel are easily some of most outlandishly creative and fantastically weird games ever conceived. I mean, as if the premise of an earthworm running around inside of an alien suit chasing an intergalactic alien crow across the galaxy wasn’t crazy enough, the second game will have you fighting a giant unicycle-riding maggot, bouncing puppies off of a giant marshmallow, and being attacked by a salt shaker through a level made entirely of food. But the most bizarre level of the game has to be the aptly-titled “Jim Is Now a Blind Cave Salamander!”, also known as “Villi People.” After 3 levels of playing as Jim, you’re now transformed into a salamander carrying a gun, swimming through what appears to be intestines (intestinal villi are tiny buds that line the walls of the small intestine and aid in digestion) while shooting at sheep, dodging bumpers and pencils sticking out of the wall, and collecting worms (more on that in a moment). Oh, and Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata is playing as the level music. There’s also what appears to be a tiled floor and windows looking out on the world. What drugs were they on when they made this? This level actually disturbed the hell out of me when I was kid. These days I love how spectacularly nonsensical it all is, but something about the surreal and strange nature just really weirded me out when I was younger. Oh, and remember those worms I mentioned before? At the end of the level you’ll suddenly find yourself in a gameshow out of nowhere, where you can exchange the worms for chances to answer questions and win prizes. And by the way, the questions make no sense whatsoever and it’s fantastic.

3. Silent Hill 2 (Sony Playstation 2)- Two Pyramid Heads

I’ve been talking a lot about relentlessly stalking enemies, haven’t I? Well good old Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2 pretty well fits the bill in that category. The hulking, knife-wielding monster periodically materializes from the darkness and attacks you, and I was certainly one of those gamers terrified at the mere mention of his name. However, nothing on Earth could prepare me for the penultimate confrontation of the game, in which you’ll do battle with not one, but two Pyramid Heads. Admittedly, the first time I played this game I wasn’t too well-versed in subtext (or psychopathology for that matter, which I am now) and at that point in the game, I had no idea what the hell was even happening in the story anymore. I understand the reasoning now and it certainly makes sense within the lore of the game, but at the time I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it, so walking into that room and seeing two of those evil bastards just completely blew my mind. As if one of them chasing me around wasn’t bad enough, here was a second one out of nowhere. And worst of all, I had to fight them both at the same time.

2. Pokémon Red & Blue (Nintendo Gameboy)- Encountering MissingNo for the first time

MissingNo is probably the most well-publicized video game glitch of all time and probably the one that spawned the most schoolyard urban legends and myths of any video game I ever played. I remember constantly hearing about it and the subsequent infinite item glitch that can be triggered by spawning the strange mess of pixels, so I certainly knew what to expect after hearing all of the rumors and fantastic stories. However, I was still totally blown away the first time I ever encountered the garbled mess of a sprite for myself on the side of Cinnabar Island. Even stranger was what happened if you decided to catch and use the glitched-out mess in a battle, where it could spawn even further glitches and devolve your game into a complete mess. 

1. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty (Sony Playstation 2)– Colonel Campbell was actually GW

Was I just talking about how the plot of Silent Hill 2 confused me? Weh-heh-hell…let me tell you about the utter insanity that is Metal Gear Solid 2. The game begins just the way you’d expect it to be as you take control of Solid Snake and resume the usual tactical stealth antics. However, as the Tanker chapter ends, the game pulls a complete 180 and drops you in control of a new character named Raiden, who’s pretty much the antithesis of Snake. Nonetheless, you progress from this point forward as Raiden, who’s being aided by a familiar face: Colonel Campbell, who assisted Snake all throughout the first game. As you move forward through the game completing objectives, something seems oddly familiar about everything you’re doing. And then they hit you with a bombshell: the entire mission you’ve been a part of is a complete fabrication, designed to exactly emulate the events of the first game. And if that weren’t enough, when you find yourself inside of a massive war machine called Arsenal Gear, it’s discovered that Colonel Campbell was actually just an AI program, a complete façade designed to fool you the entire time. And not only that, but after a virus is uploaded to destroy the system core, the AI starts going haywire and Campbell starts repeatedly calling and babbling on about utter nonsense. As if everything in the game hadn’t been outrageous enough up to this point, I was really ready to just put my controller down and quit video games forever once the Colonel started calling and talking about purple stuffed worms in flap-jaw space.

Gaming Memories- Resident Evil: Part II

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 II

So by the time I had thoroughly played through Resident Evil 2 many times, Resident Evil 3 had already come out. It was also around this time that my interest in the series had faded a bit. Though I did love the hell out of 2, I had started playing more games on the N64 and lost track of the Resident Evil series for a while. I did play 3 eventually, but I must admit that it’s never quite been my favorite of the series. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still one of the best- however, I just don’t quite have the emotional connection to it that I have to 1 or 2.

Looking back, I do wish I would have had a chance to play it back in the day, because Resident Evil 3 is definitely one of the classics right along with the first and second. There were so many new elements mixed into one- the gunpowder mixing, the different choices to make, and of course, the horrific Nemesis stalking you throughout the entire game. Also, there’s the addicting mercenaries mini-game at the end that just adds to the replayability. I wish I had more to say about this game, but the truth of the matter is, as I mentioned, that I just lack that certain special spark I get when playing through 1 or 2 when I play through Nemesis. And God help me, I still cannot figure out that water quality puzzle at the end of the game without a walkthrough. 

So, over the course of time while I was busy enjoying the many games of the N64, two new Resident Evil games hit the scene: Survivor and Code:Veronica. I’ll get to Code:Veronica in a bit, but first let me discuss Survivor.

When Survivor arrived, I remember it seeming like a really big deal. A Resident Evil game in a first person perspective? No way! It had also been around two years since I last played a game from the series, so I decided to rent it from the local Blockbuster to give it a shot.

Well..like many others, I was a bit disappointed. For one thing, I beat the game in one sitting and never looked back, as opposed to the many, many hours I poured into playing the others. Another thing I wondered was- what happened to Leon, and Claire, and Jill, and Chris, and all the others? It just didn’t feel like it advanced the story at all. Sure, there’s reference to some characters and events, and I did like those tie-ins, but nothing really felt connected to the primary core of the series. Without Survivor, nothing really changed (and, by the way, how surprised was I when they actually referenced the events of Survivor in the intro of Resident Evil 0…it was like, wow! That game IS canon!).

And for the actual gameplay, it just didn’t seem like Resident Evil translated very well to the first-person perspective, certainly not the way that games like Doom or Goldeneye did. In Sum, Survivor sort of felt like an experiment to change up the series that didn’t end up panning out, perhaps for the better.

Survivor was an interesting idea and the first attempt at something different in the series, but it just didn't work too well.

Code:Veronica, on the other hand, certainly did feel like the next in line of the series and the true sequel to 3 (I actually wondered back in the day why they didn’t just call it 4). I remember reading about it in magazines and on the internet and wishing I could play it for myself. The only problem- it was on this strange new console called the Sega Dreamcast, which I didn’t own at the time. I ended up having to wait 2 years until I finally got my hands on a Playstation 2 console instead, after which I promptly bought Code: Veronica X. And I was certainly not disappointed.

Code:Veronica is definitely one of my favorites of the entire series. It combines elements of all three original games into one massive experience. It was the first game of the series to make the jump to 128-bit graphics, and it sure as hell looked like it. The updated graphics just better served to, once again, scare the buh-jeezus out of me. Especially memorable was the torture chamber inside of the infirmary. I remember always dreading having to go into that building. I mean, just listen to the music!

This part of the game always disturbed the hell out of me.

Now that is just purely unsettling. And that’s what this game did very, very well- it builds a lot of ambience through the scenery and music. And it changes up quite a bit- one minute you’re in a dank, decrepit prison, and the next you’re in an aristocratic palace. The new monsters are great too- I especially loved the newly-designed tyrant you do battle with in the cargo bay of an airplane. It was also a reunion of sorts with characters we’d grown to love from the first two games. In the first half, you take control of Claire from Resident Evil 2 as she searches for an escape off of a zombie-infested island. After she escapes, Act II begins and you take control of her brother Chris from the first game, who’s hot on the trail of his lost sister and must now track her down. It was just great to take control of these two again, even if you have to deal with some, ahem, questionable voice acting from the supporting characters of Steve and Alfred along the way. And when they finally reunite during the climax, it just felt so satisfying.  I mean, Claire had been searching for Chris since the second game after all!

In all, I just love Code: Veronica from start to finish, and I think I would rank it at #2 of my favorites out of the entire series. So what is #1? Well, funny you should ask, because that’s just where we’re headed next.

It’s Resident Evil: Gaiden, of course! No, I’m kidding, but I actually did own this game when it was brand new, and I did play through the whole thing. It’s actually not as terrible as some people might make it out to be, and it certainly is unique, but it played more like a weird fan-fiction than an actual Resident Evil game. Still worth a mention, at least. Anywho…

Some time after I obtained my PS2 and played the hell out of Code: Veronica, my younger sister got a Gamecube for her birthday. At first she mostly hoarded it to herself, but eventually I stepped in and played quite a few games on it myself. And just around this time, the remake of the original Resident Evil came out. I was very interested in just how much they reworked the game, but it took me a long time to actually acquire my own copy. I actually rented it briefly before purchasing it, but I didn’t get very far into the game. But when I did eventually buy it…hooooo-lee shit. 

I went in expecting a mere graphical upgrade, but was utterly shocked to find that the entire game was overhauled. The core of the original was still there at the heart of it all, but the new features overshadowed everything and entirely changed the rules of the game. There were new rooms, new items, new gameplay mechanics, new puzzles, and a horrific new enemy in the form of crimson heads. The first time I killed a zombie, I was quite surprised to find it still laying there when I re-entered the same room after I had exited it. I remember thinking to myself “wow, that’s cool, the bodies don’t disappear when you leave.” I just thought it was a new layer of realism added to the game. 

Oh, how wrong I was. For when that same zombie later sprang up and violently chased after me, I screamed my head off and ran for my life. These new monsters completely threw a wrench in my concept of the remake and forced me to adapt and change my strategies for traversing the game. And that wasn’t all. For every puzzle that I thought I mastered from the first game came a new twist. For every spot where I thought I knew exactly what item I'd obtain, a new item had sprung up in its place. And for many doors that I thought led to familiar places, I found entirely new areas lying in wait. 

All of the areas that might have offered a quick mundane scare were now tension-filled adrenaline rushes of fear. Case and point- the aqua ring basement of the guardhouse. What had once been a square room filled with water and easily escapable mutant sharks that can barely even be seen in the first game was now a massive flooded aquatic laboratory straight out Deep Blue Sea (which is really what it made me think of the first time I played through, they were only three years apart after all). You immediately find yourself flanked by two sharks and naturally will try to fight them off. But if you stick around shooting at the little guys for too long…oh my God. Rumbling up from the flooded depths comes the big mother, a massive shark that made Jaws look like a goldfish. And if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time…bam, you’re sharkfood. My first time playing through, I ran in absolute terror from the mutant sharks (I know, running in terror is the repeating theme here), only to discover that I hadn’t found the control room key yet and I would have to trek back through the shark infested waters. 

Then, if that weren’t bad enough, you still have to deal with a puzzle in which you must operate the emergency drainage system while the big guy is trying to smash his way through a window two feet from your face (once again, a scene right out of Deep Blue Sea). And if THAT weren’t bad enough, once you drain the water and triumphantly emerge into the once flooded room thinking that you’ll get to laugh at the sharks pathetically flopping around on the floor like in the first game, you’ll find that the big guy is STILL submerged in a pool of water deep enough to keep it alive, and you have to WALK RIGHT PAST THE GODDAMN THING TO GET A KEY. Holy shit. If you weren’t clutching your controller so tight it nearly broke the first time you had to walk past the monster, you had nerves of total steel. From there, you get to safely electrocute the monster after it once again tries to chomp your head off, but afterward you STILL must walk past its fried corpse to pick up the key. Even though it was dead, I would still always leave the room and return so that when I came back, its corpse would be gone. You know, just in case. So, to reiterate, what was once a quick little trip in the first game was now an epic struggle to survive against giant mutated T-Virus sharks.

Come on, you can't just walk past a gigantic mutant shark without pissing your pants a little.

By the time I got to play the remake, it had been over 5 years since I played the original, and I wasn’t quite as easily scared by video games anymore. But this game quickly brought back that feeling of terror I had all those years ago when I played the original. Every moment of horror had greatly increased in intensity. All of the things that hindered the first game were gone. The cheesy dialogue, the stiff controls, the overall campiness, it had been completely erased. It was the closest you could get to playing an entirely new game without actually playing a new game, so to speak. 

To this day, this is definitely my favorite game of the series, and one of my overall favorite video games of all time. I can play it any day of the week and still enjoy it. I actually did just recently, after I had picked up the Japanese version for no real reason other than to say I own it. And I must say, this is a truly beautiful game graphically. Even after thirteen years, this game still blows me away with how good it looks at all points. And I’m not talking about the recent HD version for the new gen. consoles either- I’m talking about the bonafide original Gamecube edition. I just think about other games of the same era and how far they were from the level of depth this game achieved graphically. Every room in the game had a new look to it, from the dimly-lit halls of the mansion to the vegetation-filled rooms of the guardhouse to the dank, concrete passages of the laboratory, and every scene from every camera angle is just exquisite to look at.

I recently bought the Japanese version, Biohazard, for the Gamecube just because I love this game so much.

So this, to me, is the perfect Resident Evil game. I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed that Capcom will give the same loving treatment to the remake Resident Evil 2, which was just recently announced. Only time will tell. Anyway, maybe it’s because this game was just so hard to top in my mind, but it seemed to me that the games following the remake were the point in the franchise where things started to go downhill. So check back soon for Part III, where I’ll delve into the turning point and some of the more recent games of the series in my continuing Resident Evil retrospective.