Where fiction collides.
Here’s another Top Ten for you.
What are your most memorable Resident Evil moments? The ones that made you take a deep breath in fear before pushing onward, or startled you despite your best intentions? Maybe they match up with mine. Head over to GameZone to take a look.
The first generation of Resident Evil helped pave the survival horror road, a genre dripping with dismembered limbs, peeling wallpaper, blood-ruined luxury carpets, and heaps of empty shotgun shells. As members of Raccoon City’s homegrown Special Tactics and Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S.), Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, and their surviving teammates escape the slobbering jaws of zombie dogs roaming the Arklay Mountains only to enter a reclusive mansion full of locked doors, instant death traps, and unsightly horrors. The original spawned numerous sequels and spin-offs, both successful and embarrassing, but the GameCube remake of the classic gem stands as one of gaming’s most well-aged, graphically gorgeous wonders. Zombies have never looked so good.
Directing their painstaking attention to finer details, the developers transform the cobwebbed nooks and crannies of the mansion/ultra super secret Umbrella lab into a decor more haunting and clever than before. The spooky atmosphere permeates throughout the mansion interior and the surrounding grounds as new puzzles replace weary ones, and undiscovered locations open their poorly oiled gates. The menus taking a hint from the later REs, maps color “unexplored” rooms, those that still harbor items or herbs, for determined perfectionists and confused stragglers alike. For unknown reasons, though, gamers are still forced to rely on their scrambled memories when determining which key goes to which random red door on their multi-story mansion map.
While the beret-wearing Jill and the slightly less muscular Chris sport a few new moves, including a 180-degree quick turn and fancy stairs running, like in the original, they approach movable objects with an overly sensitive grace. The steep difficulty curve between the initial two modes can intimidate first-timers, as well.
On the other hand, new defensive items make countering unwelcome ambushes a cinch, especially in tight hallways with lots of easily shattered windows. Even the undead receive a complimentary face-lift, bumping up the difficulty a notch or two. Various unlockables, such as costumes and different endings, boost the replay value, and savvy gamers will note the enhanced music and sound.
Although the altered puzzles and extra scares fit neatly into the original’s code of fear, most fall flat in comparison with parts left untouched. The game’s plot, for instance, has been reworked and expanded, and some of long-time fans’ favorite cheesy lines have been removed or somehow made sillier (in a bad way).
Better controls and breathtaking visuals certainly polish the original Resident Evil‘s sparkle, but the storyline, devoid of the humorous and garish flair that made the game endearing in the first place, is guaranteed to bore both veteran S.T.A.R.S. affiliates and newcomers. 9/10
We all know it happens. Sometimes a games series changes developers, and our hopes and dreams come crashing down as a result. Crash Bandicoot 2 was my first game on the PlayStation; although I had a NES before that, on which I played my sisters’ games by the binful and added a few of my own to the collection, it’s quite possible that Crash was my first true step toward my passion as a gamer.
Spyro the Dragon followed soon after that. Both series have gone down the drain, and I’ve been mourning them ever since. In a way, my article on this problem was inevitable. Head over to RadNerd to read the full scoop, but here’s a preview.
Do you suffer from uncontrollable, bleepin’ rage at something in the gaming industry? Have you smashed TVs by flinging controllers, or made your thumbs bleed with all that unrewarded determination and mad skillz you’ve been dishing out? Here at RadNerd, we feel your pain. Literally. This new ongoing feature will channel our anger in a healthy way … we hope.
There’s something eating away at the gaming industry, infecting our beloved series and turning them into warped versions of their original selves that we no longer recognize. This plague is more common than we’d like to think—a silent killer that we only detect once it strikes a game close to our hearts. “Never my favorite,” we tell ourselves. But it happens, sometimes inevitably: One games developer hangs up its hat, and another tries it on for size and thinks it looks too pimpin’ not to wear.
