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'The Simpsons Game' Review
by Yug

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Resident Evil - Looking Back

The Resident Evil series has been around for quite some time. It was one of the few games that could be said to have created an entire genre (Mario and Doom being the few others that also jump to mind) ...

The Resident Evil series has been around for quite some time. It was one of the few games that could be said to have created an entire genre (Mario and Doom being the few others that also jump to mind).

Apart from Mario it's also one of the most used, and most abused, series ever created, with approximately 29 different version on almost every conceivable format. PC, PS2, Gamecube, PSX, Saturn, Nintendo 64, Gameboy Colour, Dreamcast, even mobile phone and arcade versions have existed, although not necessarily in wide circulation. Oddly enough the Xbox is about the only console to have avoided the T-Virus Menace.

The story of Resident Evil started in on the Playstation in 1996. It was genesis of a new genre, dubbed "survival horror". While Resident Evil was not the first of this type (that honour going to Alone in the Dark) is was the first to truly popularize the genre. Survival Horror was a new way of thinking about games. Emphasis was placed on just SURVIVING, with atmosphere and tension placed above action. This radical change of thinking meant that surviving the game would take more than just pumping hordes of enemies full of lead. There were some genuine scares, and the tension was kept tight with a carefully woven, if uninspired, story. The town of Raccoon City has been plagued with strange attacks, and the "STARS" (Special Tactics and Rescue Squad) team has been sent in to find out what's happening. Naturally everything goes pear shaped, and you have to investigate on your own. The source of the strange happenings is the the "T-Virus", a chemical weapon developed by the shadowy Umbrella Corporation, which is capable of bringing the dead back to life. Or possibly making them dead first. It's hard to tell exactly.


Resident Evil kept the tension partially by making you a normal character, rather than some crazy marine. The protagonists were likeable and relatively normal. The tension was also maintained by ensuring that weaponry was quite limited, and ammo had to be used very carefully. This made the "guns blazing" approach very ineffectual.

Resident Evil had its flaws and its successes. As a game it succeeded, and the graphics, for the time, were cutting edge, using highly detailed pre-rendered backgrounds with a realtime character on top. The scares were there, but the voice acting was famously painful, and the story a little silly at times. The control scheme, however, was always appalling, something that was never improved on.

Resident Evil 2 kept the same cludgy control scheme and improved the graphics. It had a better laid out story, though iffy voice acting, and was a massive success on the Playstation. I personally crapped my pants twice, and I'll admit that openly.

Successive generations of Resident Evil games have come and gone, with the recently released Resident Evil 4 on the Gamecube being a new high water mark for the Resident Evil series, and for survival horror in general. And hell, probably for games.

But there have been some mistakes along the way. Like almost all the series this feature has covered, the Resident Evil games have been at their best when they were at their most pure. The standard story driven survival horror games, Resident Evil, RE2, RE: Code Veronica, RE0, RE3: Nemesis, and RE4 were in general defining games of their time, with great critical approval and strong sales. Where things went wrong was when people decided to mess with the formula.

For no explainable reason, someone decided that Resident Evil would make a good shooting game. They were very, very wrong. "Horror" style shooting games have been tried before, often with some success. Most notably Sega's House of the Dead series. The difference, and I think you'll agree it's an important one, is that House of the Dead was not a steaming pile of poo.


Other gameplay styles have been tried, including a Gameboy Colour version, which can only be described as egregious, and a Mobile phone version best summed up as execrable. Translation for Yug: Game. Bad.



The other thing that has really hurt the Resident Evil series is infinite porting. While most of ports were adequate in their own way they were often too little too late. This was not always the case. Resident Evil was translated to the Gamecube as a brand new game, and was an impressive example of how a port should be done.



Actually, aside from the porting it's interesting to note that Resident Evil made a relatively good movie. Oh, back off. You enjoyed it, and you know it. I'm not saying it was robbed at the Oscars that year. I'm just saying that it didn't make me want to gouge out my eyes to escape the pain. Like Super Mario Brother did. And Streetfighter. And Double Dragon. And Wing Commander. And Mortal Kombat. Etc.