Resident Evil Retrospective: Part 1

NOTE: There will be SPOILERS throughout.

When I was 6 or so I had a Sega Megadrive (Genesis for you guys State-side.)  I played it a fair amount, mainly Sonic 2 and the original Streets of Rage, but never really expanding my horizons beyond those games.  A few years went by and all of a sudden this new-fangled device was all the rage…the Playstation.  I was 9, it was 1998 and on my birthday I received that beautiful grey brick.  Excitement wasn’t the word.  Two games came with the system, Tekken 3 and Medievil.  I quickly realised I didn’t like fighters and proceeded to never touch Tekken 3 again, but Medievil was AWESOME, but we’re not here to talk about that.

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“What is this?”

I’m not sure exactly when, but it must have been early 1999 that I got my hands on a copy of Resident Evil purely by accident.  I’d never heard of it and knew only what was listed on the back of the box.  Upon putting the disk in for a spin I was greeted to that infamous title screen, “RESIDENT EVIL!” followed by a live action cut scene…this blew my mind.  Today it’d just feel weird, but then? Holy crap this game had an actual story, regardless of how absurd it ended up as the game progressed.  Yeah okay, it’s easy to laugh at the voice acting now, but at the time and at my age it seemed perfectly fine and I instantly fell in love with the characters, especially Barry cause he’s a total bad ass.

“I hope it’s not Chris’ blood!”

So I’m playing the game.  I chose Jill as my character (turned out to be a wise move as Chris’ story is harder,) and went about learning the controls, checking out the inventory screen and no doubt pressing X at every painting on the walls just out of curiosity.  From there I met my first zombie, discovered Captain Wesker was missing and decided to split up with Barry to search the mansion.  The real fun begins.  Within 5 minutes you encounter the infamous dog hallway…yeah, you know it;  zombie dogs come crashing through the window, ensuring that every gamer craps their pants.  Somehow I survived the ordeal and made it beyond, getting to my first save room (oh how I love finding a save room,) discovering my first super weapon (hell yeah! A bazooka,) and even tackling a boss fight (ARRGGHH! A giant snake!)

“You were almost a Jill-sandwich!”

I remember not long after the first save room thinking, “I wonder when this level ends.”  Never did I think that the game wasn’t split up into chunks, which looking back on added immensely to the immersion factor;  one giant continuous story with no interruptions, just the occasional typewriter to save progress in case of a sudden death.  It wouldn’t be long till I found my first files in the game too; documents and diaries left behind by the unfortunate souls now staggering the hallways of the doomed Spencer mansion.  One of the first that you find is the diary of a researcher who writes about his own transformation into the living dead; his prose gradually makes less sense and begins to simple repeat the words “itchy,” and “tasty,” over and over.  These little slices of mythology, building the idea that something happened here…something major and something momentously bad.  I loved it.  I loved every second of exploring this building, no matter how scary it was to do so at the time.

“I have THIS!”

Surviving was of course a key element; nothing beat that feeling of opening a door to an unknown location and hearing that comforting music that accompanied a save room, or finding a box of shotgun shells when you had one round left.  What about finally finding that key you’d been searching for? Yeah, this was me discovering a new gaming experience.

“It’s powerful, especially against living things.”

Resident Evil just got better for me as I delved deeper into the horror.  Talk about memories…Plant 42, the Shark, my first Hunter and of course the Tyrant; all fantastic moments that I remember fondly to this day.  Least I forget stumbling upon the guardhouse or the secret underground lab, I really felt like I was uncovering a great mystery.  Then there was that treacherous bastard Wesker, oh the swerve!  And of course that final moment when Brad throws down the rocket launcher and you blow the Tyrant to smithereens.  It took me months to do it, but I beat it and you know what I did next?  I immediately asked the parents for Resident Evil 2.  To kill time till I had it in my grubby little hands, I played 1 again as Chris.

Man, I love this game.

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To be continued…