A violent look at Resident Evil's survival horror past
by Dustin Burg 
{ Feb 7th 2009 at 7:00PM }
Putting aside all discussion regarding the direction Resident Evil 5 has taken with its control mechanics, the video will evoke deep rooted nostalgic feelings and renew your phobia of human-sized arachnids. It did for us. Once comfortable -- and with an ample supply of herbs by your side -- find the 17+ minute video after the break.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chrono @ Feb 7th 2009 7:27PM
ah.....the good old days
Cherry May @ Feb 7th 2009 7:28PM
"Pioneered the survival horror genre and laughably bad voice acting"? No sirs, I do believe that was Alone in the Dark in 1992!
borntokill @ Feb 7th 2009 7:35PM
Yep, plus 2 Clock Tower games preceeded RE1 as well
Dr Jeckyl and Mr ESC. @ Feb 7th 2009 8:46PM
Clocktower was hella weird.The Psychos were pretty cool kinda like shadow man.
Levi @ Feb 8th 2009 9:49AM
Ok, so they came before, but can anything really beat the lines in Resident Evil?
"What is it?"
"A mansion"
"Hope that's not Chris' blood."
"Give me... serum..."
Lorben @ Feb 8th 2009 10:36AM
Right from the start -
"I've been reading up on the history of the hold house; it's the kind of place ghosts run away from in terror. Grisly murders, curses lunacy (soft laughter) Luckily devil-worship makes me smile so this is my idea of a paid vacation."
Abscissa @ Feb 9th 2009 4:28PM
"Give me... serum...": When I think of that line, I think of Blade. :)
@Jeckyl: Please tell me your use of "hella [some adjective here]" was either a typo or a direct result of brain damage.
Baby J Penn (PSN johnnynumber5) @ Feb 7th 2009 7:33PM
It just shows how much the last two iterations aren't anything like they used to be.
tmacairjordan87 @ Feb 8th 2009 9:52AM
I dunno, it looks like they're trying to go back to the old days by having near-game breaking controls to add the "scare factor" to it. In the demo I was slightly scared of that huge guy with the axe because I couldn't fuckin move hardly at all, so it's working :(
sjenky @ Feb 7th 2009 7:36PM
Geez! I forgot how great the GC Remake looked! Do want.. again..
Cj @ Feb 7th 2009 8:02PM
They could make a pretty penny if it was remade yet again but for current gen consoles. Or package RE 2 and RE 3 for Arcade and PSN releases.
sam @ Feb 8th 2009 4:52PM
According to the video, it was rereleased for Wii in Japan - although you could just as well pick up a copy of the GC version, which will run fine on a Wii. And yes, it did look great - one of the impressive things about RE4 was managing to *approach* the quality of those prerendered video backgrounds, while running in realtime.
By the way, since I only started playing the series on GC, I had missed the original voice acting. Okay, wow, that's awful. Actually, I thought the voice acting in RE4 was awful (in that case more the dialogue than the acting, and there did also seem to be some recorded-at-different-times crappiness), so I guess I need to go stronger than awful, maybe 'unspeakably dire'.
How are the voices in RE5? (I don't yet have a system that can play it, and have avoided trailers because when I *do* play it I want it to be fresh and surprising.) Seemed to me the recipe for improving acting over RE4 was very simple, in ascending order of importance:
1) Get a proper English-speaking voice director.
2) Get the cast all in the same room at once to record so that they sound like they're talking to each other, rather than phoning in a response from separate continents. (Actually, even the phone dialogue sounded stilted...)
3) Encourage cast and voice director to change the script or ad-lib when it's bullshit. (I.e. make sure the game's flexible enough to take those changes, cutscenes are animated after voice, etc.)
Seems easy to me but maybe not so easy for Capcom. So did they improve things for RE5? (I assume I can at least take for granted that it's better than the first one though. :)
vidGuy @ Feb 7th 2009 7:39PM
Reminds me why Resident Evil has been one of my favorite franchises.
Chrono @ Feb 7th 2009 8:00PM
I wonder what happened to Barry and Rebecca.
Jawmuncher @ Feb 7th 2009 8:37PM
Don't forget Carlos and Billy as well.
There's a good bit of charcater's that just kind of vanished.....
Hopefully RE5 fleshes something's out on them
Dr Jeckyl and Mr ESC. @ Feb 7th 2009 8:38PM
Rebbeca died and Super Billy Mays is alive..somewhere,he rescues you in RE:3
ryan @ Feb 7th 2009 8:44PM
Barry's having himself a few Jill sandwiches and Rebecca is selling her dead zombie self on the streets for drug money. She's totally doing it wrong.
Dr Jeckyl and Mr ESC. @ Feb 7th 2009 8:45PM
The mullet guy I think Chronicles says something about him but I never got far in that game,even on easy it was a b*tch.
Chrono @ Feb 7th 2009 8:59PM
In which game does rebecca die
Abscissa @ Feb 9th 2009 4:27PM
@Chrono: In RE1, but only if you take too long to save her at that one (very poorly designed, IMO) part halfway through the game.
Josh @ Feb 7th 2009 8:17PM
So does this go through the story? I'd like to get some backstory, since I've only played through RE4 and the RE5 demo...
Chrono @ Feb 7th 2009 8:31PM
some not all
Dr Jeckyl and Mr ESC. @ Feb 7th 2009 8:41PM
I played them all except for 4 which I never completed.
Dead Aim and Survivor sucked so hard and Outbreak 1 and 2 just WTH man? The Zombie Lion was cool but the Zombie Elephant was laughable.
I don't remember if it was 1 that had the Hotel in flames, nice setting.
Dr Jeckyl and Mr ESC. @ Feb 7th 2009 8:43PM
Oh yeah I never played 0,that's the one that escaped me because it was an effing Gamecube exclusive and the Wii version is for Japan only.
vidGuy @ Feb 7th 2009 8:59PM
Wow, Jeckyl, I thought I was hardcore. I own and have beat 0, RE (PS), REmake, RE2, RE3, RE4 (GC) and RE4 (Wii). But I could never get my self through the FPS ones, or Outbreak.
RE0 was good. There were some puzzle mechanics switching between the two players that worked really well.
Dr Jeckyl and Mr ESC. @ Feb 8th 2009 12:13AM
I'm a fan of the genera not so much RE.I like more Silent Hill than Resident Evil but they kind of lost me after RE:4.I mean the spin offs are bad but some elements of Outbreak were actually good,thinking about it I guess it was Capcom own Left 4 Dead.
The problem is that RE puzzles,unless you play with friends or something,a good element for MP.
Dr Jeckyl and Mr ESC. @ Feb 8th 2009 12:16AM
*Aren't a good element.
Umbrella chronicles I guess is what they had in mind when they made Survivor and Dead Aim.
sam @ Feb 8th 2009 3:59PM
Short of playing all the previous games, the best way to pick up backstory would be to play the Umbrella Chronicles rail shooter. As well as being a good (and quite tough) game, its levels are summaries of the plot in all the previous games before 4, plus some extra context - especially once you unlock the bonus levels - on what the different characters were doing.
Not that the story entirely makes sense in any case. :)
Bumcats @ Feb 7th 2009 10:43PM
Wait. Did he say Breath of Fire 2 for PS?
OTAM @ Feb 8th 2009 12:04AM
Resident Evil has taken a huge step forward in game play,but a huge step backwards in story and atmosphere. I always enjoyed the creepiness of the game series,the pure dire situation,the horror the characters are stuck in and the tyrannical corporation behind the nightmare. Now the game series has become a shoot-em-up action title that happens to have "monsters" in it.
It's gone from a scary and "no way out" atmosphere to a Gears of War type of "scary" action.
Again,the game would be so much better if it had a different skin and title on it. Part 4 and the new one are fantastic,but not fantastic as a Resident Evil title.
koehler83 @ Feb 8th 2009 3:57AM
Huge step forward in gameplay? I would disagree ardently.
I compare it to the difference between Metal Gear Solid 3 and subsistence. The ability to move the camera is not a leap forward.. it just should have always been there. MGS4 was a huge leap forward in gameplay in that series.
The resident evil series is still waiting to make that jump.
I would agree that the atmosphere has taken some big steps back. So in my opinion, the series has only taken some big steps backwards.. and other than superficial visuals, hasnt made any progress whatsoever.
sam @ Feb 8th 2009 3:56PM
@Koehler83: Seriously? You'd disagree that RE4 was a huge step forward in gameplay? Then you'd be flatly wrong, IMO. I played most of the previous ones then I played RE4. The move to full 3D environments and freely-controlled movement (instead of rendered, fixed camera positions and tank controls) was an enormous step forward. Instantly everything that had annoyed me about the earlier games ('This is a great game, but...') had vanished.
Now if you're saying it was only bringing it up level with other games then maybe you're right - but for RE4 it was still a huge step forward.
I do agree that in tone and atmosphere the transition lost a little something (I'd appreciate puzzles that are slightly less insulting, thanks) but RE4 remained scary and did have a distinctive atmosphere of its own imo (especially the first 'Village' level, which was by far the best).
t_m @ Feb 8th 2009 8:39AM
I don't think its leapt forward in gameplay, because the changes in gameplay have changed the kind of game it is.
Its kind of like saying Halo made a big leap forward in gameplay when it changed to Halo Wars.
What would have been a big leap forward in gameplay would have been to modify the gameplay controls so they worked better in the survival horror genre.
As it is RE4 and RE5 are just spin offs of the original series. (good as RE4 is).
It really should be possible to do RE1-2 style games with updated controls and gameplay.
kentuckyfried @ Feb 8th 2009 8:54PM
The old RE's had a different feel to them. We'll have to see if 5 re-captures some of that, but i doubt it.
I actually miss the smooth polish of all those pre-rendered backgrounds, despite the lack of interactivity.
Evan @ Feb 8th 2009 10:46AM
Resident Evil belongs in a mansion. Period.
HotRats @ Feb 8th 2009 1:30PM
In one of the trailers for R.E. 5, right at the end of the trailer it shows a grave stone with Jill's name on it.... plus I wish Capcom would remake Resident Evil 2 so bad
valgas @ Feb 9th 2009 2:16PM
Doesn't anyone remember Resident Evil: Code Veronica on the Dreamcast (and later on PS2)? That was the pinnacle of RE games, even to this day. It still had a somewhat fixed camera, but the backgrounds were all real time, so the camera panned around the environments, making it easier to see/navigate. Not only that, but it had the best story and atmosphere of any RE game to date. If you haven't played it, get it for the Dreamcast or PS2, it's an awesome game.
As for the newer RE games, I have to agree with what many here have already said. Resident Evil 4 was good, but it didn't always feel like a RE game. IMO, there's nothing wrong with the new camera and controls, but the series has kind of lost the creepy atmosphere it used to have. Resident Evil 4 did, at times, remind me of the old RE games. At times, it was creepy and unsettling. However, there were plenty of other times in which it felt too much like an action game, and that's just not what RE is supposed to be.
P.S. Where did the Hunters go? Hunters were sweet (and terrifying), Capcom needs to bring those bad boys back.
Abscissa @ Feb 9th 2009 4:27PM
Where the hell do people (especially Joystiq staff) keep getting this bizarre idea that Resident Evil pioneered survival horror? Revived and popularized, maybe. But pioneered? Not remotely.