Resident Evil, initially, was all about the scares. When mentioning the game, every publication seems to talk about the infamous "dogs jumping through the window" scene -- which is all well and good because the monster-closet scares are what helped to make the game so popular. After you've beaten the game, though, you essentially know what's going to happen in each room, and those frights no longer exist. Instead, those dogs become minor annoyances; hindrances to your progression.Yet, people still love the old-style Resident Evil, even as we have already entered this age of fantastical boulder-punching. Running through static-camera rooms is still as fun as it was way back in 1996, or even, say, in 2002 when the game was remade for the Gamecube.
And that's because, despite what people will tell you, Resident Evil always has been a strategy game.
Maybe that sounds absurd. Maybe it doesn't! In any case, trying to get from Point A to Point B with a limited inventory and little ammo, knowing what items to leave and what to pick up, and avoiding certain monster-filled hallways because you didn't waste said precious ammo on those couple zombies gives your brain a specific workout that most action games can't even come close to. Granted, the brain power required to manage an inventory is much, much smaller than figuring out a difficult math problem, but there definitely is a level of strategy in Resident Evil that you don't get out of many games nowadays, much less recent entries in the series.
I've played the remake a couple times now, and it still hasn't gotten old. Maybe this is because, much like the Metroid series, the game rewards you for getting through the mansion (and later, the laboratory) as quickly as possible. If you beat the game under three hours, the game gives you a rocket launcher, which -- again, much like Metroid's reward of bikini Samus -- is somewhat superficial. But there's something incredibly satisfying about beating a game under a certain amount of time, and the rocket launcher allows you to do this even faster.
I can't write about the game without mentioning how it looks. With all the topics of conversation about graphical fidelity on high-definition TV sets today, it's still pretty amazing that the remake still looks unbelievable. The character models aren't anything fancy in comparison to many of the current games, but they still are detailed and well-animated. No, what shines here are all the environments -- everything, from the mansion to the surrounding forest to the dank laboratory, looks amazingly realistic and gorgeous. Wind blows through the grass and trees on the path leading up to the old cabin on the edge of the woods. Water shimmers in the moonlight of the old swimming pool, even showing your character's reflection in the small ripples. Much of this game is about atmosphere, and Resident Evil really sucks you in to the whole experience.
And as much as I love Resident Evil 4, it doesn't really capture that Resident Evil "feel". Then again, I don't think it ever was trying to, but I certainly do miss the fact that we probably won't ever get another game where you know that slowly opening that next door might just spell your ultimate demise. I certainly didn't feel terrified in Resident Evil 5, and the light-gun games of the Chronicles series don't provide any of that inventory-management of yesteryear, so I guess I should just appreciate the experience that those games provide.
Still, nothing beats the feeling you get knowing that you made it to the end, conserved all your magnum bullets, and then shot the crap out of Tyrant, watching him explode into a million tiny pieces. He certainly had it coming.
