Evil Reborn

Originally released in Japan on March 22nd, 1996, Resident Evil for PS1 was a revolution in gaming. The story of four elite police officers, the S.T.A.R.S. (The Special Tactics and Rescue Service) getting trapped inside a spooky, but not quite haunted mansion, was the first console game to categorize itself in the "Survival Horror" genre. Instead of blasting everything that moved with the small arsenal of weapons provided to you by the game, you were encouraged to conserve your bullets, as ammo was scarce and your enemies took many hits to kill. At the time, the graphics were amazing, with 3D polygonal characters on top of beautifully hand-drawn backgrounds. The moan of the zombies added to the already haunting soundtrack, making your hairs stand on end. It was very well received at the time. The only complaint many had was the god-awful voice acting. It added to the "B-movie" feel of the game. After three successful sequels (and one awful spinoff), the creator of the franchise wanted to revisit the old mansion that started it all.

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Six years later...

            The year was 2002. The Nintendo GameCube was trailing behind the juggernaut that was the Sony PlayStation 2, and Microsoft with its Xbox. It was regarded as being a "kiddy" system. Luigi's Mansion and Pikmin, despite being great games, turned off the older gamer with its bright colors and "cute" characters. Nintendo wanted to expand its demographic. So they came to Capcom and signed a deal with three new RE games exclusive to their purple box. Resident Evil 0, Resident Evil 4 (which ended up being ported to PS2, PC, Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3), and a complete overhaul to the original Resident Evil. This is a "remake" in every sense of the word. Over "70% of the mansion is new" according to Capcom. The changes were drastic and subtle, like the addition of a whole new wing of the mansion, re-doing all the voice work, and even where zombies would appear. One change occurred that completely altered the way that you approached the act of zombie killing; I'm talking about the addition of Crimson Heads. In the original PlayStation game, when you killed zombies, they stay dead. In the remake they didn’t. If you left their bodies alone long enough, and you got close to one, the zombie you thought was dead would get up and start RUNNING at you. I tell you hwhat, I shrieked the first time a zombie started sprinting at me with it face melting off.

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          While cosmetically, the game was completely retooled, gameplay wise, it remained largely unchanged, and that was where Resident Evil GameCube lost points. People were getting tired of the "tank controls" (Your character moved forward and backward according to where the character model was facing, not where the camera was facing, and pressing left or right would rotate the character, like a tank), critics called them cumbersome and restricting, but it's a complaint that's easy to overlook, as Resident Evil on the GameCube (also on the Wii) is a damn fine package. Highly reccomended. 9.5/10

Dominic Gallerani