Tag: Resident Evil

Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Resident Evil, Retro Gaming

Weird Retro Mumblings: Resident Evil Survivor – A Missed Opportunity

Few people know this, but way back in my mid-teens, I used to be a moderator on a Resident Evil forum (Wow, you’re learning so much about my gaming related past this month!). Looking back I guess it wasn’t for very long; after all there’s only so often that you can speculate on the seedy private life of Brian Irons or endlessly moderate a fanfic thread with the impossible task of keeping it from swerving dramatically out of the community content guidelines…

… never venture on to a Resident Evil fanfic forum….

… only get your Resi-fic from legitimate sources… like me..

Alongside these forums, the site offered a number of fan made guides and walkthroughs to the handful of Resident Evil titles that existed at the time. At some point the ‘top-website-person’ messaged me and asked if I would write a walkthrough for the newly released “Resident Evil Survivor”; a game that I’d picked up close to launch….

… I declined…

He persisted in his request so I finally jotted down a few notes on the various weapons and enemies within the game, but no way was I doing a walkthrough because that would mean I’d have to play the game through again at least once, but more likely several times to hit all the path branches. This wasn’t something I was prepared to embark upon; Survivor is not a good game, but it does fall in to that category of “Games that I really wanted to be good”. Continue reading “Weird Retro Mumblings: Resident Evil Survivor – A Missed Opportunity”

Hundstrasse6 Comments
Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Resident Evil, Retro Gaming, Review

Resident Evil Outbreak: Here Comes the B-Team

… as the intro kicks in we see the events of William Birkin’s confrontation with the Umbrella agents play out amid the unfolding imagery of the spreading infection. Outbreak is a game firmly seated in the lore and style of the original trilogy. 

It’s no secret that I love the first trilogy of Resident Evil games; they were the reason I owned a PlayStation and consequently a big part in why I graduated on to a PS2 as soon as it was released. Unfortunately there weren’t any Resident Evil titles confirmed for PS2 at the point of release and through its life it would play a surprising second fiddle to its contemporary consoles in those tales of S.T.A.R.S. & Co. especially considering how the first games had been such prominent titles in its predecessor’s roster. The two big RE titles that would find their way there were both ‘exclusive’ to other consoles at launch: RE: Code Veronica being originally made for the Dreamcast and RE4 setting sail with the GameCube. PS2 didn’t even receive the fantastic REMake of the original or similarly styled RE: Zero. I did play and enjoy RE:CV at launch on the PS2 but had drifted further away from the series by the time I would have been able to play RE4 and when I finally did get around to sampling it in recent years I wasn’t a fan of the new, action-heavy, style of gameplay.

Between these two titles was dropped the PS2 exclusive RE:Outbreak subseries (Outbreak & Outbreak File #2) which could be considered some of the last Resident Evil games to feature the classic style of gameplay and shambling zombies. They shared the fully 3D backgrounds of RE:CV, but maintained the fixed camera angles (albeit with panning and tracking) that defined the feel and pacing of the early games. Given my own background I find it hard to believe that I owned both of these games and barely explored them at all before trading them in – I think I may even have sold ‘Outbreak: File #2’ with the cellophane still intact given that I didn’t finish Outbreak itself. A couple of weeks ago however I spotted Outbreak for £5 in a branch of popular-chain-of-used-games-stores-here-in-the-uk and decided that it was worth a revisiting. Continue reading “Resident Evil Outbreak: Here Comes the B-Team”

Hundstrasse12 Comments
Gaming, Gaming News, Meaningless Ramble, Resident Evil

Resident Evil 2 Remake: E3 Trailer Breakdown

Anyone who… well… has ever heard my talk about gaming will more than likely know that Resident Evil 2 is not only my go-to answer for “Favourite Game”, but also holds a very special place in my gaming history. The escapades of Leon & Claire as they escape Raccoon City forms part of my own plot of sacred gaming ground and with the announcement of Capcom’s intention to remake it I scrunched up my eyes and wished for them to tread gently and carefully with something I hold so dear. With this year’s E3 I awoke on Tuesday morning to take in the two trailers of this revisiting to Raccoon City and as I sipped my coffee, sat on the train, sat through a teleconference, and everything else I did that day, my mind set about trying to process exactly how I felt about what I’d seen first thing in the morning. It wasn’t until I arrived back home that I watched them for a second time… and then a third… and then some more to try and figure this out. Honestly I won’t know how I feel about it until January next year when I’m playing it, but for now, here is my breakdown of the Resident Evil 2 Remake… or RE2Make for ease of typing.  Continue reading “Resident Evil 2 Remake: E3 Trailer Breakdown”

Hundstrasse4 Comments
Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, QotM, Resident Evil

QotM*: Umbrella Employee #57832

*Question of the Month is an apple crumble with a really good crumble-to-fruit ratio brought to us by Later Levels

This month’s slice of question pie has been dished out by the fantastic Pix1001 who runs a streamlined train over at “Shoot the Rookie“. Check out the MASTER POOOSST! for a little more about what her particular brand of cereal is. Right now, I’m going to get on with the business of this month’s question which is:

if you could live in any video game settlement (ie a town, village, city, etc), where would you choose to live and why; and what role would you play in it?

Wow – so this is quite the topic. Let’s face it, we’ve all daydreamed about living in our favourite in game setting from Hyrule to Rapture, but I think personally I’ve spent more time imagining what it would be like to live in Resident Evil’s Raccoon City more than anywhere else. It’s not your traditional utopia, but given the game’s impact on me, I always had dreams of roaming the police station and wanted to step in those detailed pre-rendered rooms to delve deeper in to that world.

I also guess that like most people in Raccoon City, I’d work for Umbrella because someone has to do all that evil science right? Unfortunately I just don’t think it work would out to be the idyllic experience I’m imagining…. Continue reading “QotM*: Umbrella Employee #57832”

Hundstrasse10 Comments
Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Resident Evil, Retro Gaming, Review

Resident Evil 3: Nemesis – STAAARRRSSSSS

Two things happened recently: I revealed how appealing I find rain in games, and the Later Levels Gameblast stream featured the HD Resident Evil Remake. The former reminded me how much I enjoyed the rainy section of Capcom’s Resident Evil 3 and the latter, whilst maybe not the best choice for sleep deprived brains, made me long for that classic brand of obtuse puzzle solving survival horror. With the gentle swirling of these two ideas in my mind I decided to revisit Resident Evil 3; it had been some years since I guided Jill Valentine’s “Last Escape” and I remember it being a good rounding out of the original trilogy before things went all “Resident Evil 4“.

… veteran readers of the blog will see this next bit coming, but it’s impossible for me to talk about Resident Evil without mentioning the second game, my personal undisputed favourite of the series. For those curiously looking at their calendars trying to work out how it took me so long to get to this point, I can reveal that before I replayed number three I decided to once again complete the second game… you know… for context… Continue reading “Resident Evil 3: Nemesis – STAAARRRSSSSS”

Hundstrasse14 Comments
Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Resident Evil, Review

Resident Evil VII: A Most Terrifying Herb Garden

Spoiler Warning: I have tried to avoid spoiling major plot points, but I do mention and hint at some in game events… You have been warned.

Horror isn’t something that I would normally list amongst my interests; if someone suggested a horror movie to me then I’d likely scrunch up my nose slightly and suggest we watch Jurassic Park … again… but taking a more objective view, many of the games and movies I enjoy have horror aspects to them. Anyone who happens to have taken a passing stroll past my blog in the past will know that I’m a huge fan of the original Resident Evil trilogy for PS1 and upon hearing that the seventh instalment was a return to form for the series, I finally plucked up the courage to take a look.

… and I do mean plucked up the courage! I’ve been wanting to play this game since it was released, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve developed less of a stomach for outright horror, or maybe it’s just that horror has become more visceral in its presentation with improving technology. Either way, Resident Evil 7 did involve me playing for short bursts with breaks inbetween… Continue reading “Resident Evil VII: A Most Terrifying Herb Garden”

Hundstrasse11 Comments
Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Resident Evil, Retro Gaming

Immovable Viewpoint: Reminiscing About Pre-Rendered Backgrounds

With current generation PC’s and consoles able to render glorious scenes on-the-fly in almost photo-realistic detail… well, at least until the next step forward when we’ll all look back and wonder how we ever coped with the current blocky mess of low-resolution graphics… the idea of pre-rendering backgrounds feels like a quaint footnote in the annals of gaming’s heritage. It occupied the fabled spot of cutting edge practice for a few short years around the mid to late 90’s and is most closely associated with Capcom survival horror games (the early Resident Evil games and Dino Crisis) but was used in a few other notable games including Final Fantasy VII. Of course with my self acknowledged predisposition to Resident Evil 2 I do have a soft spot for this particular visual style and, having been reminded of it following my recent nostslgia trip into Devil May Cry, my brain has been idley mulling over the technique from a practical and stylistic point of view. The ‘What’ & ‘Why’ of pre-rendered backgrounds is worth picking over before getting to how I feel about them, especially as there may be (shockingly) more than a few people reading who’ve never experienced a game with fixed camera angles and pre-rendered backgrounds. Continue reading “Immovable Viewpoint: Reminiscing About Pre-Rendered Backgrounds”

Hundstrasse14 Comments