Tag: Resident Evil

Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Resident Evil

Resident Evil 2: The Resident Evil 2 Perspective

Spoiler Warning & a Disclaimer: This article contains discussion of Resident Evil 2 (Remake, 2019) including plot spoilers… it also contains the uninhibited ramblings of my Original Resident Evil 2 fanboy brain compartment. Please note that I do consider the remake to be a darn fine game and excellent re-imagining of the original.

The Resident Evil 2 Remake…

Henceforth known as the Re2Make… not to be confused with the REMake referring to the GameCube version of the original, or the HD remaster of that game the REMakeHD….

… is excellent!

It handles the original content with the care that such a widely beloved title deserves whilst managing to be an enriched journey back to that RPD Police Station. I have been captivated by the new experience; to see these locations brought back to life in such chilling ways, to see the characters grown though excellent writing and acting, and to see the genre of survival horror so clearly the core of the gameplay has been a delight. It’s difficult to shortlist highpoints of the experience as such a fan of the original: That first rainsoaked approach to the Police Station was jaw dropping, the Lickers (undoubtedly my favourite enemy in the series) are terrifying, The original locations that have been recreated are full to the brim with detail and atmosphere are beautiful…. yes, it’s quite the experience all round. As a full package it does something I almost thought impossible; it pleases old fans, new fans, and total newcomers. Continue reading “Resident Evil 2: The Resident Evil 2 Perspective”

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Editorial, Gaming, Meaningless Ramble

Editorial: February 2019 – Downstream

Wow! I’ve really hit the ground running this year with a crazy busy time blogging; I managed to fit in two bonus blog posts (but more about those later) along with following through on my promise last month to do some streaming.

The original idea was that I wanted to have one more revisit of Resident Evil 2 (PS1) before the remake landed last week and as it’s a game I know *ahem* pretty well I thought it would be nice to invite people along for the ride by streaming the event. Now, I have streamed in the past, most notably my dive in to Jurassic Park: Trespasser, but this felt a little different as I wanted to actually add some value with my narration rather than just laughing at the weird-legged dinosaurs. The goal was to share why I love this game so much and hopefully provide a few interesting crumbs of trivia along the way. I also managed to stream from the original hardware; yes, the stream featured my original copy of the game, original PS1, original controller, and even the original memory card that I dedicated to this game. Technically it was a little bit fiddly to set up and I discovered in a test (luckily) that you couldn’t stream the piracy warning stream without the whole thing falling over (I never worked out if this was OBS or the cheap USB capture device I picked up). Continue reading “Editorial: February 2019 – Downstream”

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Gaming, Meaningless Ramble, Resident Evil

Top 5 Lost Resident Evil Games

I know I’ve been hitting the Resident Evil themed pieces hard recently. I’ll try and resume my usual diverse range of topics after this one! 

One of the many things I found myself jabbering about during my Resident Evil 2 Revisit stream event … alpha dash plus special champion edition X… last week was the mythical original version of Resident Evil 2; known in the Resi-community (Resiumity?) as “Resident Evil 1.5”.

I also rambled about many other things and I’m likely to further unpack the four hour streaming experience in my February editorial – but overall it was super positive! 

Having reflected on the whole experience I keep coming back to my thoughts about RE1.5 and more generally how the ‘Resident Evil’ universe (Resiverse?) seems to be littered with unfinished games. It’s not unusual for a game to be quite different upon release to versions shown in expos or early trailers; there’s often content cut or concepts significantly revised, but Resident Evil has a history of entirely scrapping versions of games to either be abandoned forever or for designers to pick over as they scavenge for usable morsels of content. I guess, given the sheer volume of work under the Resident Evil banner, it’s not too surprising and I think many fans of the series would argue that some of the titles that were released should have by rights also ended up on the cutting room floor (I’m looking at you Umbrella Corps). Continue reading “Top 5 Lost Resident Evil Games”

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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”

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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”

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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”

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