The Revenge of the Zombie Game!: Remembering Resident Evil

I've been playing a lot of the original Resident Evil as of late, mostly to get myself prepared for the Halloween season.  Despite the absolutely atrocious voice acting, it's sort of creepy still, the dated visuals not withstanding.  I still get transported back to the days of my youth when this game was released.  My father booted it up to see what all the fuss was about, and then we were treated to this iconic image:

Now, when I was ten this was quite possibly the scariest thing I had ever seen.  I felt unnerved seeing this nasty looking zombie turning to face Mr. Redfield.  Fast forward thirteen years and I've been a little seasoned as to horror fare.  I thoroughly enjoy Silent Hill, Dead Space, and others but Resident Evil still holds a special place in my heart.  Maybe that's because of the inherent campiness of the dialog in the first game.  Or maybe it's because one of the first Playstation games I ever beat was Resident Evil 2.  I dunno what the case for my love of the series is, but I can't really imagine the gaming landscape without it.  At it's base level it exploits our fears, not so much in psychological sense, and it works pretty splendidly still.  It reads like a log of some nasty event, like walking in on a roommate in the middle of masturbation, and it just gets worse from there.

So, while I enjoy the concept of blasting away at the undead, there's a primordial dread about the first game.  You've got guns galore, but you have a smattering of bullets to hold you over.  You could blast the first few zombies that come your way, but you'll be properly screwed when you do.  So despite the nigh impossible nature of the game at times, it still maintains some realism in that fact.  Resident Evil 4 and 5 did away with the scrounging of ammunition and made you into an unstoppable badass that takes time to punch boulders and suplex baddies.  Invigorating yes, horror filled not so much.

Anyways, I heartily recommend the series to anyone wanting to get their feet wet with the horror genre of video gaming.  After all, you can never have enough games where they talk about Jill sandwiches.