Leading up to the release of Resident Evil 5 I plan to do a full series playthrough, I will play all 7 games in the main series (and maybe UC as well since its canon) in order of their release. As I play them I will just throw up whatever thoughts on the game I have. Some of them I have not played in years so I wonder what my reaction will be, maybe I forgot a certain scare, or noticed something for the first time.
So why dont you guys join me. I am doing this on another site as well so this is a copy/paste job, dont worry I will get more personal with you guys if you respond here.
RESIDENT EVIL:
I will be playing the DS version of RE mainly cause it has no load times. I will be playing the original mode obviously. I will play as Jill cause that is my primary character for RE1, I have always loved her side more than Chris, why, cause of a red bearded badass of a man named Barry Burton (I heart Barry).
So the original, no game in this series even comes close to holding such a special place in my heart. Its not my favorite RE game, but its by far the most important to me. This is the game I know by heart, I know the lines, I know every room, every enemy, every scare, everything. Its the game that changed my whole view on gaming, its the reason I am here at a site like this. If I had entered into this series at a later point I doubt I would ever have the same love for this series, its all cause of this one game that I am the fan that I am.
The night I got this game, way back in 96, is seriously one of my best childhood memories, a sleep over with my brother and a friend, we stayed up playing this mindblowing game, something we had never seen before. I will never ever forget it, none of us will forget it, we still talk about that night to this day. This game was so ahead of its time, so groundbreaking. Every time I play this game all those feelings come rushing back
Ok enough about it, time to play it. I will start tomorrow and probably end it tomorrow, I can beat this game rather quickly. I will be back with all sorts of thoughts after I play.
Final time 6 hours 24 minutes, 0 deaths, best ending saving everyone. Yes it is an excellent game, and it is on a technical level maybe the best old school RE game, though not my favorite. It is definetly the grand send off of this formula.
Last time I left off when I was going to go into the sewers and so I did, woah I forgot how different this was. See this is what I love about this game, it totally fleshed out the parts that needed more, the sewers was a few screens, took about 10 minutes to get through in the original, here its a large section with new puzzles. Its still got the fight against the giant spider, jeez is the animation so life like, creepy. I love how other smaller spiders start to crawl out of the webbing to help the queen spider, it really feels like being in a spider lair.
There is the entire Lisa section which is all brand new. I liked the Lisa storyline, I like the added areas but I dont actually care for Lisa as an enemy. I am not a fan of unkillable enemies, plus she is slow so she is not dangerous at all. Its kind of a wasted enemy, its not really a boss fight you have, you just push stuff. Oh and in Chris' storyline you get Wesker helping you which feels so wrong this late in the game, he just killed Enrico and now he is helping you, eh not a fan of that. Its still a quality section, the Lisa room in particular was a standout moment.
So then its off into the lab its almost identical, which is nice cause the lab was so well done in the original. What they did was really work on the look to make it seem like a creepy used lab. They changed up a few of the puzzles, got rid of the staircase over the smoke holes puzzle, which was a pain of a puzzle so glad it got removed. The chimeras are as creepy as ever, their animation is fantastic. Oh they added that explosive part where you have to walk. Well I cleared the way before I grabbed the explosive so it was boring, nothing happend, I just had to walk, they should have enemies pop out to try to get you to flinch.
Tyrant scene, awesome, but I dont care for this Wesker's voice actor, original Wesker was better. Oh that screen when you get off the elevator to this section, wow does it look awesome. Its got steam coming out of the vents and it has this eerie blue color to it, beautiful. So I escaped to the roof top and we got the Tyrant battle, I still cant get used to having someone help you in this fight but it makes more sense, makes it feel more epic. I had a ton of magnum shots so he was easy.
This remake is easily the golden standard for how videogame remakes should be made. I have some issues with it but thats mostly me being weird about things but I know that they basically took all the best parts of the original and kept them and took all the parts that could have had more work done and made them as good a section as any. What a game.
http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/galleries/lamest-resident-evil-moments/
I think all of RE3 counts
With gaf and with biohaze (the RE fan site I help with).
I already did three sections to my RE0 playthrough, sorry I am late in posting it here, lots of text:
Lets go back 2002, REmake was released and was an excellent game but for me personally something about it just didn't click with me like previous RE games. Maybe it was cause it wasn't a new story, or maybe the formula was just getting way to predictable. A few months later RE Zero was going to hit and I told myself that I would like this one much more cause its a brand new fresh RE game. I got myself worked up as I always do, got all ready for a brand new RE game, woo!
And then I played it. This is the story of how the T-Virus was released, seriously, this is what they come up with. The train part was cool but soon I was wondering what in the hell is up with the story, we have this guy that looks like a FF reject. We have the two most worthless main characters in any RE game (sorry Rebecca fans). Bravo team was practically nowhere to be found, i thought this was going to be their story.
Instead we got this game that had a place that was like the mansion. A place that was like the plant in RE3. A place that was the tram in RE2. The game had no identity at all, besides the train, it was like glued recycled pieces of previous RE games. Then there were the gameplay changes which made everything worse. No item boxes, sweet idea right... wrong, now I have to drop everything in a central room. Two people, eh, didn't really add anything at all.
Is it a horrible game, no, its just a game that goes through the motions and offers us nothing. By the end of RE Zero I found myself lost, my love for this type of formula was over, Zero crossed the boundary of being stale. It was time for a change, this series was going nowhere... thankfully Mikami saved it all. Which would lead us to RE4.
But first I revist this game. Even though I have some hatred for what this game stood for, as I explained above, the actual game itself is fine. Everytime I replay it I find that I do have a good time, its still a type of game I love, when I replay it there is no emotional attachement, I just play it for what it is and thats a decent game in the series. I bet my impressions below will be more positive than my feelings above.
And I will start now... be back later.
...
Started the game, intro movie of train being attacked. Bravo team lands, random truck turned over and now there is a fugitive on the loose. Becky enters the train, zombies (she doesn't seem so surprised, then again no one in RE is ever that shocked). So you wander the train, shoot some zombies and meet up with Billy. At one point that new STARS dude bursts through the window, totally forgot about that, talks about monsters all over the woods. A few moments later you get a radio from Enrico talking about how dangerous Billy is, wtf dude, the woods are crawling with mutant monsters, who cares about the escaped convict!!
You team up with Billy and start the whole co-op thing. There are those scenes where you climb to the outside of the train, while its moving in the rain, beautiful shots. But am I crazy or in general are the backgrounds not as good as REmake, hell when I fought the dogs their animation and models didn't look as nice. Also why remove crimson heads and defense items, I'm not a fan of how Crimson heads are made but I love them as an enemy, defense items were great. It almost seems like Zero was made first, then REmake and they got released backwards.
So the train starts moving after you see this opera singing dude in a white robe standing on a hill. You get spilt up, I had Billy end up stuck in the room needing the pick to get out. How do you get him out well you have to use the item dolley thingy. First put the key in the dolley, send it down, load, open it up, get the item, run across the whole train to get the pick and eventually put it in, to raise it up, to get it to your partner... not fun.
At least getting the pick is great cause it gives us the first boss fight of the game, the really well done giant scorpion fight. This is the way to start a game, big boss fight right at the start, and its a rather good one too. So I killed it and freed Billy. There is just to much running back and forth on this little train, I like the uniqueness of the location but its to much running back and forth. To stop the train you got to split up again, one has to go all the way to the other side of the train, at least there is a timer and awesome timer music. Ha, the STARS dude is a zombie, dont remember that. There is the cutscene with Wesker and Birkin, yes needs more of this. So once the characters are in place you have some simple math puzzle to do and thats the end of that part of the game.
There is a cutscene revealing Marcus to Wesker, I love what is said. Young Marcus says he is going to get revenge on Umbrella and then proceeds to sing to Wesker and Birkin, its so stupid.
Next is the training facility.
...
Resident Evil 0 - Training facility
Well what do you know, I am really enjoying myself now. The training facility is a really well done central hub area. The good thing about playing Zero is that I dont remember much about it so everytime I do play it its almost like playing a RE game for the first time. And true to form, i lost myself in this central location, I forgot which paths to take, or items to find in order, I just played the game mostly fresh and enjoyed it a lot. Its got a nice progression it to it, it slowly opens up in managable pieces. I also really like the music in this place.
But there are still issues that keep coming into play. Zero is still a well made and designed RE game, its just the choice for two characters and no item boxes do hurt. I choose to use the central hall as my item box, its where I store all the items I dont need. Problem is, say I do need something, I always have to run back to that same location, at least the game tries to keep everything close and connected. Then there is the two character aspect, I find myself constantly using one character rather than two cause with two I cant evade enemies efficiently. When I got to charatcers I can run around enemies just fine but my partner will probably get caught as a result, its annoying. So I usually choose Billy, tell rebecca to stay back and scout ahead. Problem is so many times I need Rebecca, I need extra slots or whatever so I end up running through the same areas twice, once with Billy, then once with Rebecca, I see twice the amount of load screens. During most boss fights the game forces you to use one character cause it knows that fighting enemies with two is usually a mess.
If they had not gone down that route, say this was a totally traditional RE game it would be right up there with any of the games. Its a lot more RE1 than any of the others I would say and I think having REmake come out right before this game hurt it, cause it was like two similar RE games at the same time.
Anyway back to what I enjoyed about it, the formula is still intact so I am still finding my way through these labryinthian areas solving puzzles and killing enemies. The puzzles are good so far, it might make use of the two player dynamic a little to much, like its usually one character stay back while one goes ahead and then both have to do something.
In the facility there are mostly zombies but also those damn insect things, man they are creepy. Of course leechman, ugh I hate this enemy, I find it annoying. The bosses are great though, funny thing happend with the centipede boss. Rebecca had most of the ammo when she got caught so I had to fight the creature with a grenade launcher (6 rounds) and a handgun with just 10 bullets. I emptied all I had, nothing, I had no knife, so I had to run out of the room, get to the central hall and pick up the hunting rifle, run back, magically rebecca was still alive and I managed to kill the thing with one shot, PHEW.
The game started off cutscene heavy but once you reach this location it really lets you go. It wasn't until you get to the basement when you get a new cutscene. As much as I dont care about the addition of Marcus to the storyline i love that this game explores the origins of Wesker and Birkin. Once in the basement there is the eliminator encounter where you have to save Rebecca, again I love it when action music comes on and there is some goal to reach. These damn monkeys are like wimpy hunters, but damn are they fast. While in the basement there is that gun room where there was a battle arena set up. Hunters!! I love this part, it shows the functionality of the location, many times in RE you have to suspend belief cause the rooms and the stuff in them dont make any sense, but this fits. Its a place where they tested Hunters combat ability from a window above and manipulated cages and such. Great part of the game.
So I got all the tablets and rotated the observatory and made it to the church. I remembered to bring the hookshot this time, I swear every time I play I forget that thing at the train. So I used Billy to go into the church and bat boss fight. Another awesome boss fight, thats 3 for 3. I got annoyed at the little bats cause they kept getting in my shot, I wasted so much grenade ammo.
I stopped when I took the elevator down to that library area. I never have good memories of this place, I think its cause its filled with leech guys, meh. I dont like the motolov cocktail as a weapon and its easily the best one to use against them, it just makes for a messy fight. I dont enjoy fighting them like I do other enemies.
Overall I am liking it a lot, but then again I said I would, this always happens. I always enjoy myself when I play it but when I finish I just forget about it, its good just not memorable.
I actually enjoyed playing it first time through, yet I always try and play games at least twice and whenever I hit the train section with the sink I just gave up. The character swapping which was novel at the time, just feels unneccesary and the item swapping and limitations there are pretty useless.
BTW talking about zombie horror shooters, you would really like HOTD Overkill, I think only 3 people have posted in the thread but I am REALLY enjoying it - motherfucka.
You can upgrade in the directors cut to this hand cannon and it's like a Dirty Harry Magnum and it packs such a punch. When you reload the animation spins it one handed to the side and the chamber rotates. And you can reload by tipping up on the Wii controller. Makes you feel like a total BADASS.
It's so satisfying and the more I replay the levels, the more I find that it is, like many reviews have said, infinetely replayable.
And it's even better when you're using the hand cannons.
You said that you had to hold that with two hands, weakling!