Resident Evil / Biohazard.

[Elton John]

Warning, this franchise contains a lot of graphic and intense violence. Not one i'd recommend to the younger crowd or people who easily get squeemish!

I thought i'd make a topic for this franchise what with all the recent remasters and resident evil 7 coming out early next year. Apparently there is also a full blown remake of resident evil 2 coming out.

Anyway, franchise history lesson! First game in the franchise was released in 1996 on the ps1 but would also be ported on multiple systems including the sega saturn and the first ds. It was a combination of george romero zombie flicks and the pc game 'alone in the dark'. The Capcom PR team coined it as a 'survival horror' title, a phrase still used today. The story was deliciously cheesy, and at the time had a lot of voice acting. Back in 1996 most games did not have voice acting, and the games that did before the ps1 were sega cd/atari jaguar titles.

The game was critically and commercially acclaimed, and like street fighter 2 it got several re-releases on the playstation 1 with minor new additions because Capcom loves to re release games multiple times on the same system.

Then in 1998 resident evil 2 came out, introducing fan favorite characters like leon kennedy and ada wong. Game was a direct continuation of the first title story wise.

Then in 1999 resident evil 3 came out. It starred jill valentine from the original and was well regarded but not as much as the first two.

While resident evil 4 was in development, capcom gave resident evil 1 a complete remake on the gamecube. It contained completely new visuals that still hold up today, new level layouts, new gameplay mechanics and redone story scenes.

Resident Evil 0 came out, was a prequel to 1. I never beat this one and probably never will. Just didn't find the partner switching mechanic to be fun.

Several versions of resident evil 4 were made, one of which became 'devil may cry'

Resident Evil 4 was a turning point for the franchise. The first really divisive game in the franchise. It had completely new gameplay mechanics, a bigger focus on shooting and no george romero style zombies. I'm in the camp that loved the game. Easily my favorite single player shooter. Everything about it felt, and still feels lavishly crafted.

Resident Evil 5 was like re4 but not as good? I liked the new protagonist, Sheva Alomar, who fights alongside franchise veteran Chris Redfield. I hope she returns for re7.


I'm not going to talk much about resident Evil 6 as it's the only mainline game in the franchise that I hate.

Also, there are a bajillion spinoff titles. Most of them i'm not overly fond of.

As far as resident evil 7 goes, i'm not sure what to think of it. Going back to being a pure horror game, but still taking the franchise in a new direction. I hope I enjoy that direction.

[Carl]

Honestly I love this series, though that's probably pretty easy to guess for anyone who knows me even slightly. I found the original games to be difficult to control back when I first played them and thus never beat any of the older ones (gimme a break, I was a kid and pre-teen for most of this). I did, however, watch my sister beat them all, and my brother beat some of them, and my dad... They're awesome. My favorites were definitely 0 and 5, though I know this is a pretty unpopular opinion. I also actually liked 6. Was a fan of the Outbreak games on the PS2 as well.

I'm honestly not enthused about RE7. It doesn't look like it involves bioterrorism or Romero-style zombies, which are series staples, and yet somehow involves Umbrella, whose whole thing is bioterrorism... It looks like a solid horror title, but unless they're holding out on us, I think they should have just created a new series with it or a standalone game, rather than trying to tie it into other lore.

I remember one of the DLC missions in RE5 was Chris and Jill, was full of suspense in the mansion thing and had the same feeling as the older games. I was hopeful at the time that we'd be returning to the series' roots with the new style of gameplay. People said it couldn't be scary with slow zombies anymore, but it totally could have been. Just make ammo scarce again like it used to be and keep in the other monsters like lickers, hunters, the dogs, tyrants, and all that, and yeah, it could be very frightening. I was seriously hoping for some remakes in the same over-the-shoulder style and local co-op, specifically wanted remakes of 0, 3, Code Veronica, and the Outbreak games, but also hopeful for similar remakes for 1 and 2. When RE6 came out, it didn't dash that hope, and the Romero-style zombies reappearing in the Leon campaign actually made me even more hopeful. I didn't really care for Helena, and some of the plot points didn't make sense, but otherwise, I was pleased with the game and hopeful for the series' future.

As much as I loved 5 though, and even though I did like 6, I worry that the death of Wesker has marked the downfall for the series. It seems that without him, they don't really know what to do with the series anymore, where to take it, especially if 7 ends up being what it looks like and lacking any elements of what makes Umbrella and RE what they are. All the same, I am still holding out some small hope that 7 will be something awesome that actually belongs in the series. Only time will tell. I hadn't heard about the remake of 2, but that honestly has me much more interested right now than 7 does.

[Elton John]

The demo of 7 is supposidely not in the main game. It was something to get people used to the style of gameplay in re7 so they aren't super shocked at the game being another departure from series norms.

I'm willing to give it a chance.

[Carl]

I realize that, but there was a trailer later that supposedly is the actual game that was still not really RE at all. It still may turn out to actually be different from that, and the trailer didn't really show much anyway, but it doesn't look too promising as yet. I'm still waiting for more info before making a final judgment, though.

[Elton John]

I still like the direction re7 is going in more than the direction re6 went in. RE4 was definitely more action packed than previous entries but still had a more subdued feel than the next two entries which were more and more entering michael bay territory.

This direction for re7 feels a lot more subdued, showing restraint and lot more creepy and closer to a pure horror title.

[Carl]

That's fine, and I hope it doesn't disappoint you. Being closer to pure horror again is definitely good. I'm just worried they're going to toss Umbrella into something unrelated to what they even are just because they want to call the game Resident Evil to get sales. As long as Umbrella is actually doing their bioterrorism thing, then I'll be fine with it, but we haven't seen any of that yet. If they aren't making zombies and monsters, they're not really Umbrella.

The game did look promising as a horror title. I'll probably enjoy it regardless of whether they include those things. If they don't, though, it will always bother me that they didn't just make this a separate thing. That's all.

[Elton John]

It's not seperate because of brand name power.

Capcom has a few other horror franchises and games (the clock tower franchise and haunting ground on the ps2). This game might only be vaguely related to the other games in the franchise because unlike those other two the resident evil name gets people hyped and sells copies.

We don't know the full extent of how much re7 will tie into the other games. It might be a lot or it could be very little.

[Elton John]

One of the things I really liked about resident evil 4 that felt sorely missed in re5-6 were the multitudes of gory death animations. It felt like for each situation there was some new death animation that was very graphically intense.

I would say that resident evil 4 had the most... Detailed death animations in a game i've played, until I played mortal kombat x last year. Jebus that game was something else with the fatalities.

Call of duty and grand theft auto feel more like sesame street compared to the... Graphic content in mortal kombat x.