Cool Ass Cinema Gets EVIL: 15 Years Surviving the Horror Part 2

EPIC EVIL

After beating RE1, I was incredibly hyped for the sequel; a demo of which was included with the RE Director's Cut edition. RESIDENT EVIL 2 was everything I hoped it'd be and more. It did what good sequels are supposed to do -- expand on the mythology, but retain what made the initial storyline so intriguing. 

Spread over two discs and four campaigns, the sequel was able to keep it creepy; even with the scenario away from the confines of the Spencer Mansion and into the now destroyed ruins of Raccoon City.

There's more of everything -- more zombies, more monsters, more guns, more ammunition. Even though the series begins its first dip into action game territory here, the horror still maintains its prominence. The creep factor is maintained despite the expansive new world. Think of it as a massive version of the Spencer Mansion, but instead of exploring untold horrors in, around and under a spooky mansion, it's in, around and under an entire city.

The storyline concerns rookie officer Leon Kennedy and his fateful meeting with Claire Redfield, the now vigilante sister to STARS member Chris Redfield. Both try to survive the many zombies and assorted creatures that have led to the destruction of the city after the deadly T-virus is unleashed on a widespread populace. Through each of their respective campaigns, they meet various characters and learn there's a new, even deadlier bacteria, the G-virus capable of creating an even more horrifying biological weapon.

Thankfully, the weapons you (eventually) get are up to the numerous challenges you will face. Even the uselessness of the knife is required at a couple points in the game. Incredibly, there were people who somehow managed to finish these games using nothing but the knife!!! One of RE2's bonus games when you complete it is a game for those hardcore Dead-Heads where you go through the entire thing with nothing but a knife as your sole weapon.

My favorite parts of the game were the confrontation with the giant alligator in the sewer (now where have I heard that before?) and the handful of jump scare confrontations with the new, improved Tyrant, the Tyrant-103; his occasional, unannounced appearances manage to keep you on the edge of your seat. The final confrontation aboard a moving train with the Tyrant-103s final form packs a wallop and ends the game on an extremely satisfying note.

The new additions to the monster roll call include various mutant creatures, walking plant monsters, humongous and deadly insects, and these man-sized creepy-crawlies called Lickers. They're more or less a quadruped version of the Hunters from the first game. Their creep factor is enhanced by the heavy, intermittent breathing sounds they make. 

RESIDENT EVIL 2 was an enormously fun game that sold like hot cakes and went on to become the biggest selling game of the series on a single platform. It was released on my birthday, January 21st, 1998. I couldn't have asked for a better gift to myself than that at the time!

SURVIVAL HORROR FILES #1: NIGHTMARE CREATURES

 
With the enormous success of RESIDENT EVIL, it wasn't long before a slew of other creatures great and small began attacking mankind. One of my favorites of these was NIGHTMARE CREATURES from 1997. The game takes place in the 1800s and deals with a satanic cult led by Adam Crowley who creates ghoulish monsters with which to use to take over the world. Standing against him is a kung fu fighting preacher and an equally skilled, vengeance seeking woman. The atmosphere is unique and infinitely creepy with a great score. The game sets itself apart from others by having two separate life bars -- one for your life and an adrenaline bar that gradually runs out due to exposure to a city-wide virus unleashed by Crowley. Your playable character must constantly kill creatures to keep this bar replenished. NIGHTMARE CREATURES 2 emerged in 2000, but it wasn't as good as the first game in what could have been a promising series.

THE DEAD DON'T DIE 

For RESIDENT EVIL 3, things took a slight dip. It wasn't nearly as intense, nor as scary as the previous two games. It had its moments, but played more like an expansion pack of the second game. Which isn't too far off the mark considering it takes place before and after the incidents of RE2. It's still a lot of fun, just don't expect anything you haven't already experienced.

The plot such as it is revolves around STARS member, Jill Valentine,  last seen in the first RESIDENT EVIL, attempting to escape the monster filled ruins of Raccoon City. The rest of the game consists of her interacting with various characters that pop in and out of the game. One is a character named Carlos, who you will play during the game. And that's pretty much it. Like I said, it was a good deal of fun, but felt more like an extended version of the previous game.

The monsters are mostly retreads of past enemies, although the Hunters make their gruesome reprise here and in a different form than before under the name of Hunter Beta. There's also a Hunter offshoot that has amphibious features called a Hunter Gamma.

The one major innovation here is the inclusion of the Nemesis. This formidable foe is essentially the Tyrant with some modifications. He often runs after you and, unlike the previous games, running into another room doesn't save you from the chase. The Nemesis will enter the next room with you! He also carries a rocket launcher and will use it on you; not that this big boy needs one.

There's also a string of ten "quick decisions" that influence certain moments of the gameplay, or possibly affect the ending of the game. There's also a nice addition of explosive barrels for those moments when you're swarmed by many monsters and you need to "blow shit up real good."

The inclusion of gunpowder and a reloading tool offers players the ability to create different types of ammunition such as various bullets and grenades. The ending boss battle isn't quite as satisfying as part 2, but the ending movie closes things out on an explosive note.

SURVIVAL HORROR FILES #2: DINO CRISIS

 
DINO CRISIS was Shinji Mikami's answer to his own RESIDENT EVIL. It's essentially the same game, but substitutes flesh-hungry dinosaurs for flesh-eating zombies. The games plot, structure and characters are all virtually identical to the wildly popular RE series. I never cared much for the game, but it was popular enough to garner two official sequels. A demo for DINO CRISIS was included with the release of RESIDENT EVIL 3. I never played the other two games, but the third one took place in outer space and featured mutant dinosaurs.

NOT ALL EVIL IS GOOD 

There's been somewhere in the ballpark of two dozen RE games. Most of these were stories not associated with the main storyline and some of them I bought were pretty mediocre affairs. I pretty much hated RESIDENT EVIL SURVIVOR, a weary and bloody boring first person shooter. Ditto for the RESIDENT EVIL OUTBREAK (see image above); which differentiated itself by integrating cooperative gameplay into the mix with a varied group of people trying to survive against the gallery of RE foes. I disliked them both, never finished them and ended up giving them away.

EVIL GOES GLOBAL

RESIDENT EVIL CODE: VERONICA X from 2000 was a huge breath of fresh air. It was my new favorite game at the time. It redefined BIG. It gave the feeling an epic was unfolding before your eyes. Granted, it was a morbidly gruesome epic, but a far reaching plot just the same. A lot of it takes place in Europe, beginning in Paris, then shifting a chunk of the action to an island prison, the ominously spooky Ashford Mansion, than trotting off to the cold climates of the Antarctic.

Claire Redfield, in Paris searching for her brother, Chris (who we're told was sent there during the second RE), is captured during a firefight at an Umbrella facility. She's imprisoned at Rockfort Island. A T-virus outbreak occurs on the island and Claire escapes. The eccentric and unhinged commander of the island, Alfred Ashford, is at the center of the new outbreak, as well as involvement with a new bacteria, the T-Veronica virus. Meanwhile, Chris Redfield makes his way to Rockfort Island and discovers some old enemies are connected with this new Umbrella plague.

The sheer amount of creatures is staggering compared with previous games. There's multiple types of zombies, Hunters, enormous black widow spiders, parasites, man-eating worms, a mutating female beast known as Alexia and the all important Tyrant; which you must do battle with on more than one occasion including the confined space of a cargo plane. 

CODE: VERONICA X was the revamped version of RESIDENT EVIL CODE: VERONICA, the first franchise entry on a system other than the Playstation; that one being the Sega Dreamcast. I ALMOST bought a Dreamcast just for this, but after I heard it was coming to the PS2, I figured I'd wait. The game itself evened out the scares with the action pretty well, but it wasn't hard to see the series was slipping where the horror was concerned.

REC:VX was a great deal of fun filled with lots of excitement; and while more of the same, it showcased a ghoulish level of grandeur the series had touched on in part 2 and later in part 4. It also foreshadowed, ironically enough, that the best entries in this ever expanding franchise were debuting on other consoles outside of the Playstation universe.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART THREE

Cool Ass Cinema Gets EVIL: 15 Years Surviving the Horror Part 1

POLYGONAL MASSACRE! HORROR IN YOUR HOME

 The world of video games and arcades have mostly been home to action or fighting game titles. Horror games were, at one time, few and far between. 

When Atari and other home systems became the rage in the 1980s, game cartridges built around ghouls and spooky shenanigans remained a small market. There were popular titles like CASTLEVANIA and GHOSTS N GOBLINS and of course the infamous FRIDAY THE 13TH and TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE games; but the market for at-home-horror-gaming didn't hit in a massive way till the late 1990s with a title that has become as synonymous within the video game lexicon as PAC MAN and MARIO BROTHERS.

Emerging in 1996 to both great sales and acclaim, RESIDENT EVIL presented a terrifying new landscape for at-home gaming entertainment. RESIDENT EVIL (called BIOHAZARD in Japan) was guided by notable game designer, Shinji Mikami, who was also largely instrumental in popularizing the gaming genre known as 'Survival Horror'; the terminology denoting any game that puts the player, or players in a life-threatening, extremely dangerous situation, often with limited resources and an ever growing array of frightening monsters.

FEEL THE FEAR! CAN YOU HANDLE THE HORROR?

I remember the first time I experienced this groundbreaking game. It was in 1997. I had seen posters and in-store ads for RESIDENT EVIL, but wasn't aware just what it was at the time. Also, arcades and gaming systems had lost their luster where my interest in them was concerned.

Even so, I decided to buy a Sony Playstation; mostly so my brother would have something to do when he stayed at my house while I was working. While I enjoyed engaging in duels within the BATTLE ARENA TOSHINDEN, it was RESIDENT EVIL that stole my heart; actually, it was more like ripping it from my chest and consuming it.  

The story deals with the STARS Alpha team being sent to locate survivors of Bravo team, whose chopper had went down on the outskirts of Raccoon City. No survivors are found, but they are chased by mutant dogs into an ominously spooky mansion that is seemingly deserted. Over the course of the night, the remaining Alpha team members uncover frightening monstrosities and horrifying experiments tied to the Umbrella Corporation.

 Ultimately, I ended up getting addicted to wandering around that creepy, isolated mansion with horrors of all shapes and sizes waiting around every corner.

I never actually played the original version of RE, but in 1997, I purchased a re-release that was called RESIDENT EVIL: DIRECTORS CUT. A number of modifications were made, such as re-arranging items found in the mansion, different camera angles and two additional gaming modes. The censored Full Motion Video sequence seen at the beginning was supposed to have been presented uncut, but some sort of QC issue with the developers resulted in the games beginning movie to be the same cut version from the original '96 release. Since I'd never played the game before, it didn't bother me too much. The Director's Cut also came with a second disc that contained a demo for the highly anticipated release of RESIDENT EVIL 2.

When I bought the game, an employee told me I had to have the strategy guide, or it would be near impossible to get through without it. Granted, I didn't have a computer at the time, so finding a walkthrough online wasn't an option then. So I came home and hooked up the Playstation system along with the speakers I had for that extra 'Boo' effectiveness. I was home alone this particular night and had no idea just what the hell I was in for. The horrid voice acting had me laughing at first, but little did I know what was soon to come. 

One of the first things that stood out to me were the eerily realistic pre-rendered backgrounds that the three dimensional characters move around in. That, accompanied with superb sound effects and stunningly creepy music cues only added to the nightmare. It didn't take me long to realize that when you entered an area without any music playing on the soundtrack, that meant something was going to jump out at you from somewhere; it was only a matter of when and where.

CREATURES OF THE NIGHT

The moment I realized how potent jump scares were on a video game occurred the moment the dogs jumped through a window and attacked me. Dropping the controller did nothing for my characters life expectancy. I died a few times before finally being able to progress. 

About halfway through the game, I thought I had gotten the hang of it. But upon re-entering the mansion, all the zombies are gone, but they're replaced by some new, even more deadly menaces. These scary bastards called Hunters started cropping up everywhere and the ceilings were now littered with gigantic hairy spiders!

The Hunters (GameCube remake Hunter above; Playstation 1 Hunter at right) were particularly pesky and far more difficult to kill than a zombie. They possessed the uncanny ability to leap into the air and take your head off with a single slash of their enormous clawed hands. I remember one spot in the game involved going down a hallway to solve a puzzle that would reward you with the magnum gun. To get there, you had to encounter THREE of the Hunters! I remember gushing an enormous sigh of relief upon finally getting past the triple threat of these head Hunters and getting a Magnum which could put them away in a single shot.

Among the other monsters both in, around and underneath the mansion are an outsized cobra (you fight this guy twice; above photo from the REmake), a giant man-eating plant, killer crows, more zombies, these hairy, insectoid, ape-like creatures called Chimeras and the formidable Tyrant, the main monster of the game. You encounter him twice, too. 

Having to take on, and take out such a high level of creatures means you need weapons. RE boisterously earned the 'Survival Horror' moniker with its limited ammunition and inventory system. You really had to be careful how you used your guns. You didn't necessarily have to shoot every obstacle in your way. I found this out the hard way. Of course, if you ever returned to a particular room or area, the monsters you left alive would still be there waiting on you.

BRAINS OVER DEADLY BRAWN

Your inventory was also small, so you had to make drastic decisions about what to take with you and what to put in these inventory chests placed in safe rooms throughout the game. See the image below to see what your inventory screen looked like on the first RESIDENT EVIL.

Saving your game was also a strategic decision. You could only do so by using a typewriter(!) and with a ribbon. These ribbons also had a limited number of times you could use them. After that, you had to find another one, so you were forced to re-think not only how you played the game, but also in how you saved it, too!

Your health aids were these first aid sprays (that completely replenished your life) and herbs that came in three colors--green, red and blue. You could also combine these for potency, and some you couldn't use by themselves. Three green herbs combined raised your life all the way, as did a single green and a red herb. The blue herbs were only for curing poisons endured by toxin spewing creatures. Like the red herbs, blue herbs can't be taken by themselves, you had to combine them with a green one. Again, you were faced with what to take with you and how much. As frustrating as this could get, it made for an immensely satisfying experience, and only aided in the intensity and those great jump scares.

I hadn't been playing long when a bunch of friends came over one night and all four of us took turns playing it. One would hold the strategy guide and tell the one playing where to go. The four of us swapped out every time one of us died. I think we played RESIDENT EVIL for at least two months. The ending took forever to beat, it was so intense at the time; the Tyrant was one creepy beast. Of course his fright factor has come a long way since the once cutting edge Playstation graphics of the late 1990s.

  
RE's finale also showcased a plot device that would become a mainstay of the series, a countdown timer that had to be met or else your atoms were scattered for miles, or as the game would splash across the screen, "YOU DIED". 

The beauty of the game was that it was so well planned and laid out, you truly got the impression YOU were actually there taking on flesh-eating zombies and a menagerie of monsters. It was an exhilarating experience I never imagined I'd get from a video game. The first RESIDENT EVIL may look outdated today, but at the time, there was no denying its ability to instill fear and pure terror in those holding the controller.

TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 2