Resident Evil Zero (Switch)

ALL ABOARD THE CRAZY TRAIN!

Played through Resident Evil Zero again (or 0), but this time on the Switch and without using a guide. Same story, still found it alright. Played through the first game now and been introduced to Rebecca in that game I wonder if her portrayal is coherent. In this game she is though and focused on her mission, not flinching in taking Billy Coen into custody even though she think he killed his guards and 23 other people, in the original... she hides in rooms, almost getting killed by a hunter and starts crying (of course the stress of being in constant danger for 2 days and Richard getting killed could probably make her break down, but hunter shouldn't be a problem). 

At least the achievements are fun. I think one is even a reference to Batman the Animated Series sine its titled "On Leather Wings" which is the name of the first episode of that series. Nice. Played through the Wesker mode until Rebecca was killed by the first boss and I hadn't saved. Looks a bit fun to use Wesker with his special abilities, but it's just a reskin in the game itself. Movies it's still Billy and his voice and acting is still Billy. Shouldn't have been trying to get Rebecca's achievement for killing all the bosses. Should have used Wesker. Also, don't remember this from the Wii version, but the loading time is noticeable between rooms. And compared to RE1 that I played before I don't get why it would differ? Maybe that you can drop any item anywhere which forces the game to remember or that RE1 is stored on the system memory and the others on the MicroSD-card? Anyway, now I played through all Resident Evil-games I own. And it was all during the Corona-epidemic.

And I started to think about a fun bit about all these games: The Resident Evil Guide to survive an epidemic!

First off, Resident Evil 1... don't buy a mansion in the middle of the woods from a pharmaceutical company.

Resident Evil 0.... don't go on a train.

Resident Evil 4.... don't go to Spain.

Resident Evil 5... don't visit any African country.

Resident Evil 6... the C-virus is created in a laboratory in China... and don't take the plane.

Resident Evil Revelations... don't go on a cruise ship.

Resident Evil Revelations 2... don't go to the company party.

See, Capcom teaching social distancing and avoid public transportations since 1996.

Resident Evil HD (Switch) part 2

The one and only Chris Redfield

So, quickly replayed it as Chris Redfield and there are some changes to the story as well as adding other characters. First off, it's Chris, Jill and Wesker that arrives at the mansion. Barry is completely gone from the game, so where he fixed doors and left supplies, that role is now Wesker that done it. Giving the betrayal part even more punch really. Secondly, you meet Rebecca Chambers that starred in RE0 and she has to do things that Jill could do, but not Chris, like playing the piano... or rather that's pretty much the only thing she need doing. Overall Chris side is much more focused on action... but Jill still got the better weapons like the grenade launcher. The only thing Chris got was a flamethrower that he only could use against the spider boss. And flash grenades to shove into the mouth of zombies that grabbed him, killing them for good. 

Also, one puzzle is completely omitted, and that is the weed killer concoction to kill Plant 42. You just gotta brute force it with the shotgun. Also, Chris starts without a gun, just a knife... what kinda action path is this? And then we have the thing about inventory. Jill have 8 slots and Chris 6. Jill is more fun to play since she doesn't need to swap in and out items all the time and Barry is more useful than Rebecca. And the acting overall in this game... 4, 5 and 6 could be corny, but they were at least partially good acted, not so much in this version, and a pity they don't used the voice actor for the later games, but that might have been taking out the charm for many people about the game. It was kinda ridiculas when Richard, who survived the battle of the snake in this version thanks to Rebecca (he died shoving Jill out of the way in her part of the story) he instead got eaten by a shark shoving Chris out of the way... poor Richard. Still, this version of the game has Rebecca in a cowgirl costume on replays... gotta give me something to replay it.

Resident Evil HD (Switch)

Welcome inside!

So I finally played through the first game in the series and it was for the Switch. I also have it for the Wii when they released the Resident Evil Archives. I bought that version on a whim after playing through RE4, but never finished it... or played more than maybe 10 minutes of it. It's one of the first survival horror games and was originally released on the PS1 back in the 90's. Then they remade it for the Gamecube back in the early 2000's. I saw it advertised a lot and had the intro cutscene on a DVD from Super Play, a Swedish gaming magazine. It begins with S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team searching for Bravo Team that was lost after searching for unknown assilants that had eaten some people around Raccoon City. Discovering the wreck of their helicopter Alpha Team heads out. Jill Valentine, Barry Burton, Chris Redfield, Joseph Frost and captain Albert Wesker. Joseph gets attacked and killed by zombie dogs and the others escape into an old mansion belonging to the Spencer family. And then you gotta chose if you play as Jill or Chris. Only experienced Jill playthroughs and seen her start of the game I went with that. She also had two more slots for items than Chris and a lock-pick. The drawback having less health. 

So Jill, Barry and Wesker enters the mansion and Chris have gotten lost. Barry and Jill goes and check the dining hall, but instead finds a zombie eating on Bravo Teams Kenneth. From here Jill is left alone trying to find out what went down, find any survivors and get out of the mansion. The plot is that the Spencer mansion is on top of a secret laboratory built by the Umbrella Corporation where a viral outbreak have taken place and caused the people being infected and turned to zombies. Also Albert Wesker was planted by Umbrella to keep S.T.A.R.S. away from the truth as they have been dealing in a virus to create illegal bioweapons. Barry was forced to work for Wesker with a threat against his family, but couldn't betray Jill so they ended taking down Wesker that woke a Tyrant in a tube. And I still don't get what you really are gonna get for using B.O.W.s since they have never been able to control them enough for regular battles so it basically the drawback chemical warfare had back in the first world war when it could affect your own troops as much as the enemies. Still, Weskers supposedly dead and the tyrant lies dead on the floor. As you leave the self-destruct is activated so you make a break for it to get Chris out of prison. All three escape to the helipad where you set off a charge to get Brad to land. Before that the Tyrant appears again, knock out Chris leaving Barry and Jill to deal with it. After firing some grenades at him Brad drops a rocket luncher which Jill uses to blow the tyrant to bits, Brad picks everyone up and as they fly away as the mansion explodes.

I liked it. Playing through for the first time, even on very easy, felt tense with the music, the claustrophobic inducing corridors and the constant shaking up of rooms and corridors with enemies that can walk between areas. Just that you can walk into a boss room and if you are unlucky not being fully prepared to deal with it. I was of the impression that it was unknown what caused the zombies, but very early it's established it's a viral outbreak. They hint at cult members as explanation to the killings that causes S.T.A.R.S. to intervene. It's more of a puzzle game and inventory/resource management than action. Find keys, or items to open doors and either avoid fighting or kill the monsters you encounter. At least in the easier levels, I gather the resources aren't enough to coast through to the end if you blast everything, but on the other hand, I probably could have finished with only handgun and shotgun, but the final confrontation was at least easy with bringing the magnum and grenade launcher. Still, there is another story to be told as well, from Chris's side...

Resident Evil 6 (Switch)

Continued on with the sixth game in the series. Haven't played this game since back in 2015 as well. And I gotta confess, I never finished it, I played to the final stage of Jake's Campaign and just gave up. I believe it was due to the final mission being the same stage as Chris's so I didn't even bother and I probably guessed Ada's would be the same chapter she already show up to... which turned out to be true. And I guess I lived back home with my parents then so sisters home and hogging the TV... or another fun game turned up. My guess on the clone of Ada Wong was also correct just by picking it up by pure logic. But I also was a bit better this time in finding the serpent emblems so I even got some more of the story this time around.

So people don't like this game... and I agree with them. I had to play some rounds of Tetris and RE5 between each chapters to just stomach it. They changed a lot of things that just make the game boring in comparison. First off they got rid of the treasure system and the upgrade system from RE4 and 5 and instead an all composing skill system. Not bad per say, but you only can have three active skills at once and you change between the skill set ups. Hate it. Firstly it is hard to get the skills since it comes from drops of enemies and finding "treasures". No grade points like in RE5 after each mission. Which is another problem since why replay the missions if you can't get something out of it in a constant manner? Also, the chapters are too damn long. I found out you can start them from the different points, but it doesn't work as well as in 5, and since you can't see where you missed the emblems you guessed, look at a guide and it's kinda important this time around to get the emblems since they unlock files that tells you what is really going on. No reading reports, memos or letters in the chapters. So if you missed certain parts you don't get that Derek Simmons (one of the bad guys) was the guardian of Sherry Birkin or that the name of the President of the United States is Benford. Also, rather interesting in the Covid-19 times is that it takes place in China, and that the C-virus (not making this up) was manufactured there from the beginning. And this game was released in 2013. 

As I noted for RE5 they gave you an auto-function for the quick-time events and it made the game easier (I would even add tolerable), but there is still a lot of insta-death traps that one could almost not figure out. For example, Ada's chapter in the graveyard where you burst through the floor and into an underground tunnel with spinning blades. If you don't move down instantly you die, but pushing the crawls fast button made me constantly spin around and get caught in the blades, killing me instantly. I think I died 5 times before emerging on the other side. Also, they really went all in on the online multiplayer aspect of the game cause I have to turn it off at every single instance when starting a chapter. Also, replayability isn't as good as 5 since there you could chose different weapons and adjust your playstyle the way you wanted, here, you get a predetermined set up and you gotta stick to it. And since you can't upgrade the weapons, there isn't that feeling of satisfaction that occurs when you downed the first boss that kicked your ass in beginning with just one set of shotgun rounds. They even put the infinite ammo as an equipeable skill, so waste a couple of upgrades for taking away the stress off saving the ammo for the good weapons. I get it that you should use the 8 different set-ups so you can change them and with it the playstyle. But they are so damn expensive as well which means I have to play even more. Funny how I spent 40 hours in RE5 and replayed the early stages over and over to gain money and points, but I can't stomach the 20 hours to just finish RE6 just once.

So no, I really didn't like to replay it. I tried playing it some more just to get the emblems and gather enough points to unlock enough of the infinite ammo cheats so I can blast through this. Guess what? Even that is a chore since I thought, maybe try it as the other characters, Helena, Sherry and Piers? You gotta play all the chapters with them since they have to recollect all weapons so they actually stands a chance in the later chapters. 5 had it perfect, shared armoury and just equip what suited you best (which reminds me, probably should get a double set of every weapon so that there is no conflict whatsoever in co-op). Also, how the hell does one get local co-op without getting online... you know, like in RE5? God, so many stupid decisions. At least Matthew Mercer is fun to listen to as Leon.

Resident Evil 5 (Switch)

Back with this game again

So when everyone else is playing the Resident Evil 3 Remake and quarantining from the Covid-19 epidemic I played Resident Evil 5 on the Switch instead. Five years since I wrote about it last time and the game itself is 11 years old. Story-wise and such is still the same, it just about the differences from the older versions... and now I had to boot up my PS3 copy and boy, even though I played through the game on amateur and normal, I didn't play as much as the Switch version. I've already got all BSAA emblems, all figures and every weapon, I farmed gold and points and have pretty much everything done already. I cleared amateur and all chapters on Platinum. Somehow it was more fun to play it through this time... and the reason is probably since they changed a couple of things.

First, amateur allows you to insta-succeed on the quick-time events meaning you don't die as often to cutscenes. Also, they downed the difficulty for amatuer even more. I recall that I constantly was run over by the damn truck in chapter 2-1 and now I never got run over on amatuer (on normal it's a different story). I also noticed they changed the layout of the menus as well. Also, the default controller setting is so much better in this version than the PS3. I just tried to play a quick level to see if the auto-function was exclusive to the ports or if I misremember, but it was a bit of confusion to recall how to just aim since instead of the L1 (aim) and R1 (fire) it was like R1 (aim) and Square (fire). Glad they changed it to standard FPS controllers so you don't have to relearn it every time  (We will get more into this when I finish Resident Evil 6 that I play through at the moment). 

Overall, it's a fun game, now even better for casual players. Compared to Resident Evil 4, not as good, but still fun and the co-op really makes it more fun to play with friends. The inventory system isn't as good, but it works for the quick change system and the fact you play as two characters. Not as much horror and RE4 was a bit more unnerving when playing, but the chapter select system and the easy overview of what collectibles you got and such is fantastic (again. talk more about this after RE6). Miss the combining treasure system, but since you can replay any level again and again it's no problem. Wish RE4 had it since the island portion and final levels are boring compared to the village and castle. A boring thing though is the bosses that in the end just turns into puzzle bosses (lucky the infinite rocket launcher take cares of most of the problems), but Wesker and Jill is the big offenders. But since the chapters are between 5-20 minutes if you run through them to 40-80 minutes does you take a long time finishing. One thing though that really bothers me is the load times between scenes. Why are they that long? They even had the brilliant idea to put all the information on the load screens in the files archive so you can read them at your own leisure, but they haven't optimised the loading times? Come on!

Resident Evil 4 HD (Switch)

In a small provincial town

Eagerly awaiting the game I actually pre-ordered it on the Switch eshop just to be able to play it again. And I wasn't disappointed. 17 hours in I finish the normal game and 4 hours later finish the special mission Separate Ways. The story is that Leon Kennedy is in Spain looking for the presidents daughter Ashley that was kidnapped by this cult worshipping a parasite, las plagas, that when injected into people will hatch and then allow the master plagas to control the infected. Leon gets infected himself so as the clock ticks he gotta save Ashley, find a cure and get out of Spain alive. Separate Ways follows Ada Wong as she tries to gather a sample of las plagas for Albert Wesker and explains certain parts of the plot that where hinted at in the main game.

Now, I love the main game. This is the first Resident Evil game I played and the Wii version was fantastic with its motion control targeting and unfortunately you can't play with motions controls here. After some practice it was working out for me, especially since the Revelations game and 5 and 6 used the twin stick style of play as well, making it not that hard getting into it. But it is noticeable that it isn't as fast in pointing and such. Another thing that I noticed is that there isn't any easy-mode. This annoyed me a great deal since I usually played first on easy to get to know the game, then unlocking the Special Costume 2 where Ashley is in a suit of armour making it harder for enemies to kill her and then tackle Normal mode and maybe try on Professional mode. Now, since I already played it a couple of times I could manage things pretty well as well as getting treasures to sell and get my hand better weapons and upgrade them, but I would at least like the option to be a scardy cat. Fun enough I found out that in the original North American release you had to die a couple of times in the beginning to unlock easy mode, but not in Japan or Europe (thank god). 

Also, I couldn't help but notice that the resolution in Separate Ways looked a bit worse than the main game in cutscenes and such. Don't recall if that always was there or not. Anyway, this is still my favourite Resident Evil game, Revelations 1 is a good contender, but this just feels bigger. Could also be due to the enemies being more varied and such as well as the environments. The upgrade system is also better. And then we have the stupid decision to not include subtitles if you have it on English. Better to turn it into Spanish or German. Why do that? Especially in certain scenes when the sound can hinder your hearing of the voices. I have no problems now, but in 30 years? Or people with actual hearing problems that want to play this game or people that aren't that good at english but doesn't have one of the larger languages to fall back to? Idiotic move really. Don't they want it to be accessible to as many people as possible?

Resident Evil Revelations 2 (Co-Op)

And my sisters plan to only allow me to play Claire Redfield backfired since I got the gun

And yet again, another Resident Evil Co-Op version. Pretty much the same problem as I described in Resident Evil 5 (Co-Op), the duel screen is terrible. This is were the Wii U solution actually would work better with a separate screen. Now, another problem is that, due to the gameplay mechanic only one have any decent weapons. And that makes Moira Burton rather worthless. Natalia at least can see unseen enemies, but Moira? She hits enemies with a crowbar, but never bring a crowbar to a gunfight.

Now, me and my sister got the bad ending as since as Claire I was a bit quicker to get her to pick up the gun to kill the boss which then leads to Moira die since she wouldn't get past her own phobias. So Natalia is turned into Alex Wesker and since Barry bonded to much to Natalia he can't kill her. Intersting to see. And then the thing that bothered me the most in solo mode. In chapter 2 (I believe it was) you have several invisible enemies when you are Barry and Natalia hiding in a building. I used Natalia to spy two out and then using Barry to kill them. But I always seemed to miss one and then it killed me. Now in co-op I could see the figure in real time... and still it killed me. The thing is that it came from behind. But there was nothing there. We think that the bug actually went through the ceiling since I know it was one there and therefore sneaked up on me. Meaning the game have a bug... and I don't mean the monster bug. That irritates me a bit. 

All in all Resident Evil 5 is funnier in co-op than this game. Unlimited weapons for all is funnier.

Resident Evil 5 (co-op)

This game again

So some year ago I finished of Resident Evil 5 and commented on the co-op, now, I played the whole game in co-op-mode together with my younger sister. And it was fun. Especially since we had access to unlimited ammo and all that for shotgun, machine guns and pistols (and unlocked it for a rifle on the way) meaning we just threw out all ammo and blasted at our hearts content. I put us on the normal difficulty and it was easier as two players since it was full control of the characters and not caring about the safety of the other in the same way as one person play. The game still has some bullshit gameplay I've come to realise during a second play-through. First the damn truck in the beginning that kills you more than once as you try to shoot the driver. Hate it. Second the run sequences avoiding the Ouroboros and the rolling stone. Quick-time event insta-death.

And now to the most annoying thing about the local co-op. The split screen is horrendous before you adjust to it. The screen is split in two, but since the widescreen would mess up they shrink each screen and place it diagonally of each others. Now, since we played it at my parents place we used their TV. And it isn't small, but goddammit, it was still hard for us to see. And no way to adjust after your own liking. 

So all in all, it has diminished somewhat, but playing with a partner makes it enjoyable on a completely different level. Maybe we should try hard mode with the acquired gatling gun. And I would gladly play it on Switch  together with Resident Evil 0, 1, 2, 3, Code:Veronica and 4. Maybe 6 if they give me local co-op.

Resident Evil: Revelations 2

Finally, we put it to the test

The sequel to the smash hit Revelations pushing forward Claire Redfield and Barry Burton on a Russian mining island to fight of the B.O.W:s that taken it over. Back in the day it was an episodic adventure I gather, but thankfully they released it as a whole package (waiting for a Lords of Shadow-collection Konami so I can play that game as well). It work pretty much like the first game, but they enhanced a co-op play-style since you always have a second companion with you. Problem is that they play rather differently. Both Barry and Claire are the damage dealers so the secondary characters Moira Burton and Natalia are used for more puzzle solving. Or as much puzzle solving there is with opening chests. 

Story is that Claire and Moira is working for Terra Save, a clean-up/civilian organisation compared to the BSAA:s military function (in political science we would talk about something like soft and hard power in relations with nation and it's pretty much the same here). At a work party the whole office gets kidnapped and Claire and Moira tries to escape their prison. They find out they are on an island and sends out a distress message. The perspective switch to Barry who arrives on the island and find Natalia, a girl that lost her parents in the Terragrigia attack as he search for his daughter and Claire. At the end of the first chapter we find out that the distress message was sent 6 months ago so basically we play through each area twice, once with each group. Claire finds other survivors from Terra Save and we learn that this virus is T-Phobos, a virus activating by the hormone that produces as we experience fear so they are put in constant stress to force the virus to activate. They all have bracelets that works as communicators (and I assume GPS trackers) for the Overseer that watches all this an with a colour indicator representing in what stage their fear is. Green good, yellow anxiety and red you transform. Now obviously everyones is yellow except the boss of Terra Save... he's a bad guy. And Natalia's is red which would mean she should transform. You get this by reading a note so it's a pretty easy guess. Apparently the boss of TerraSave was a believer in Morgan Lansdale in that the world need to saved by a military force that gets free reign as long as the threats of Bioterrorism exist. 

Now, who is the Overseer? She is Albert Weskers sister that for some reason is gonna use the virus to find an individual with such a strong psyche she transfer her own mind to the vessel and therefore ascend to godhood. Of course it's Natalia, that is what the red indicates and that she doesn't transform.  In the final chapter it's revealed that Claire escaped the island, but Moira was left behind so that is the reason Barry found out. Nice twist. Of course she survives and you can play that part in a separate chapter where one of the few living characters take care of her and teach her to use weapons and survive in the wilderness (you know he dies since you find his dead body as Barry). She apparently once fired one of Barry's guns on her other sister (the sister survived, but in what state I can't tell since she's never on screen) and vowed to never pick up a gun. Until she has to. That also seems to push her colour into red without her turning, accepting her fear of guns I think. The end boss is Alex Wesker, but it's weird since she is a monster and she committed suicide when she believed the transfer of mind to be complete and awaits the awakening. So like in Tad Williams Otherland-series she needs to get rid of the old body, but it apparently failed and that is the reason she hunts Natalia, but the ending is a bit ambiguous over if Natalia is herself or a reborn Alex Wesker.

Overall a good game, but it feels like the maps and chapters are to long compared to the first game. I like Claire and Barry and there is nothing wrong with the others, but I don't like all the points of no returns when I might remember a thing to check, but can't get back or I wandered in the wrong way cutting of my way back. And damn invisible enemies and just weird collectibles they don't explain how to get. And as always want more inventory space and ammunition. But it was fun.

Resident Evil: Revelations (Switch)

They are back!

Of course I had to get the port of Resident Evil: Revelations 1 and 2 for the Switch. A pity it wasn't released physically in Europe and pretty much not in the rest of the world either as I gather the US got the first game on cartridge and then the second, much larger game downloadable only. Now, if I had 2 TB of space on the micro-sd card no problem, but I only got like 120 GB and if 33 GB goes to just two games it will eat up everything else as well. And it's only the first year.

I played it way back on the Wii U (and later also on the 3DS which was it'd first release, but I never finished it). I liked it then and I like it now. I enjoy the story, I like all characters and pretty much all the good guys survive until the end. It's rather optimistic actually. Although I still wonder if they switched the name Parker Luciani around and that he really should be Luciani Parker. Or does anyone have the first name Parker?

Now, how differs this from the older games? First, as you start up you can play a shooting game where you shoot zombies to score points that converts to BP which is the currency for Raid Mode. And that is pretty much the only difference I can see. I assume the graphics are slightly better, but I can't tell. Apparently they also added gyro-aiming in a throw back to the wii Resident Evil 4 game. I played it without, but I can see that easing some problems I can have with shooting in that it takes to long to align the sights with the stick. Also, instead of like me in the old game having to buy special weapons as DLC it is included directly. Thanks Capcom. I've earned it after buying the game 3 times over at this point.

And now I'm waiting for the Mega Man-collection buying the Mega Man games for the 4th time (Wii, Wii U, 3DS and then Switch). At least I didn't buy the collection for the 3DS so I would have bought it twice for the same system and pushing it up to 5 times. And then the Bayonetta-series... Does it feel like I'm buying the exact same games I bought for the Wii U on the Switch instead?

Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles

Resident Evil 3.5

So me and my sister sat down and played her Resident Evil game and used her double wii zappers for best effect. It's just a rail-shooter game so all you have to do is line up and fire. Rather simple. The only bad thing about it is that you are encouraged to shoot at anything to find hidden emblems and gold by destroying the environment meaning that you constantly hear the gun sound. In instances where you can feel the horror atmosphere it's rather jarring to hear gunshots all the time. Not speaking of the inconsistency from the original games where you had limited ammo. And when the story bits along you can't hear them and instead make the best out of it by reading the text instead. So it's not recommended for its suspenseful story since the gameplay pushes you out of it. Doesn't help that there is no way to separate voices from the SFX in the sound option which could have alleviated some of the problem.

The story then is that you play as Leon two years before Resident Evil 4 as you and Jack Krausser is in an unknown South American jungle looking for a drug kingpin that have some connections to Umbrella. They find a girl that seems to control the B.O.W. and follow her into the jungle while Leon tells the story of his first day in Raccoon city where he met Claire Redfield (Resident Evil 2) and her continues adventure looking for her brother Chris (Resident Evil Code: Veronica). In the end Leon reach the drug lord and fights of the enemies and learn that the girl is the kingpins daughter that have been infected with the Veronica virus to stave of some other disease and it ends with Krausser hurting his arm and pushing him through his shift to the bad guys in Resident Evil 4.

Overall it's a good distraction when playing with two players as you can help each other and at the same time look for hidden treasures. A single player would have a tougher time I believe. Mindless fun for the most part. Makes me hope Capcom releases all the HD releases on the Switch. Can't wait for Revelations 1 and 2.

Resident Evil 4

The first Resident Evil game I've ever played

I noticed in the last post I never wrote anything about this game so I decided to amend that and I finished it a couple of times with only hard difficulty setting left... and I will probably not finish that since I had a hard time on Normal, of course I used the special costume that made Ashley invincible making the more frustrating parts a little bit easier. The story is that Leon Kennedy has just been assigned as the US presidents body guard, but his daughter have been kidnapped and your first assignment is to get to Spain and get her back. A nice stroll through the Spanish countryside, how quaint.

Oh, the welcome committee, you didn't have to.

As per usual with Resident Evil all villagers have been infected, not with a virus, but with a parasite. A local chief, noble and a cultist leader are using it to take over the world as they want to infect Ashley that can infect the President and then they can take control of the US and of course THE WORLD! Obviously, its up to you to stop them. The plot is rather easy, but they made it atmospherical as you play through the first time and begins to figure out what's happening. There is like 4 different locations. The village, the castle, the island and a medical facility. Really, the village and castle are the best parts although the enemies are getting a bit frustrated in the castle area with instant kill and crossbows. Of course those are all over the island and facility. Plus it just feels more like a shooter at that point... or more like a sniper shooter. 

The easy mode for all other modes... or the mode to play the whole game

I got the Wii version just before Halloween back in... 2009? 2010? I can't remember, but I recall I had to restart after playing through the first part since I completely bungled the resources and finding the treasures to sell and upgrade my weapons. So with a walkthrough on the computer I played it through on Easy. I also figured I missed certain areas that was missing so to get the full experience I had to play it at least on Normal, but thank god for the mobster costume that gives Ashley a suit of armour that makes her invincible to attacks and to heavy to be carried away. Stress eliminated for several encounters in the castle as you could take your time with the sniper, which incidentally is probably the best weapon as its the most powerful and if you line the shoots up save a ton of ammo from other weapons. Of course the semi-automatic sniper is the way to go as you don't have to loose the sight each and every bullet reload.

I hate the later game monster

Replaying the game is a very satisfying procedure unfortunately it is crippled with a bit of irritating game design. First, if you want to change difficulty, start a new save. No keeping the old weapons on other difficulties and they probably saw that as a fault as well, since both 5 and Revelations makes it able to change difficulty. Another problem though is that you can't delete saves. I got it that you could if you deleted the save thing on the console, but the problem is all unlockables disappears as well. So I made another mistake and that was saving every singel act change and such meaning I now have several saves, when I at most need 3, one for each difficulty. So if I want to change that I have to replay the game 3 times.... I hate that.

Resident Evil 6

 

 So I finally gets around to this game, Resident Evil 6. Claimed to be one of the worst in the series and of course it's an anniversary game that tries to appeal to all fans of the series and have as many favorite characters as possible and what do you know, if you appeal to everyone no one will like it. Really, playing through it should be viewed as 4 games in one. One game with Leon Kennedy, one with Chris Redfield, one with Ada Wong and the last with someone named Jake Muller. Each scenario gives a different play-style for example more action, more exploring and more horror and so on. Taken one by one you get some favorites, mine being Leon Kennedy with the cathedral and underground levels. Chris in the middle with the damn Chinese levels and Jake on the bottom (might be due to a more classic low ammo combined with a modern testing facility which to me is the low point of the other Resident Evil games I've played). Gameplay-wise is also a mess, where the core walking around and fighting work as usual, but there is quick time event everywhere together with different driving stages with little explanation. You can't throw that at me without warning. Driving through the street of China took me forever before I realized what I did wrong.

Story-wise we are getting a chemical attack on the United States and China orchestrated by the head of NSA with intent to silence the President that want to uncover the truth of Raccon City. The reason is that it would diminish the power of the US... how I don't get since the rest of the world probably knows they nuked Raccon City (since most of the industrial world notice immediately if say Russia test a nuclear bomb which was part of the cold war propaganda that other countries then told they did it, kind of a whisper game). This is the main Kennedy story line, it intertwines with Chris Redfield who is hunting Ada Wong after losing most of his unit in some eastern European country to her mechination. They in turn are intertwined with Jake Muller who is pressed by Sheri Birkin to give his body to the NSA as he is full of antibodies against the latest virus. All the while Ada Wong is hunting some kind of clone (which is the real target for Chris) and helping Leon on the side. Really, 5 was hard to follow at times, but at least you followed one story that could branch out, here we have four from the get go that goes back and forth in time and over and over again.

So yes, I can see why people didn't like this game, and I have to agree for the most of it. It might be a working game, but the story is all over the place together with quick time events that forces you to be on your toes all the time. Foccusing on one story with cameos would have been better cause that could have tighten the story as well what the game wanted to be. The QTE's would probably still be there, but you can't fix everything.

Resident Evil 0

 

So after 5 I got the craving for some classic Resident Evil to get the full story. So I decided for the prequel. Got this for the Wii together with the Remake of the first game some years ago as well. Haven't touched this before. And it was an interesting experience. Maybe the intro turned me of because the intro music isn't horror, well except for my ears. So this takes place just before the original game and you play as B.R.A.V.O. teams medic Rebecca Chambers as she search and finds the fugitive Billy Coen and both need to team up to survive this nightmare. You start on a train, then a mansion and lastly a factory. Really, this game has atmosphere that really creeps me out. It might be together with the music and the sense I'm very vulnerable compared to the other Resident Evil games... or that might be the controls that makes the best course of action is standing still and shoot at any monster, no dodging here. I think I understand the talk about these so called tank-controls, a bit frustrating going back and forth trying to get in place to get ammo or whatever. Really, I'm so spoiled by the new games that just walking past important clues trigger a warning to press A or some sort... here I have to run around and press A all the time in order to stumble upon an important clue. The puzzles aren't that hard, I just needed to run around the areas two or three times before I get the right item on the right place. Really, the biggest problem is that my English isn't 100 %. Was some sort of rod for a "vise" (if I remember correctly) and I had no clue what it was. Worse was that I run around in the appointed room and just accidentally stumbled upon the thing I needed.

The story then is kinda hard for the main characters to figure out since important information is only given the player and someone that has played the original game. For example, the main bad guy is Dr James Marcus who was the head researcher for Umbrella on the original virus (which I learnt in Resident Evil 5) and supposedly killed by Albert Wesker and Birkin (the original bad guy and the sequels bad guy), but revived by a queen leech he crossed with the virus? Anyway, Birkin and Wesker tries to cover their tracks and stop Dr Marcus who releases the T-virus in the Raccon forrest which leads to the original game. Now, I don't get how the virus can give him control of looking old or young... or how it's supposed to work overall. Is it some sort of performance enhancing drug with healing abilities... or is it to create zombies? Cause all the games I've played the zombification seems to be the real goal of the research, proven by that they only talk about the B.O.W. as the goal and that none of the research goes into take that away. And this might be for missing the original three games that it doesn't make sense... or maybe it has to do with only some specific people can withstand the zombification, like Wesker and/or Jill Valentine (according to Resident Evil 5). Need to play the remake and Resident Evil 6 (and maybe hope for HD remakes for 2 and 3 on Wii U, although it seems unlikely).

Resident Evil 5

 

Have been playing Resident Evil 5 for some time now (on amateur of course, I'm so bad at action games overall), Another game I bought some years ago and didn't come round to until now. So I finished it and it was all right. Now, to be clear I've only played Resident Evil 4 and Revelations before this so I'm not that old-school with the series so the more action oriented gameplay don't bother me. Actually I find it rather enjoyable how you can move around all directions and when it comes to Revelations also like to be able to move and shoot compared to standing still. I might agree that it's not much horror left, but it might also be to me being more desensitized compared to days of yore when I couldn't even finish the first dungeon in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time due to being to scary for me. Being 27 might make it easier. I finished it anyway and story wise it was fulfilling. I also got the gold edition so I had two extra missions, one being what happened to Jill and Chris before the events of the game and then what happened to Jill and Captain Stone before they rescued Chris. Spoilers might be in place, but the game is almost 6 years old so I don't bother that much. Fun thing I noticed was that the beginning for the Chris and Jill episode was hinted at in Revelations and tied it together (Revelations came out later as a side story, but since I played that game before this it was kinda fun).

Story wise Chris Redfield has been sent by the BSAA to partake in an operation against a Bio-terrorist named Irving so he meets up with their African branch and start killing zombies. I might not have to be all to careful with ammo compared to before. Who's the bad guy really? Well not Irving, but rather Albert Wesker, the main villain of most of the series who also has Jill Valentine under his control. Plan is to wipe out most of the worlds population with this super virus and establish himself as good for those still alive afterwards. The back-story chapter doesn't explain anything about this, but the flashback in the main game tells you that he is some kind of geneticly engineered child, a super human so he sees fit to rule as his creator (Spencer, the CEO of Umbrella) who he deems to weak of old age so he gets killed of off-screen. How do you finish Wesker? Well, you overdose him with a serum he uses to keep himself stable and then fights him in the middle of an active Volcano until you drop him in the lava and fires a rocket at him. Talk about action climax. And that's the best comparison, a silly action movie.

Now, this game had some controversies when it was released, mostly that it supposedly was racist. And in one way yes, there is a lot of Africans portrayed in rather animalistic ways, but then again it is a virus that makes them so, created by a European/American company that uses the natives for their own goals of world domination, exploiting the nature and destroying old tribes and temples. The only options I would see was to probably whitewash it away with all Africans that aren't white, but it doesn't sound right at all. Cause we are in Africa (no country named so we are only on the specified continent of Africa), you expect the victims to be of some color and in a way that is even more racist if we go all apartheid on them in video games set in Africa. Besides it was made by Japanese, isn't that even more of "white man's burden" when we in the west tells them what they can and not can portray in fiction?

The other thing with this game is the co-op mode where you can have a friend join or your forced to play with the AI. Not that bad, but they waste the ammo I'm carefully saving up. Luckily you can always replay the 1 1/2 chapters to gather ammo and money to upgrade your weapon to make it somewhat easier. Back to the co-op, it works, but this is probably the main reason the games doesn't scare me as much, you are almost never alone. A bit more stressful maybe since you must keep an eye on the AI's health and ammo, but if you finish it once you can get unlimited ammo which at least takes care of that. If I only had someone to play with. Tried with my sister, but the first zombie made her want to quite and the horde of zombies at the end of chapter one was enough for her. Maybe if my youngest sister was here, she played at least the rail-gun Resident Evil games for Wii.

Resident Evil: Revelations

 

Originally a 3DS game that got ported over to the big consoles, including Wii U and I gotta say, I don't know how it ever worked on the 3DS with the differences in the number of buttons on the controls. Story is that one year after a terrorist attack that ended with the good guys destroying a solar powered city with its own solar satellite Jill Valentine and Parker Luciano is sent out in the Mediterranean in search for Chris Redfield and Jessica as they disappeared investigating the terrorist group Veltro. The search takes them to an abandon cruise liner where the dead haven't found their peace. I actually really liked the game and the first playthrough took around 10 hours and subsequent ones now is down to 5. Really helped by the New Game + option where you keep the equipment and upgrades and can change the difficulty (which I wish existed on Resident Evil 4 instead of having to start over from scratch on a new difficulty).

Things I dislike are the new upgrade system where you find customizing parts for your weapon as more damage or daze etc. Fun and challenging to find, but I wish I could permanently increase damage and magazines since those are really important due to the low ammo you can hold and every bullet counts at the end. Then we have the rookie mistake that feels cheap. The strongest weapon is the rocket launcher, you get a free supply in the second to last boss fight, but you can't take them with you. The only other one you can get is long before that when you are attacked by a reoccurring zombie and a really though zombie boss under a time limit. First time just run past them since an upgraded machine gun is the best bet. This rpg you can save, but be warned that you only get one on the whole save. Not one per playthrough, one per save so if you used it anywhere before the final boss on infernal giving you an infinite rocket launcher, good luck. I hardly beat the final boss on normal without the rocket launcher so I'm seriously thinking on starting a new file to get it and keep until the final encounter on infernal. I get it, gets more challenging and the victory feels better, but the final boss feels like a cheat. He teleports in and out smashing you if you aren't able to stagger him and I don't know if I need a direct shoot or enough damage to activate it. Take in limited supply of healing herbs and a useless AI buddy and prepare for a frustrating fight.