Resident Evil 7 (No Spoilers for Now)

[JLTucker]

I picked this up today and will be playing it tonight. I never played the demo because I want to go in completely spoiler free

The reviews suggest 7 is a breath of fresh air to the series. This is good news, I think. I didn't think 6 was bad, but I've been watching playthroughs of the numbered series with Mary Kish, formerly with Gamestop. The series is called Resident Kinevil. Watching these walkthroughs reminds me of how much I miss the classic style and stories of REMake, RE2, Code Veronica, and RE4. Of course, harkening back to those games' styles would not go over well today, but holy hell did they scare you when they were released.

Anyone here pick it up? Played the demo? Thoughts? Impressions?

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I only found out about this yesterday, I found to price on Steam to be a bit steep. The whole point of gaming on the PC is so that I wouldn't have to shell out console-level sums of money If I can find it for less than £40, I might go for it Seems Amazon are offering it for far less!

[General Zod]

I only found out about this yesterday, I found to price on Steam to be a bit steep. The whole point of gaming on the PC is so that I wouldn't have to shell out console-level sums of money If I can find it for less than £40, I might go for it Seems Amazon are offering it for far less!

I think you're missing the point of PC gaming.

[TheFeniX]

The RE games were never that "scary" to me. Not in an Alien or horror movie fashion. They got their scares out of suspense (mostly due to shit camera and poor controls, both of which were technology limitations of the time) and the jump scares.

I liked the direction of RE5 and RE6 TBH. I'm probably the kind of person old school fans of the series hate, even though I played and beat RE 1 and 2. RE5 is an 80s action movie taken to insane extremes. Press X to uppercut a motherfuckin' boulder while you fight a hammy super-villian in an active volcano in the middle of the ocean to prevent Complete. Global. Saturation.

Explaining any given scenario in RE5 sounds like it was written by a 12-year-old who wants to make his story SUPER RAD! And there was still enough suspense and general horror content to keep me on edge.

I still don't know who D.C. Douglas, but the man is ridiculously fantastic as Wesker and the entire performance manages to be both incredibly camp and Oscar worthy at the same time. "7 minutes is all I can spare play with you" is a mainstay in our little gaming group. The PC version also showed that Japanese developers could avoid shitting up a port when they needed to (GFWL bullshit aside, but they actually patched it out, unlike some other developers).

RE6 tried (and succeeded as far as I'm concerned) to cram 3.5 different games into one. The Chris campaign is basically a bro-shooter. The Leon campaign is another over-the-top completely fucking insane 80s action movie, combined with sex zombies. Sherry's campaign is much more in line with older games as far as I'm concerned as is still solid. The Ada campaign is.... there.

Old fans generally bitch because they actually updated the control scheme for the 21st century and this is terrible for some reason.

We're still hitting Warframe (again...) hard at the moment, so we'll have to hold off on RE7. That said, CAPCOM brought be back to the series with RE5, so I will be picking RE7 up.

[Tribble]

My favourite is Resident Evil: Aftermath. They filmed a scene at the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus, which a lot of my friends went to. Not that the movie was the best by any means; I just liked it because of why they chose to film there:

“We needed to find a prison interior to suit the needs of the script. UTSC has brutalist architecture. I looked at it with the designer and we saw a lot of possibilities to retrofit it […] to make it just like what we need for the scene.”

Most of the student body would agree with that sentiment

[JLTucker]

I'm about two hours in and it's an amazing experience. It can be hard at times given the nature of the camerawork and trying to focus on realism when it comes to taking damage from an enemy. I've died on a few occasions, all of which pissed me off.

Not much has been revealed re the story but it's coming together. You kind of have an idea about what could be going on, but who knows if you're right or not.

It really plays like a horror movie in the vein of Don't Breathe, so it's quite a cinematic experience as well as a gaming experience.

[TheFeniX]

My favourite is Resident Evil: Aftermath.

Though this thread is about the game, I have to say Shawn Roberts did pretty good as a "Where did this guy come from?" Wesker.

Also, this game is single-player only? I was not informed about this until tonight. A shame, pass.

[JLTucker]

Why would you want multiplayer? Odds of the campaign being good would be slim.

[JLTucker]

Besides, the purpose of the game is to go through the horrors yourself.

[TheFeniX]

Why would you want multiplayer? Odds of the campaign being good would be slim.

Which ignores the solid co-op campaigns of RE5, RE6, Gears of War, Left 4 Dead, Portal 2 (though that's almost all due to gameplay), among many others, though not as many as I'd like. I spend 99% of my gaming time with two other people, sometimes a third if my wife wants in. I don't have time to dedicate to a single-player game.

Nearly everything is more fun playing with others. And that's the point of a video game: fun. Not "we wanted you to experience fun in the specific way we believe it applies." I played Dead Space. It was fun. It was scary. It was intense. But I only have stories to tell about that one. Instead, with a game like RE5, I was able to share that story with someone else.

Much like the "Lost in Nightmares" story on our second (Professional) run. I noticed the first time through that the hallways were setup in odd ways for places with no enemies. I figured Pro would add some. But it also got me great during the Piano Room. Kyle plays the piano to open the door and since nothing is going on, he's rambling about stupid shit. As he goes to get the emblem, I hear something outside the door, but barely because he's yammering on.

"Be quiet for a second."
"blah blah blah."
:Sound gets louder:
"SHUT UP! I can't hea...."
: Door explodes open and one of those big doods comes through the door at me:
"HOLY SHIT!"
:sounds of panicked gunfire:

But more importantly: In 2016, if there's no one to share the insanity of RE writing with, then it's not worth playing to me. The back and forth I had with my buddy during the Leon campaign was hilarious.

"I can't get over how we ended up in the one front-wheel-drive bus in the entire fucking world."
"So, ignore that we fell off a cliff, landed outside the bus, and are walking around just fine?"
"Doesn't bother me in the slightest."

[JLTucker]

Multiplayer would be impossible with the story Capcom wanted to tell with RE7. It would simply not be feasible. It isn't an RE game that is action, whizbang, BS like RE5 and RE6. Story is the main focus. Survival horror is the main focus. The series hasn't been survival horror since RE4, IMO, and Capcom finally brought the series back to its roots.

To each his own, I guess.

[TheFeniX]

Multiplayer would be impossible with the story Capcom wanted to tell with RE7. It would simply not be feasible. It isn't an RE game that is action, whizbang, BS like RE5 and RE6. Story is the main focus. Survival horror is the main focus. The series hasn't been survival horror since RE4, IMO, and Capcom finally brought the series back to its roots.

People knocked RE4 for emphasizing too much on the action and "whizbang," whizbang in this instance being the over-the-top super-zombies, of which started in 3 with Nemesis. Actually, THAT's not even fair as even the original had it's super-zombies and the boss fights play out eerily similar across all the games I've played over the years. Things merely "improved:" the animating, the cutscenes, the AI, the controls, the camera.

To hear a fan of RE4 talk about how shitty RE5 and 6 were about even the QTEs make for some good hilarity. And when RE8 comes out, they'll knock it for not being enough like RE-whatever.

Plot-wise and gameplay-wise, the games haven't actually changed that much, even though they've been improved mechanically a lot over the years. I think fans of the series just wearing thick rose-tinted glasses because the games have always been campy and over-the-top.

But, judging from the gameplay videos I've seen of RE7: this game is attempting to stand alone. That's fine.

To each his own, I guess.

That's the mantra of most entertainment. I no longer care to look to Resident Evil as a solo horror game because they found a winning combination with their "Horror + buddy-cop" formula. Seeing them backtrack to single-player doesn't interest me.

[FaxModem1]

I played the demo, and grew frustrated by the lack of choice. You play as a cameraman for some Ghost hunter reality show, and Re tagging along with the host and the producer. The host stops in the kitchen, while the producer walks off into the hallway. Trying to follow the producer and I ran into an invisible wall. That was utterly illusion breaking for me and removed a lot of the horror I got from it. Instead, I felt bored from my being railroaded, because I wasn't in a horror scene, I was a puppet thinking I was free.

[JLTucker]

I played the demo, and grew frustrated by the lack of choice. You play as a cameraman for some Ghost hunter reality show, and Re tagging along with the host and the producer. The host stops in the kitchen, while the producer walks off into the hallway. Trying to follow the producer and I ran into an invisible wall. That was utterly illusion breaking for me and removed a lot of the horror I got from it. Instead, I felt bored from my being railroaded, because I wasn't in a horror scene, I was a puppet thinking I was free.

in the full game that's a scene from a VHS you find. Basically, you play the flashbacks.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

So far, this is shaping up to be more like Resident Evil Zero than anything else, the puzzles are really fucking annoying!

[EnterpriseSovereign]

One thing I've noticed that in their attempt to bring the game back to its roots they neglected one detail:

They've changed from the 3rd person perspective that they've used in every RE game to 1st, without any way to switch between the two.

Personally I loved the direction they took with RE5 and 6, before the route they took with Revelations 1 and 2 (the writing was on the wall there which way they were clearly going). In coming full circle they've gone too far- IMO it's too much like RE0 to be fun.

[JLTucker]

So far, this is shaping up to be more like Resident Evil Zero than anything else, the puzzles are really fucking annoying!

Eh. I find them to be the easiest of all the games and nerve racking when there are enemies coming after you while you attempt to solve. The puzzles in REMake annoy the hell out of me because they are more difficult and there are so many of them.

I don't see any parallels between it an RE0. RE0 is a prequel and I see this as more of a reboot to the series. I;m not sure how it connects to Umbrella yet, and I'm not sure that it does. It actually feels more like a Silent HIll game with puzzles, which is fine by me because P.T. Getting canceled floored me.

I'm almost finished with the game and am really loving it more as it progresses.

[TheFeniX]

One thing I've noticed that in their attempt to bring the game back to its roots they neglected one detail:

They've changed from the 3rd person perspective that they've used in every RE game to 1st, without any way to switch between the two.

Not attributing this to JLTucker, but RE fans for years have talked about "going back to its roots." It's a buzzphrase. What it really translates to (IMO) is "I want you to perfectly capture how I felt playing this game when I was younger."

It's not happening. And fans of the series ignore distinct similarities of RE5 and 6 to the original 1-3 and even 4. Then call out 4 as much more "like the originals" when it was anything but. The popularity of the mechanics of 4 are why 5 is the way it was and why it's (IIRC) the best selling RE game and would give Street Fighter 2 a run if the game hadn't defined a genre and been around since forever.

Really though, I have to wonder how much of the partner co-op pissed a lot of fans off. I had a buddy to run through the game with, so I loved it. Then again, I also pugged RAAM in Gears of War on Insane, so I'm not even adverse to gaming with randoms in something like that. The actual AI was terrible though. I'd rather have Left4Dead bots than the RE5 AI.

The only way these have really changed was the puzzles. And I actually remember having to acquire a guide to figure out that fucking Shakespeare puzzle in RE1. And I KNEW Shakespeare due to years of reading that shit in school and I also KNEW the concept of what the riddle was going for. Reading the puzzle explanation in GamePro (or whatever) was "dafuq Capcom?" That was NOT fun gameplay and moving away from Sierra Adventure game level puzzles was not a bad thing for the RE series.

However, it is nice that the RE team still knows how to do ridiculous boss fights, such as Spoiler

in the garage.

The first-person view is what makes that and it's nice to see Capcom understand this.

[JLTucker]

By "roots" I mean going back to survival horror: limited ammunition, difficult enemies, running from enemies instead of shooting them to conserve ammunition, limited healing, etc.

For instance, in Code Veronica during the Tyrant fight on the plane, you needed to conserve so much ammunition to get past him. You needed to save your grenades of various types, have handgun ammo on hand, perhaps even the sub machine gun, IMO, these elements have been nonexistent since the creation of 4.

RE7 does that quite a bit but they know how to load you up on supplies before a boss fight That's one of the downsides I have for the game.

[TheFeniX]

By "roots" I mean going back to survival horror: limited ammunition, difficult enemies, running from enemies instead of shooting them to conserve ammunition, limited healing, etc.

You've really described our first run through RE5. On subsequent playthroughs and the addition of the "mission" mechanics (such as with Halo or Gears of War: where you can select missions from a list) the game definitely gets easier. In fact, the very first "boss fight" in RE5 is pretty sadistic. Waves of enemies to start who come in from all angles, limited ammo, then they spawn the big fucker. You could possibly kill him through smart use of static explosives and ammo conservation, but the point is to survive for a limited amount of time before backup arrives.

And that was the thing: they couldn't put a boss fight in the middle of a mob of zombies in the older games because they had limited ammo, shit controls, shit camera. So now, while fighting a chainsaw/meat cleaver wielding zombie, I'm also fighting off waves of shit zombies as well.

It was not easy and we were forced to move over and over to keep zombies in choke-points, then move when the big fucker came in. Abusing elevation changes and animation locks and invulnerability was pretty much required. In fact, much of your first and (possibly) even second run of the game has multiple elements you're talking about. But everyone just remembers that you could cheese it by re-running old missions for ammo drops, herbs, and sellables to buy upgrades.

If they chose to cheese it, rather than do a straight run-through the first time? Their problem. That's like me saying "The IG-88 fight in Shadows of the Empire was to ez: I just bugged him out on map geometry!"

The first Oruboros fight, in the incinerator room? No awesome guns, being forced to do the mechanics? Tense, fun, rewarding. In fact, better than the originals because TEAMWORK!

"I pulled the lever!"
"I'm stil in here asshole!"
"Better run fast!"

RE5 gave fans what they wanted right off the bat, but they hate it because it ALSO gave them multiple venues to continue to enjoy the game (Capcom's bullshit on-disc DLC aside). Also, they took the original themes of the games: evil corporation, over-the-top bad guys, incorruptible good guys, insane boss fights, and just general "fuck it, this sounds cool: GREENLIT!" and turned them all up to 11.

For instance, in Code Veronica during the Tyrant fight on the plane, you needed to conserve so much ammunition to get past him. You needed to save your grenades of various types, have handgun ammo on hand, perhaps even the sub machine gun, IMO, these elements have been nonexistent since the creation of 4.

Those mechanics are annoying for the most part, even if RE5 and even 6 had them. Lost in Nightmares had them in spades because you couldn't even cheese Professional by bringing your infinite ammo rocket lawnchair.

And to be honest: that ability, to grind if you want, probably had a whole lot to do with RE5s popularity vs "beat it once, put it away."

There comes a time when you have to determine if relying on an annoying mechanic is a crutch. Ammo limitation is not a survival horror exclusive. Doom had it, so did many FPS. But they metered this by nearly always having enough ammo for your shittier weapons. RE1 was "out of ammo, got my knife. Probably best if they just made it so I could slit my own throat." You didn't even have to be a moron to end up totally screwed, especially when Lickers showed up. Yea, it was fun: at the time. But I'd much rather be rewarded for playing smart when it matters than punished for being careless a few times. That's a huge distinction.

Left 4 Dead had infinite ammo for pistols and this was not a bad design decisions because the game continually found other ways to increase your stress level in a survival horror game.

Let me be fair here: I'm not saying RE7 is a bad game. In fact, it looks quite good even if I won't bother with it (right now) because it's single-player. My point is a lot of people harp on RE5 and 6 for moving away from the core tenants of the franchise, but I believe they've only enhanced most of them. If anything, insaaaaanely over-the-op boss fights aside, RE7 looks to have more in common with Condemned than a Resident Evil game.

And I liked Condemned.

[JLTucker]

I haven't played RE5 and RE6 since they were released. I'll pick them up soon and give them another go. Thanks, TheFeniX!

[TheFeniX]

One caveat: even I have a hard time knowing how much I would have enjoyed RE 5 and 6 single-player. The only time I bothered with it was when I farmed the "swamp mission" because it was the easiest way to score a lot of expensive gems to sell. The other time was to get the "have your partner trust you" achievement. The AI didn't give me many issues, but their stupidity is a common complaint about the games.

I played through both (as a guy who played 1 and 3, then put down the series. By the time of RE4, I would have been playing Natural Selection heavily) with a partner in crime that was a huge RE fan across all the games. So, a lot of my enjoyment was derived from the hilarity of that.

So, if you can find someone to play through them with: they are some of the best co-op games out there, period. But solo, I can't offer you a solid opinion except that at their core, I don't see much of a reason to knock them as some kind of red-headed-step-children of the RE franchise. It would be like saying Metroid Prime isn't worthy of the Metroid title solely because it's first-person.

[JLTucker]

Do you have any of the games on current gen consoles, FeniX? Perhaps the XBox One?

[TheFeniX]

RE5 on 360, then picked it up for pennies on Steam. RE6 for Steam as well. Kind of dove back into PC and haven't looked back.

Honestly, I'd totally hit you up for it. But Kyle and had just started a new run of RE5 (after Fallout 4 wasn't worth a shit) and were going to re-run through RE6 when we were done there. Out of nowhere, Rob got on Teamspeak after being in and out of the hospital dealing with multiple rejections on his new lungs. (oh man, his chest cavity totally exploded open at one point. Fucker sent me pics. hurl.). So, we got a third and "had" (fun game games, no complaints) to get back into stuff like Tides of Vermintide and Warframe.

So, between those two assholes, school, and the kid (who, at this moment is trying to smash my keyboard into bits): I can't run through either right now. Which sucks.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

I just completed 7 on normal and it's nothing like the more recent games, I found myself disappointed in the lack of variety of enemies- there were only about 2 or 3 types that appear on a regular basis. Some problems I've noticed is that some of the consumable inventory items won't stack, which makes the inventory-management puzzle aspect that much more annoying. At least there are a few pickups that expand your carrying capacity- I can already hear players crying foul about it!