Resident Evil (4, but we can discuss other versions if you wish)

Yeah I think RE3make is a perfect introduction (and gets too much flack as a game). Good description; have fun!

I can imagine playing 1/0 contemporary with 4 would have been like playing a new shiny graphic NES game contemporary to sm64. I played 1 (and started 0) for the first time this year and found them to hold up really well if you can accept them for what they are! Besides the door animations, they could be released as modern games with different titles and I would not consider them antiquated. Kind of like modern Lucas Pope games

Code Veronica on the Dreamcast was great, I wish they'd bring this to steam

Good thing I didn't just play RE2 again (which was a big ask to begin with, lol), because RE3 has just dumped me back at the police station setting of RE2, albeit in control of a different dumbass dude-bro (who looks a bit like Keanu Reeves).

But yeah, "RE meets Uncharted" is the name of the game here (so to speak). Weird to have two games in a row with an unstoppable Terminator juggernaut in hot pursuit. The one in RE2 is/was more intense, this new one is mostly weird. I'm once again play on the easy setting, because difficulty levels based largely on conserving items and bullet sponge enemies and instadeath is a different game than the one I want to play.

I enjoyed 1, 2 and 4 back in the day— and replayed 4 a couple years ago, and am convinced it’d be a perfect game were it not for the weirdbad middle act

But I started 7 a few months ago, and was encouraged by a game-averse bf because he liked watching it (as opposed to everything else), and found myself so genuinely distressed and scared that I felt zero desire to go beyond a particular garage scene

Booted up Village tonight and again I felt this uncomfortable dread. The horror doesn’t just confine itself to the content but also to the gameplay and context, it is terrifying to play these games and to feel so directionless and helpless. I’m certain it’s “art” but I can’t imagine myself feeling stoked about playing 7/Village, it’s just too discombobulating or something

The thing that keeps them in check for me is the camp, which I can't figure out. These games are Japanese, right? So I assume they are written in Japanese. Are they silly/dumb in Japanese, too? That is, are they written to be this silly and dumb, with a wink? Or are they just translated in a way that amplifies the silliness? The closest I've seen the one of them breaking the fourth wall, sort of, was in "2" when I got the final hip pouch and I got a trophy: "A Waist of Space." I presume that's a pun that only works in English?

From what gameplay I've seen, "7" seems like the most strictly horror of the recent batch, but "Village" seems like a slight return to goofiness. More Hammer, less torture.

I must be nearing the end of "3," and it's definitely less scary than (aspects of) "2." More like "Aliens" vs. "Alien," maybe? I find big mutant monsters less scary than resilient zombies in a dark house.

Idk, both 7 and Village are so goddamn terrifying that when I found a “green herb” I had a Proustian moment— “this reminds me of a scary-fun game series I used to play”

I believe you, tbf I haven't played either of them yet. But broadly speaking, at least as I understand it, "7" is very Texas Chainsaw Massacre family torturing and pursuing you through a secluded home, but Village is more Gothic horror, with werewolves and castles and vampires and stuff. They're both designed to scare, but clips of the former I've seen make me unsure if I want to play it, while clips from the latter kind of made me giggle, at least at the writing. Kinda like how in "2," after seeing so much stuff, dumbass Leon still exclaims "what the hell ... !?" whenever he comes across some shambling creature.

don't rly think of achievement/trophy names as part of the text of a game, especially a game that came out in 1998, long before publisher psychologists had draped this particular dumb layer over everything in an effort to encourage addictive behavior. the REs i've played (1, 2, 4) def tend camp tho yeah. i wonder what you'd think of its mechanically similar contemporary silent hill: less action, more horror, maybe more commitment?

There's a nu-Silent Hill coming, right?

Case in point, btw: Playing as Jill you descend a long while in a giant elevator to a huge system of warehouses and labs, and she exclaims (to nobody): "How in the world did they hide all this stuff under a hospital?" Good question, Jill. Good question. That's more than Leon asked about the maze of secret labs under the local police station. Shit's amusing.

The camp started with 4 as far as I’m aware? 1-3 originals were more serious, kinda a final fantasy x thing where it was the early days of voice acting/cinematic experience in gaming and it all came of stilted and kinda unintentionally funny as gaming tried to figure it out (look at some of the voice acting from the original 1, it’s infamously bad/good). 4 took that unintentionally camp/stilted/weird, and made it an intentional part of its identity, and is beloved for it, and its been a running part of the series since. Even 7 has some classic re campiness put in at parts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtTfptkUgj0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXutugd67DA

Yeah, I'm playing the remakes, so voice acting and graphics and dialog and gameplay and whatnot all seem really solid. Any camp that's crept in is I think just endemic to the dumb b-movie vibe. Like, if you're fighting a giant monster that explodes into a ball of fire and viscera, and your character's reaction is "whew, that was a close call!" it really doesn't matter how well it's rendered, it's kinda innately silly, which (imo) undercuts the suspense. Which is fine by me.

OK, finished RE3. As I confessed, I played it on easy mode, but I'm not sure how much I would have liked it on a harder mode, where I had to be careful to conserve and equip everything just right. I suppose this game often gives you the option to just avoid things, too, but that's not particularly appealing to me. Anyway, it was big dumb nonsensical fun. I'm tempted to watch a play-through of the OG version.

The camp started with 4 as far as I’m aware? 1-3 originals were more serious, kinda a final fantasy x thing where it was the early days of voice acting/cinematic experience in gaming and it all came of stilted and kinda unintentionally funny as gaming tried to figure it out (look at some of the voice acting from the original 1, it’s infamously bad/good).

this is prob right. tho honestly the ffx cinema still impresses me lol. (these days whenever i replay the opening couple hours and reabandon the rest i do it in japanese w subs, which helps, but might not help if i understood japanese.)

yr note on early RE voice acting reminded me of my+friends' mindblown joy as we discussed whether the voice acting in deus ex was "supposed" to be "like that". i still don't really know. camp in games maybe an underexplored subject tbh. (metal gear solid to thread.)

(metal gear solid not an underexplored subject tho.)

Dipped into the original Resident Evil 4 for a bit, and I think I'm physically unable play it. The controls via PS5 are insane, like aiming from the back of a floating boat, and for the first time playing a game I got dizzy and thought I was going to barf.

Whoa. Maybe try an alternate control scheme? I think I had to change it on the remake (except I changed it to be more like the Gamecube version, lol).

I just bought the remake Separate Ways dlc, excited for more RE4.

One huge problem is that the right stick doesn't work the way it does in newer games, it just kind of makes the dizziness worse. So I have to really concentrate on using just the left stick or even the d-pad, but it still kind of floats and jerks all over the place. And then just turning around to face an enemy in that village was an almost totally disorienting task. You can find anything if you google, but yeah, I found others with the same experience. Possibly to do with the "look-snap"? or FOV? But yeah, some back of the box quotes for you:

Played it so many times in the past, and with the remake about to come out I thought I’d give it a quick run through once more, but I’m getting motion sickness almost immediately every time I try. What’s happened?

Low FOV, removal of the black bars/letterbox which were introduced not only to be cinematic, but to reduce sickness. I actually don’t get sick playing the Wii version, but playing on the modern consoles/modern port, it makes me feel sick.

This happened to me too when I tried it last year, I had to stop and have been waiting for the remake. No clue why but it makes me so dizzy

Oh weiiird. Well, maybe the remake is the way to go after all (although I played the original that was available on PS4 and didn't have any issues).

Also btw you can do a quick turn...i forget what the input is but it snaps you around 180 degrees, and that's way better than spinning around manually. Especially in the village - this game drops you in hard, the first area can be the toughest given that you're not used to things yet.

I played on PC, mouse and keyboard are great for this game. But yeah, maybe the remake is the option for you

> Also btw you can do a quick turn...i forget what the input is

down+B (X on the ps4 pad i assume), same as RE1

There's a nu-Silent Hill coming, right?
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, September 19, 2023 4:36 PM (four days ago)

Silent Hill Ascension (interactive live game), Silent Hill f (Japan-set new game) and Silent Hill 2 remake all in the pipeline.