I've posted a lot here, although I just got this thing going.
I felt the urge to write here a lot today as I went through my day.
I was playing Resident Evil: Code Veronica X today when I decided I should write about it.
For those who don't know, RE: Code Veronica was made into two different games, Code Veronica; from Chris' perspective and Code Veronica X from Claire's.
Anyways, I was playing it today, complaining and whining about the old graphics, how terrible the controls were, how not-smooth the movements were, and inconvenient the item management was, when my younger sibling asked me why was I playing it if I hated it so much?
To my surprise the answer was immediate and I didn't even hesitate. The reply was simple: "Because the story line and atmosphere is better than any of the newer ones."
This brought me to think about the newer games. Why was this old version for the dear old Play Station 2 so much better in terms of story compared to Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5?
While Resident Evil: Code Veronica X is very much like Resident Evil 2 the two newer versions of this franchise are way different from the past. Yes, they have better graphics, better item management, better controls and so on, but the story is lacking. Resident Evil went from a horror/terror game to an action game. I mean I can practically play Resident Evil 5 with no volume and still know when I'm going to be attacked. However in Resident Evil 2 and Code Veronica X I had to have the game at a reasonable volume in order to ensure I wouldn't be mutilated from behind. I thought forward to Resident Evil 4 and realized the same was to be said about this one, the atmosphere was eerie, that's for sure, but they incorporated this "theme" music to when an enemy was nearby, thereby killing the suspense. Whenever there was an enemy in the vicinity this music would play in the background and would not shut up until the last threat was eliminated. However in the old style RE you would hear this "aaaah....aaaah" indicative of Bio Organic Weapons nearby and then nothing, not even a small background sound or anything.
If any of you have played the old games you probably also noticed the random windows breaking, doors opening and closing and the ever present footsteps around you. While it is true that in the newer versions the environment doesn't lend itself to that, there are endless ways to make similar things happen. The sound of breaking glass could happen anywhere, or things being dropped. RE 5 did try to make amends with the Gold Edition in which you have two new mini games to play, one of them is clearly very Raccoon City-ish. "Lost in Nightmares" is a mini game with Chris and Jill in Spencer's mansion. This is very much like the old style RE. It's in a mansion, the soundtrack is vaguely different, but extremely similar to RE 1's soundtrack, we have a classical puzzle and the always present need to "find" something. This also happens in RE 4 but it's completely forgotten in RE 5, where the things you need to find are usually dropped by strong enemies and such. The entire feel of survival is lost, it's not a question if you will get out alive anymore, it's a question of how many bullets will it take you. In the older versions your enemies rarely dropped anything, and ammunition was sparse. In the new one I find myself carrying too much ammunition at times and having no space for herbs. Oh! This is another thing that changed! Now we can shop! We can collect money and buy stuff from the old creepy man in RE 4 and the menu in RE 5!
This was NOT possible in the older versions! And the game turned into a run-of-the-mill survival game! Instead of a suspense filled horror game in which you spent much of your time running away from enemies.
In the newer versions you're attacked by hordes, and hordes of B.O.W's, and you find yourself able to kill them all. While in the old ones if you saw that amount coming at you, you made the fastest strategy to get out of there alive as soon as possible...
Gosh I miss those times. I read that Capcon was working on RE 6, all I can hope for is that it will somehow to the beauty of the old Resident Evil games instead of following the new trend. After all, this was an old style game fit for those with a need for a brain teaser as well as a bloody massacre. If Resident Evil game players wanted to play an action game, they would play Halo or Call of Duty. Wouldn't they?
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