amazing.

i first played this game when i was in 8th grade. from the second the cinematics came on, i was HOOKED. no other game (aside from Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain) has ever drawn me in to the point where i genuinely felt afraid for the characters life as if i feared for my own. no game has this much atmosphere, a plot which captures you entirely and doesn't let go. i'd read advertisements, revues, studied the back of the game case for a while (not having a playstation until i was in 8th grade, buying it would have been quite useless. i've since beaten this game, the 2nd, 3rd, & code veronica. i'm waiting to send payment for a ps2 and looking forward to conquering RE4.

this is the closest to being in a B-movie as many of us can ever hope to come. this may be my favorite in the series so far, due to the actual human cinematics. the setting (a clean, nice looking mansion) makes the monsters & gore all the more shocking. i'll put it like this: you see a piece of fecal matter on the ground shocking? no. you see some on some fine china. with some parsley on the side for presentation. shocking? i'd say so. maybe i'm just assuming you don't see poop on a plate often.

ANYWHO, the graphics are very good for '96 (especially considering the trade in we had to endure, trading in graphics for a 3d game.) the controls (though awkward for some) are spot-on.

the music is perfect, creating a foreboding atmosphere. crisp, clean suspense. the sierra mist of video games. the sound effects are excellent; from the tapping claws of cerberus on stone, to the heavy impending doom sound of the footsteps of the hunter: all brilliantly clear & distinct.

now as for the game itself: you can play as one of two characters, both of which are members of the raccoon city S.T.A.R.S. team. jill valentine & chris redfield. your alpha team is sent in to investigate the disappearance of the bravo team, who were investigating the bizarre deaths in the area of the arclay mountains.

as for weaponry OHHHHHH BABY. the standard handgun, shotgun, bazooka, flamethrower, magnum, rocket launcher.. all with enough ammo to blast your way through any advancing horde... barely. the name of the game is conservation. you run through your ammo supply on zombies you're screwed. there are much bigger, much MEANER things to come. CONSERVE. you use medicinal herbs (ahem) to heal. also you can find first-aid spray, though it reduces your overall score at the end of the game.

lots of characters to meet, mysteries to solve, items to collect, puzzles to beat, monsters to mangle, places to explore. this game is huge. worth every cent you have to pay. TWELVE BONGS UP!!!

Resident Evil for the Gamecube is what every remake should be like.

A lot of fans have complained about the direction that Resident Evil has gone as of late. Resident Evil 4 was amazing but used a much different formula from the first three games, 5 was one of the biggest gaming disappointments of the past generation, and 6 was more of the same thing. If you want to know why so many fans are disappointed with the latest installments, look no further than the original Resident Evil remake for the Gamecube and compare them. Resident Evil practically invented the survival horror genre in 1996 but the original has not aged well. The dialouge was corny, the music was bland, and the graphics are incredibly dated. Despite these things, it became a fan favorite and quickly became one of Capcom's most popular franchises. Capcom then decided to do a huge service to its fans in 2002 by completely revamping and overhauling the original, turning it into the pinnacle of horror games in the process.

If you're unfamilar with the game, it is about exploring a mansion and its surrounding areas to uncover a conspiracy that becomes darker and more twisted as the game advances. You will use your wits to solve puzzles and defeat monsters, all the while dealing with a sense of dread as you are offered limited healing items and weapons. Your goal is to get to the bottom of things while surviving the night. Using your supplies carelessly will make the game much harder and it is possible to make the game borderline impossible to beat if you make too many stupid decisions early on.

The remake did so many things right that it's hard to begin listing all of them. Even more than a decade later, the graphics are surprizingly good. The attention to detail was almost surreal when it first came out but even today it's still impressive. The clever use of lighting and shadows will have you literally jumping at shadows and finding yourself hesistant to advance in some areas. Some of the environments are outright freaky (like moonlit forest paths and claustrophobic hallways) and even today I still consider it a test of courage to play it alone at night. The sound and music are haunting, perfectly adding to the environments, and have a tendency to make your skin crawl as much as the visuals.

The difficulty of the game, again, depends on how well you plan ahead and use your supplies. You have to find ink ribbons to save your game and, those too, are limited are hard to come by. It is possible to beat the game in a few hours but you practically have to have the entire game memorized by running through it through trial and error. There's some pretty nice rewards if you can beat it under certain difficulties and certain time limits too so multiple playthroughs are highly recommended.

This game was a staple in my life during my high school years and I'm glad that even after all this time it is still a game that unnerves me when I play it alone in the dark. It's everything a good horror game should be: scary, challenging, and memorable long after you turn the system off. The genre has largely become a joke in recent years but if you want to go back to when survival horror was genuinelly horrifying, I could not recommend this game enough.

Resident Evil Original Playstation Longbox

I love this game, it was the first of its kind to spark such controversy for a zombie game that includes horror/action/suspense/puzzle. Can be challenging and easy. Game has a great plot, betrayal/survival. Game play was simple so it was easy to pick up and play for anyone! You use multiple weapons to defeat the many variety of bosses and creatures/monsters cause by a virus, (T Virus), that turns people into zombies or undead for animals. Blood, gun action, running, adventure, puzzle solving, and scares await for those who decide to play the game that sparked the Resident Evil movies series and over 20 Resident Evil games.

ITCHY, TASTY *****RATING

The Japan sega saturn version offers a little more blood and gore. Compared to it's American toned down playstation cousin . This game works great on pc emulators. If you don't have a japan sega saturn console. The graphics are a little less smooth then playstation but still delivers that same great feel. With new story line twist and boss fights this game will leave you wanting to play when ever you can. All audio is in english with Japan subtitles.Making it easy to play for those of us who don't speak Japanese. Instruction manuals offer new anime artwork and full character bio's. ***** rating hardcore resident evil/ bio hazard gamers only!

A Remake Delivers New Surprises - A Must Have

This is actually nothing more than a remake of the original game, but don't let that fool you. This game is really something new and fierce, completely different from the first release. I never played Resident Evil until I purchased a GameCube and found out that this title was just a remake. I purchased it, thinking that it might not be uodated with new graphics are anything different from the original. When I played it, I instantly realized that these graphics were toyed with...they were superb. The graphics in this game really shows the power the GameCube has, the power which many people seem to think is non-existant. The graphics were great, the movie scenes were smooth and the lighting involved was so well done that it almost seemed real. As for the game, I really can't compare it to the original Resident Evil release, because I've never played it (as I said). The story was great and something quite new to me. The entire time I thought I was in a haunted house and as you progress and explore, you're finding new locations and documents which reveal that actually this is a hidden lab where an expiremental virus went totally awry. So the story is well developed and really takes you on one heck of a ride. I enjoy the Resident Evil game because it's a mix of adventure and puzzle solving. You'll get your fair share of zombie killing and monster battles...there's some great monsters, by the way...but there's also tons of puzzles. It can be annoying, at times, to pick up an item and have to walk around with it forever until you find the particular place where it can be used. There's a variety of different puzzles that will challenge your skills. The combat is a bit tricky, mainly because you cannot directly aim your gun. You can just sort of shoot straight up, up or down...so sometimes your character misses and you're wondering why your ammo is so low. Also, you have your choice of characters to be; depending on which of the two you choose, the story will be slightly altered in some ways. Also, one great thing about this and Resident Evil Zero are it's scare tactics. In many instances, in a quiet room, something will just pop through the window or through the door and just scary you half to death. It's great how the game tries to mess with your nerves. It's a well rounded game - lengthy, too (it's two discs). The only other thing that some people might have a problem with is the save feature. The save feature here is limited because you can only save where you locate a typewriter and you can only save at the typewriter if you have an ink ribbon with you. At times, you might not have your ink ribbon with you (or have any at all) and you just want to save before you die and lose a lot of covered ground. The save feature is annoying, but makes the game more challenging. Not to mention, if you save less and complete the game in a fairly quick time, you can earn yourself some bonuses. The replay value of this game is pretty good - there's only the one story mode and nothing else, but if you hold on to this game, you'll be playing it in a month or two, trust me. It's a great title that really shows off why having a GameCube is a good investment.