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Resident Evil is a creative and ambitious adventure/horror game that requires equal measures of patience, puzzle-solving ability, and lust for wreaking slash-and-burn mayhem. As a member of an elite S.T.A.R.S unit, your character is investigating a number of grisly murders and subsequent sightings of a variety of hideous, mutated creatures in the "Raccoon Mountains." One of the creatures chases you to an ominous- looking mansion, and this is where the game is played out.
This game is not for the very young or the very squeamish. There are a number of rather graphic interludes; early on, for example, you encounter a quite-realistic close- up of a "zombie" munching on the severed head of one of your unfortunate teammates, complete with soggy chewing noises. Overall, however, the game effects tend to seem more humorous than horrorific; e.g., animal-lover though I may be, I got quite a laugh out of the rabid wolves, which yelp and flip upside down when shot.
Resident Evil involves quite a bit of action early on. Once you locate the proper weaponry, however, the focus begins to shift. The undead are no match for a shotgun or bazooka, and before long you are free to search the mansion and surrounding real estate for clues. At this point, the game becomes equal parts strategic puzzle, riddle, and treasure hunt. You can only carry a limited number of items, and you can only leave items or save the game in one of the storerooms, which are scattered at random around the grounds. It can be maddening to realize that you need some key, tool, or formula, only to discover that you abandoned it some distance away.
Some of this game's greatest strengths are also its biggest weaknesses. Clearly meant to look like a movie, you view your character from constantly shifting, third-person viewpoints, and the graphics are often spectacular. However, controlling the character can be frustrating, especially when the view shifts dramatically as you are battling a mutant, and these shifts make it easy to get disoriented as you travel the maze-like hallways.
Resident Evil includes a number of somewhat-challenging puzzles and these were often the facets that brought me back to play again and again. On several occasions, though, I was irritated to discover that the game was overly picky about positioning and that I had failed to solve a puzzle because my character was a quarter-step out of place when I asked it to search for a clue or use a tool.
Finally, because the story unfolds as you go, your objectives are often unclear. For me, this only added to the mystery and helped hold my curiosity. Eventually, though, I began to wish for some direction. My brother-in-law and I probably put in about 60 hours of actually playing time on this game over Thanksgiving and Christmas, and after about 12 hours of wandering empty hallways and poking through rooms we had already searched a dozen times, the tedium got to us and we abandoned it. There were a number of points in the game where we were given choices, such as "Will you follow the team leader?" or "Will you pull the lever?" and we had no way of knowing whether we had chosen incorrectly or were, in fact, following a dead end.
I don't know how much of the game I actually completed, and someone with more time and patience and, perhaps, greater puzzle-solving abilities might find that I only scratched the surface. This really wouldn't surprise me, as the detail and scope that I encountered were truly impressive. I would certainly recommend Resident Evil to anyone who enjoys adventure and puzzles with a dark edge.
--"Diamond" Chip Cassano, Associate Editor
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