Masters of Fear: Resident Evil

These were conscious decisions that, when they all come together, can set the player up for some harrowing experiences. Even today, or perhaps especially today, it’s amazing to see the grand effects of a few small choices. Sure, they bother me as a player and I’m sure they’d bug many modern gamers, but they are extremely important for the game’s pacing and scares. It’s really nice to be able to go back to a time when games didn’t hold your hand to make sure you could beat the game. For Resident Evil, it was more important that the game be made frightening and stressful than palatable to a broad audience. Funny thing is, Resident Evil moved on to become a giant of a franchise because it worried more about creating a terrifying experience rather than a crowd-pleasing one.

This is how you do horror with guns. This has that helplessness I love. It has that constant danger that you never escape no matter how much power you feel you have. It plays on human arrogance, toying with you just before it gets really hard. It’s also not afraid to just throw something at you, making you jump right out of your seat even if you’re staring right at your enemy. I still got startled the first time an enemy grabbed me, and I still almost dropped my controller when the dogs came through the window. The game’s ugly as sin these days, but everything that made it so groundbreaking when it came out is still valid and functional today.

Every horror game owes something to Resident Evil – Every last one of them. If you haven’t played it, go do it right now. Get the Gamecube remake if you have to. Whatever you do, make sure you experience the dawn of console horror for yourself.

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