LONG BLOG
31 Days 2020 Edition Day 7: Family
By a large margin this one is my favorite game in the horror genre.
Resident Evil 7: Welcome to the Family (son)
RE:7 just gets a lot of things right in my opinion. Chief among them is the fact that RE:7 doesn’t handicap the player in any way that is unrealistic. I know a lot of people liked tank controls and fixed camera angels but frankly I wouldn’t miss them at this point. I feel a lot of horror games, especially indie horrors you’ll find on itch.io or Steam often rely on gimping the player in one way or another to help generate that fear factor. Weather that’s with fixed camera angles, tank controls, a flashlight that works more like a .99¢ glow stick, the inability to fight in any way, the stamina of a 500lbs man with 2 broken legs, the speed of the US postal service, etc it all feels cheap to me. In a lot of ways these restrictions don’t make much sense in the games they’re in and more often than not lead to frustration rather than fright.
Resident Evil 7 throws all these things out the window and crafts a terrifying experience from start to finish without needing to gimp the player in order to do so. As Ethan you have enough control and freedom to make decisions that make sense within the context of the game. Fighting and running are both viable options and neither of them are hampered by rigid controls, bad cameras, or bad lighting. The mistakes you make aren’t because of a poor judgement you made while shooting something off screen, if you missed it’s because your aim was off. You can also make some creative decisions such as running over Jack in the car, or if you aren’t quick enough Jack will run over you with the car (or at least try). It’s stuff like this that really makes a difference in the experience, mostly because it makes sense. I'm sure we've all played at least one horror game where a viable weapon is right next to you but because the game demands it, you can't use it. For me that is an immersion killer. Giving the player freedom and power to try and do things the way they want to while still making an absolutely terrifying game is a marvel and Resident Evil 7 manges to do this and a whole lot more.
0 COMMENTS
Please login (or) make a quick account (free)
to view and post comments.
Login with Twitter
Login with Dtoid
Three day old threads are only visible to verified humans - this helps our small community management team stay on top of spam
Sorry for the extra step!
About Agent9one of us since 12:45 PM on 04.13.2010
=============================================================
A Few things about me
=============================================================
- I'm almost finished with my degree in computer science and I plan on going into independent development and freelancing once I'm done.
- I can be very cynical, but I do try to be positive or curb my negativity. In spite of this I'm actually very jovial in person and I don't get mad often. I would dare say I'm quite happy, even when things seem bleak. I simply don't like industry Bullshit and I'm not one to stand for it, even if it's a game I like.
- I host a series annually called 31 Days where I post 1 horror related or themed video game song a day for the month of october. During this time I also provide keys for games (free of course) to any reader observant enough to find them.
- I've been a member of destructoid since 2010, and a lurker long before then. As such I've seen many people both come and go. Such is the natural order of things.
- I enjoy Art and draw in my spare time
- I also enjoy theatre and films. I especially like Horror movies (both good and bad ones).
- I go camping once or twice a year. I would go out more but my allergies tend to get in the way.
- I don't drink, which may be a surprise to some. I might make a joke or two about it but I stay away from alcohol for my own personal reasons, though you can feel free to drink a pint on my behalf any time you'd like.
=============================================================
My Top 20 Games (By the ever Illustrious Dango
=============================================================
=============================================================
=============================================================
This is a commission I had done for me by Inquisitive Ravenclaw. You should check out his site if you like the following piece
Link: https://theunknown1-arts.tumblr.com
I also got a musical piece made for me by the incredible Alphadeus. A little history behind this:
My musical piece came as part of the Songs for Gamers album DLC pack 02. Alphadeus has been making songs for the members of the destructoid community for years already. This past year he opened submissions and I applied. For my meagre efforts I received this lovely piece:
You can find him on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFs2UhJYPVITYWCiqMk-z3w
He also has other venues listed on his profile here, take a look if you are so inclined:
https://www.destructoid.com/?a=141057&name=Alphadeus&chaos=ok&start=0
The community is full of people with all kinds of talent and I'm very pleased to be a part of it along with all of you (yes, you too fair reader).