Halloween Gaming Blog #5 Resident Evil Series Part 2

Welcome back to our little trip down resident evil lane. I had covered the last two games during my last blog entry into the series and hope to cover a deal more in this one. During this time we shall see where the game started to split off a bit from the original and even the standard numbering system to come up with our current incarnation today.

Resident Evil 3 Nemesis came in not long after the second game's release in 1999 but didn't really get as good a play back when it came to support. The Dreamcast was out in all its glory and the playstation was on the way out due to outdated graphics and system. The third installment of the game allowed you to play Jill again but took away a lot of the innovation that had made the series so amazing in the past.

This game lacked the story innovation of the second game but came on board with a stronger graphics engine that allowed for a quick pivot for the first time so that you could react faster to enemies. It also allowed you to take the game as normal, ultra hard or ultra easy. The story follows up around the same time that the second game is taking place and Jill revisits a lot of the locations. She is hunted by the evil Nemesis who is a Tyrant style bioweapon that is trying to kill her and all of her teammates. This time you have an enemy with a deadly long range weapon, a bazooka. This game, though not the strongest in the series was a fitting end to the playstation generation...or was it?

 Nintendo decided to get in on the fun briefly with their Nintendo 64 system. With their last romp in horror being Clock tower for the Super Nintendo it had been a while since they had released anything of worth when it came to horror. Nintendo had a reputation for only catering to children especially after the mortal kombat debacle denying the fans the red blood that they craved and this was an attempt to regain some of that lost rep. This version, though much easier to interchange without CD changes was doomed to obscurity.

We are in the new generation of consoles and Sega once again got the drop on the competition with its new Dreamcast system. It had wonderful graphics that blew the others away. They got hold of the franchise to come up with the first Resident Evil game that was the first (in the United States anyway) to not be in the main lineup. this wasn't Resident Evil 4 but an extension and side step in the story. That utilized most of the power that the Dreamcast had to offer. The visuals were much greater than anything previous and the voice acting was top notch making any of the other games obsolete by comparison.

This story takes up with Claire from the second game continuing her search for her AWOL brother Chris from the first game. She arrives on this prison island where all heck breaks lose. She now has to put up with some psychotic twins and the deadly strain of virus that they have perfected. This game is by far the hardest of all the resident evil games. Ammo is so scarce that you have to utilize the combat knife at times and this isn't Silent hill where melee weapons are awesome. If you add on this the myriad of puzzles that are also harder than any of the other games you have probably the most deadly resident evil game out there.

Of course every series has a few black marks on it and this is the first. Actually this is the first in the series that I never got ot play to completion. Resident Evil survivor follows an Umbrella employee working his way through Raccoon city in search of his memories. The game had decided to change things up big time by making the game a first person shooter game to draw into some of the doom and quake players.

This was the last of the Resident Evil Games on the Playstation and is not well remembered...for a reason. This game was terrible! You had very limited ability when it came to controlling the character you didn't have the ability to fully focus on where you were going or what you were doing. The game play was dumbed down and the combat was archaic. I've tried multiple times to play this through but the save system really makes you rely on playing it all the way to the end as if you die you return to the beginning all over again. This is one of the few games worth forgetting.

Dreamcast continued to show its strength at this time putting out their own versions of Resident Evil 2 and 3 hoping to capitalize off of its success and take more players away. And though again Resident Evil 2 was a single disc system that was the only real advantage to owning this game. It is sad but the graphics were pretty much the same as you had before so nothing new here.

Well that is it for this installment I will return with more Resident Evil history and a continued report of the game. After this point we get to end the Dreamcast age and move into the realm of X-Box and Playstation 2 :)