For me, this is the game. The game that changed the way I thought about games, the one that got me writing all these reviews and critiques in the first place. The reason why is because Resident Evil may have the most cohesive design of any game I’ve ever played, with every element focused on creating a compelling survival-horror experience. So, instead of just writing a personally fulfilling, yet ultimately useless love letter, this review is going to be an attempt at laying out the chain of design details that form the core of Resident Evil’s elegance.
The best place to start is probably the movement, with the infamous tank controls being the first hurdle players will have to jump over. Most third person games center their movement on the perspective of the camera, rather than the player character itself, so players don’t have to think about their facing direction and just move where they want. However, this benefit presupposes that the camera position is dynamic rather than fixed, and Resident Evil’s fixed camera is as legendary as the controls themselves. In the tight, claustrophobic halls of the mansion, the viewpoint flips between establishing shots of each area, balancing interesting perspectives with the ability to see hazards clearly. Since the camera can snap to different angles, camera-relative controls would lead to players awkwardly changing direction as they move around each room, something many players were confronted with when the HD version added this sort of control scheme. While there is the occasional awkward camera angle, the enemy design and placement are balanced around the player’s restrictions. Zombies groan to signal their presence, stand still until you’re in view, move slowly, and hold their arms out to indicate attacking range. Not only is this danger zone explicitly defined, but every lunge has an obvious cooldown time that allows for players to step back or run past, communicating to the player that they have the option of circumnavigating zombies instead of taking them on.
It’s not just “run or kill” that is going through players’ heads when they encounter a zombie though, there’s a deceptive amount of decision making that factors into this simple scenario. Players can’t shoot and move at the same time, so as soon as you see an enemy, a mental calculation has to occur on whether it’s safe to engage. Miscalculations could mean having to swap from abundant pistol ammunition to the rarer shotgun shells, or just taking damage. Even a successful kill isn’t the end of the decision making, with zombies turning into ferocious Crimson Heads shortly after being killed, unless they are decapitated or subsequently burned up. This means players have to factor in their proximity to an item box to retrieve the kerosene and lighter, assuming they didn’t already decide to use the shotgun for a headshot. Running back to the item box could lead to more encounters, so a route has to be chosen carefully, and the amount of kerosene itself is limited. Retrieving these items also takes up inventory space, so a judgement call needs to be made on the balance of healing, fighting, and collecting new items. Deciding to just sneak past an enemy has its own perils, carrying a high risk of taking damage in exchange for maintaining your supply cache. This risk only compounds with each traversal through the room, so encountering an enemy might even lead to opening up the map to analyze alternate routes. If you do mess up and get grabbed, you have the choice to use a rare defensive item to prevent the damage, or hold onto it in case of an emergency. If you don’t use it and eat the damage, you have to decide if you even want to heal yourself afterwards, either waiting to get the most value out of a full heal, or being slightly inefficient in exchange for safety and a free item slot. With supplies and key items scattered evenly across the map, having free inventory slots is a key element of strategy in itself, pushing players to take risks with fewer items on hand for the rewards of efficient play. Sometimes the best option is to carry no healing items or no extra ammo, putting you on a nervous edge entirely free from the artificiality of narrative stakes or a subjective sense of atmosphere.
Really though, it’s not just exploring without many items to defend yourself that gives you that nervous edge, it’s everything I’ve listed. Remember, those two whole blocks of detail resulted from explaining why the movement functions the way that it does; every system is so elegantly linked to the others that nothing can be analyzed on its own. All the supply management, the decision making required for each enemy, the tight corridors and cinematic angles, every single part of the game has been tuned to build up a comprehensive horror experience. This perfect design cohesion set on a backdrop of visual polish generations ahead of its time (thanks in part to the prerendering that static camera angles allow for) gives it a level of timelessness few games ever achieve. Even twenty years later, it stands as an achievement in survival horror game design, atmosphere, and how remakes should be handled in general. This is where I feel the temptation to transition into the love letter I was avoiding earlier, so this is probably the best place to wrap up. Everyone should play this to experience what I consider to be a textbook on effective game design. It’s required reading for understanding what makes games great.
The best place to start is probably the movement, with the infamous tank controls being the first hurdle players will have to jump over. Most third person games center their movement on the perspective of the camera, rather than the player character itself, so players don’t have to think about their facing direction and just move where they want. However, this benefit presupposes that the camera position is dynamic rather than fixed, and Resident Evil’s fixed camera is as legendary as the controls themselves. In the tight, claustrophobic halls of the mansion, the viewpoint flips between establishing shots of each area, balancing interesting perspectives with the ability to see hazards clearly. Since the camera can snap to different angles, camera-relative controls would lead to players awkwardly changing direction as they move around each room, something many players were confronted with when the HD version added this sort of control scheme. While there is the occasional awkward camera angle, the enemy design and placement are balanced around the player’s restrictions. Zombies groan to signal their presence, stand still until you’re in view, move slowly, and hold their arms out to indicate attacking range. Not only is this danger zone explicitly defined, but every lunge has an obvious cooldown time that allows for players to step back or run past, communicating to the player that they have the option of circumnavigating zombies instead of taking them on.
It’s not just “run or kill” that is going through players’ heads when they encounter a zombie though, there’s a deceptive amount of decision making that factors into this simple scenario. Players can’t shoot and move at the same time, so as soon as you see an enemy, a mental calculation has to occur on whether it’s safe to engage. Miscalculations could mean having to swap from abundant pistol ammunition to the rarer shotgun shells, or just taking damage. Even a successful kill isn’t the end of the decision making, with zombies turning into ferocious Crimson Heads shortly after being killed, unless they are decapitated or subsequently burned up. This means players have to factor in their proximity to an item box to retrieve the kerosene and lighter, assuming they didn’t already decide to use the shotgun for a headshot. Running back to the item box could lead to more encounters, so a route has to be chosen carefully, and the amount of kerosene itself is limited. Retrieving these items also takes up inventory space, so a judgement call needs to be made on the balance of healing, fighting, and collecting new items. Deciding to just sneak past an enemy has its own perils, carrying a high risk of taking damage in exchange for maintaining your supply cache. This risk only compounds with each traversal through the room, so encountering an enemy might even lead to opening up the map to analyze alternate routes. If you do mess up and get grabbed, you have the choice to use a rare defensive item to prevent the damage, or hold onto it in case of an emergency. If you don’t use it and eat the damage, you have to decide if you even want to heal yourself afterwards, either waiting to get the most value out of a full heal, or being slightly inefficient in exchange for safety and a free item slot. With supplies and key items scattered evenly across the map, having free inventory slots is a key element of strategy in itself, pushing players to take risks with fewer items on hand for the rewards of efficient play. Sometimes the best option is to carry no healing items or no extra ammo, putting you on a nervous edge entirely free from the artificiality of narrative stakes or a subjective sense of atmosphere.
Really though, it’s not just exploring without many items to defend yourself that gives you that nervous edge, it’s everything I’ve listed. Remember, those two whole blocks of detail resulted from explaining why the movement functions the way that it does; every system is so elegantly linked to the others that nothing can be analyzed on its own. All the supply management, the decision making required for each enemy, the tight corridors and cinematic angles, every single part of the game has been tuned to build up a comprehensive horror experience. This perfect design cohesion set on a backdrop of visual polish generations ahead of its time (thanks in part to the prerendering that static camera angles allow for) gives it a level of timelessness few games ever achieve. Even twenty years later, it stands as an achievement in survival horror game design, atmosphere, and how remakes should be handled in general. This is where I feel the temptation to transition into the love letter I was avoiding earlier, so this is probably the best place to wrap up. Everyone should play this to experience what I consider to be a textbook on effective game design. It’s required reading for understanding what makes games great.
2 Comments
Fantastic review, I thought of writing one as it's one of my favorite games of all-time, but you just nailed it.
Pookykun
3 years ago