Resident Evil
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This is a /v/ related article, which we tolerate because it's relevant and/or popular on /tg/... or we just can't be bothered to delete it. |
Resident Evil is a series of zombie-focused Survival Horror games (the first big-name franchise of that type, and the first to make the genre at all "mainstream") produced by Capcom from the mid-1990s on. Its longtime rival is Silent Hill and it spawned a short-lived (three games) rival/spin-off, Dino Crisis, which was basically "Resident Evil on an island with timetraveling dinosaurs instead of bio-engineered zombies!"
As might be guessed, the basic plotline of Resident Evil is simple: the pharmaceutical megacorporation Umbrella has its fingers in some very sticky pies, namely secret divisions working on genetically tailoring viruses and mutant monsters to make illicit millions in the bio-weaponry underground. Naturally, these things keep getting out of their control, and a bunch of innocent schmucks need to try and survive in the resultant monster-filled hellholes. Add in lots of creepy background lore, apocalyptic logs, bizarre traps and puzzles, and enjoy yourself some fun.
Though a video game series, Resident Evil is a perfect source of inspiration and ideas for a DM of D20 Modern, especially if the game being run is at all focused on horror or intrigue. Indeed, Resident Evil 1 has been likened to a horror-themed dungeon crawl in a modern environment. Naturally, the game series would mesh perfectly with All Flesh Must Be Eaten, but since there's no official writeups, that requires a lot of ZM setup.
Resident Evil 1
The first game of the series, probably best remembered for its incredibly narmy dialogue and voice acting - what a lot of people don't know is it was actually created in English. An elite force of police officers, known as the Special Tactics And Rescue Squad (S.T.A.R.S for short - see! Clever!) are sent into the Arklay Mountains in response to gruesomely violent attacks on hikers and campers in the area. Bravo Team goes first, then vanishes. Several hours later, Alpha Team goes to investigate. They are attacked by a pack of diseased, decaying, bloodthirsty dobermans, and their chickenshit pilot promptly flies off in terror. The survivors flee for a mysterious mansion, only to find it crawling with zombies and other engineered freaks. As either Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine, you need to explore the mansion and find a way to safely escape. And thus a series was born...
The original English version of this game is also famous for its hilariously bad voice acting, to the point where some people were disappointed with it getting fixed in the remake.
Resident Evil REMake
In the early 2000s, Capcom signed a deal with Nintendo, and brought Resident Evil to the Nintendo Gamecube. One of their first efforts was this game, a remade version of the original game with a new horrible beastie, more horror in general, and a dramatically less narmful script. They then later decided to re-re-release it for the PC.
Resident Evil 2
After the disaster of RE1, Umbrella causes another disaster when they attempt to violently take a prototype super-virus, the G-virus, from one of their top researchers in his lab under Raccoon City. The scientist, William Birkin, mutates into a horrible monster (which mutates even further as time passes, each form more and more horrid than the last) and the T-virus is spilled, causing the entire city to be infected. Into the chaos comes Claire Redfield, younger sister of Chris Redfield above, and rookie cop Leon Kennedy, with the two banding together to survive and fight their way out.
An official remake was announced in late 2015, but afterwards Capcom went virtually silent on the subject. Not helping was that Capcom ran into huge delays on the promised "Not a Hero" DLC for Resident Evil 7. Then come E3 of 2018 with news of the remake where gameplay is over-the-shoulder just like with Resident Evil 4.
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
Running cocurrently alongside RE2, this story charts Jill's attempts to survive the zombie-infested hellhole of infected Raccoon City, even as a bio-engineered assassin whose ability to tank any firepower reminds many of the Plague Marines strives to hunt her down and kill her.
Resident Evil: Code Veronica
Claire gets herself caught by Umbrella and ends up on a private prison island run by the incredibly psychotic Ashford family. When a zombie outbreak occurs, she can escape, but then has to escape from the zombies.
Oh and Albert Wesker, the bad guy the team in the original who seemed unimportant in the long term, comes back and gave himself superpowers. Not everything goes according to his plan since he ended up picking a fight a mutant even stronger than he is, with no gun, so he gets Chris to kill her and escapes with a sample of the game's Veronica Virus from an easier target.
Resident Evil 0
Remember Bravo Team, from RE1? This prequel game, coming out at much the same time as the REMake, shows what happened to the Bravo Team.
Resident Evil 4
Leon Kennedy, now a governmental agent, is sent to a backwater European country that totally isn't Spain to rescue the kidnapped president's daughter.
Probably the least involved with the malarkey of Umbrella, as that corporation has finally crumbled, so we finally get some progress in the form of a psychotic cult that worships parasites, led by an angry bald dude, Napoleon, and a creepy old man. All three of them become tentacle monsters. Predictably, this isn't taken seriously in the slightest.
Resident Evil: Revelations
Chris and Jill end up stranded on ships that have been overrun by a new breed of zombie, and a terrorist cell threatening to infect the entire oceans with their new virus.
The most remarkable thing about this game is a spelling error on the box for the Nintendo 3DS version of the game.
Resident Evil 5
Chris finally puts a stop to the big bad of the series, Albert Wesker, as he attempts to infect the entire world.
Probably the start of the downfall of the franchise, as it shifts from any amount of survival horror (Even 4 had that one segment as the President's daughter to fill it out), as well as being marred by an undercurrent of racism (But what did you expect from fighting a bunch of black people throwing spears in Africa? zombies in previous games were either Americans or Europeans, having Africans as zombies doesn't make the game racist, plus the Big Bad is white) and an even less helpful partner (among other controversial changes to the game system). The only factor that people can salvage from it is that the big bad has a very sexy voice along the likes of DC Eliphas.
Resident Evil 6
A highly controversial addition to the series, as it jumps from too many different perspectives to make any sense. The plots are as follows:
- Leon and a girl supposedly tied to the outbreaks have to hunt down a long-time wildcard Ada Wong.
- Chris and his military dudebro have to go do tacticool dudebro stuff. Chris is also a major asshole.
- Sherry Berkin (whose dad is responsible for the RE2 outbreak) grabs Jake, a new guy who's supposedly Wesker's son, whose blood might be the cure for the zombie fuckups. She has to deliver him to the UN for cash and salvation.
- Ada, who's playing sides while doing mysterious stuff.
Resident Evil 7
The most recent addition to the game line, RE7, subtitled "Biohazard", was released in January of 2017. Breaking from the traditions of previous games, it features a complete newcomer to the series; Ethan Winters, a man whose wife Mia was presumably lost at sea on a boating trip 3 years ago. When he receives an email claiming to be from her and telling him to come and get her off of some farm belonging to a family called the Bakers in the backwoods of Louisiana, he immediately rushes off to her rescue. And that's when things go wrong... see, the Bakers, they're like Mia's family. And they're just dying to welcome somebody new to the clan...
RE7 was the most controversial newcomer, as whilst it promised a hard return to the survival horror in contrast to the more action-horror b-movie feel of the previous numbered games, it did so whilst stating the game would be in a first-person perspective. This had been used before (in fact, it was originally considered for the first Resident Evil, but the Playstation's graphics just couldn't hack it), but only on the Gun Survivor spin-offs.
However, when it came out, it swiftly won fans over with a genuinely dank, creepy mansion to explore, and horrific new foes to fight. The only real complaints was that its blend of combat and stealth made it feel a little like Alien: Isolation and the lack of variety in enemies to fight. Most people don't care, considering it a throwback to all that was good about the 1st game, helped by an awesomely catchy theme song and incredibly quotable enemies who manage to hit that right niche between hilariously narmy and downright fucking spooky.
Seriously, one of your boss-fights involves grabbing a chainsaw and duking it out with a laughing, mutated psycho cannibal hillbilly wielding chainsaw-shears. Who earlier may have hacked off your leg with a common garden shovel for giggles. Batshit insane does not do this game justice.
Following in the footsteps of Silent Hill, RE7 made use of a playable teaser called the Beginning Hour. Unlike Silent Hills, RE7 actually came to fruition, because Capcom isn't quite as fucked up as Konami.
Resident Evil: Outbreak
A short-lived MMO game, in which you play as a bunch of civilians trying to survive the initial outbreak of Raccoon City.
Movies
Yeah, there are movies.
The first was a set of live-action films, but like pretty much all attempts at a live-action adaptation of a videogame, they fucking sucked like all shit. These are the atrocities that unleashed Alice upon the world, and for that they shall never be forgiven.
Mercifully, Capcom got off their asses and have given us some real Resident Evil movies; three so far, they are all fully animated CGI affairs that are actually set in the actual universe of Resident Evil and use regular characters.
Degeneration, the first film, brings back fan-favorite characters Claire Redfield and Leon Kennedy. Set between Code Veronica and 4, it involves their efforts to stop an attempt by a madman to unleash the deadly G-virus and T-virus upon America.
Damnation is a post-4 Leon fest involving Leon fighting ganados and lickers in some made-up Eastern European country.
Vendetta is a London has fallen ripoff about Chris and Leon fighting a weapons dealer who got his hands on some Umbrella leftovers. Notable for some impressive John Wick-style gun battles and for finally bringing back Rebecca Chambers.
/tg/ Stuff
You can find material for running RE games under All Flesh Must Be Eaten here: http://thegraveyard.xtreemhost.com/resievilselect.html?ckattempt=1
This loser here has a half-completed attempt at creating a splatbook for running RE games under the 2nd edition New World of Darkness rules, in the form of Resident Evil: Chronicles of Darkness.