There are two ways to revisit a classic like Resident Evil. Option one: you strap on nostalgia goggles so thick you can’t really see a thing. Option two: you boot it up on a modern platform and risk the horrifying revelation that your sacred horror relic is…kind of an old fart. Upon doing so with the new Steam version Capcom shadow-dropped this month, it will be easy to see why, despite all the issues a game as ancient as this might have, it remains a wonderful piece of entertainment that one can revisit even after two decades and counting.
For the uninitiated (where have you been, exactly?), Resident Evil is the tale of a deeply unfortunate police squad trained mainly in bad decision making, a suspiciously ominous mansion, and a bit of biological misconduct that led to evil things that want to do evil stuff – resident evil stuff, that is. You pick dense-beefcake Chris Redfield or the cutest sandwich ever Jill Valentine, then spend hours solving simple puzzles, collecting keys, and trying not to become a zombie or zombie dog chew toy. It’s survival horror at its purest, and it has all kinds of wonderful ‘90s cheese that elevates the experience tenfold.
The story is fairly typical if you’ve seen a similar, low-budget sci-fi flick or read a book dealing with scientific experiments gone terribly wrong. The cast is comprised of generic b-movie actors, and everything starts becoming increasingly predictable from the moment the team steps into the mansion…yet it is all handled in a way that grips and never lets go – and that, fellow gamers, is the definition of immersion. It’s all beautifully corny, too. A big part of the original trilogy, and especially of first instalment, is the so-bad-it’s-good presentation; awkward, exaggerated animations, wooden voice acting enough to build a cabin, and plenty of Hammer Film-esque horror tropes all combine to give Resident Evil its unique vibe.
PC gamers got a Windows port for all three PS1 titles fairly quickly, and, as someone who actually remembers playing them (yes, his hair has grey patches), they were pretty decent despite a few flaws here and there. This new Steam port is basically an upgraded version of it, co-developed by good ol’ GOG, and it’s surprisingly competent. The headline improvement is the revamped DirectX renderer, which makes sure the game no longer feels like it’s one button away from collapsing into digital soup. For some reason it’s all handled via a launcher that offers some typical settings, like Window or Fullscreen mode, V-sync, anti-aliasing and…well, nothing really special to talk about. You basically get the same options most Windows 98 titles would have, but with more resolutions to pick from.
Is the difference noticeable? The developers themselves practically shrugged and went, “maybe,” which is refreshingly honest. The 3D models look much better, and the prerendered backgrounds don’t become an ugly mess even at the highest resolutions, but it’s still Resident Evil – which is, like, the purpose of this port. Would it be better if there were more buttons and levers to push? Sure. Still, having control over all these settings means one can tailor the experience to modern displays without any issues.
This isn’t by any means a remaster, but it does include some nice enhancements. For starters, cutscenes no longer play like a cursed PowerPoint presentation as timing is much, much smoother, so you don’t have to worry about dealing with any moments of uncomfortable silence during dialogue sequences, and the people that do the talking and the moving do it faster than before. Oh, and alt-tabbing no longer summons a demon. Yeah, sit down, take a moment, process that. A clean exit. In a PC port. What is this, the future?! Then again, it still doesn’t have an actual in-game exit button…
In terms of what has been included, there are all four localisations of (English, German, French, Japanese), but most importantly the gore is fully intact, as this isn’t the butchered US version. In other words, all the fake blood, all the questionable anatomy, all the “who approved this?” moments are here in full force. Grotesque, ridiculous, awesome. Of course, there’s no point in pretending this is suddenly modern. If not willing to deal with something so old (tank controls and all), there’s no point in walking away from your recent copy of Resident Evil Requiem – but that’s the whole deal. This isn’t a remake. It’s not here to impress your graphics card. It is here to preserve the weird, clunky magic of the father of survival horror, and it succeeds.
