Resident Evil is fortunately one of the few times zombie games don’t get depressing. The benefit this series has is that you barely have any human interaction throughout the game. At most you will find maybe two people that aren’t completely insane monster hybrids or just monsters themselves. So it has more time to focus on the gameplay elements and story. I say focus on story, but it is that kind of incredibly cartoonish and evil plot where bad guys want to take over the world so it doesn’t really matter to the whole experience. It is kind of weird though that they always want to use zombies as a way to fulfill their goals. Then again, I guess you would technically rule the world if everyone else was just a mindless husk. So, for once I will not be delving tooo deep into story because it will not do much to illustrate the point I want to make. Instead, I feel that a good starting point would be to look at the name of this series and break it down for a bit. A resident is defined as a person who has lived in an area for an extended period of time. Evil is something I shouldn’t have to define but I will do it anyway for the sake of consistency. Evil is bad. When I say bad, I mean super duper bad stuff here. So upon breaking things down here the series is about some super duper bad stuff that has been in an area for a while. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, the stuff I am referring to is zombies. So when zombies have control of an area for an extended period of time then that should be what makes a Resident Evil game.
Now since we have gotten definitions out of the way, let’s look at where each game takes place. I will not be diving into spinoff games because I really don’t want to delve into story here. The first game takes place in the Spencer Mansion where you navigate the undead monstrosities within and occasionally solve puzzles that if they were in an actual mansion would be considered eccentric at best. Then the next two take place in place in Raccoon City during the outbreak of the virus that the Umbrella Corporation released on the population. After that we have a Spanish village for the next installment of the series. Then yet another village for the one after that with the main difference being that it is now in Africa. The we have the next installment taking place in a bunch of different areas. If I am being honest I do not remember the names of these places nor do I feel they are that important so we are moving on. The next installment was in a crazy residence with a family of psychos in Louisiana. Finally, the latest installment is some village in Europe. It is pretty clear to everyone at this point, especially after the latest installment that these monsters quite literally grow out of the freaking mildew. So my question is that if there seems to be no end to the amount of creatures that can pop up, then what is the endgame?
Now a series as long as this is bound to have its up and downs and it is pretty clear which games fall in which category. The thing I want to bring attention to is that when a series survives as long as this one has, it will go through a lot of different phases. It has gone from survival horror to survival action to everything in between with varying degrees of success. The question for this series in my mind is will there come a point where this series reaches an apocalyptic scenario. They seem to be on the verge of outbreaks all the time in various different areas around the world and yet we have it always contained in time. I just want to understand exactly how zombies work in this universe and if we are constantly trying to stop some psychotic villains from trying to create the apocalypse for their own personal gain. The main reason I didn’t want to talk about the story here is because I don’t know where it is headed. The most recent games have gone back to old formulas and refined them for a more modern experience, but they also leave me with more questions as to whether there is an endgame in mind or if they plan to continue this series until you wouldn’t be caught dead playing it. Pun intended. I know this series isn’t meant to be taken seriously and I don’t really intend to do so, but you have to wonder if one day Chris Redfield can finally retire and go punch boulders in peace. Thanks for listening to my rambling thoughts today and I look forward to next month. I think.
That Casual Gamer Guy 