@RSM-HQ: They would deviate a bit later on in the games (infected dogs, spiders, the giant snake in the original, etc) but at their core the first 3 games (and Code Veronica) were survival horror games with shambling zombies as the primary antagonists.
Then Resident Evil 4 came along and we were fighting crazed villagers with fucking plants popping out of their heads. RE4 is a good game, but it's essentially Resident Evil in name only. There were really no survival/horror elements to it. Ammo and health herbs are pretty much everywhere and easy to spot thanks to the arcade-y light beams shooting up from them. Not to mention the merchant.
Don't even get me started on the entries into the series since then.
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