A horror classic, in every sense of the genre.
Capcom's RE is a classic in terms of video games. Not only did it help Capcom reinvent themselves but also, it gave the PS1 another decent title, something it was lacking badly pre-1997. More importantly, RE revived the survival-horror genre and introduced a technique whose use was going to be crucial in many PS1 games to come: Static backgrounds.
Graphics: 8/10
The biggest contribution that RE brought to games in terms of graphics was the introduction and popularization of the static background. These pre-rendered backgrounds were sometimes used in point-and-click adventures on the PC but they never really got a foothold until Capcom used them in RE.
Pre-rendered backgrounds had huge advantages in the PS1 era. Although these backgrounds often lacked any animation and they sometimes looked blurred (due to the fact that pre-rendering was low resolution) their use saved the PS1’s 1MB of video RAM a lot of headaches. Without pre-rendered backgrounds we could've never witnessed PS1 graphical marvels such as the Ancient Forest (FF7) or any of REs blood soaked locales.
There are a few staples of RE graphics, of course. First, the camera, which starting with RE and ending with RE:CVX, is and was ALWAYS horrible. The original game is no exception. The awkwardness of the camera does serve a pretty admirable goal of making the game scarier but it also makes it very annoying at times when you have to go behind a corner, blinded, because there's a huge ass wall in front of you and the camera won't swing around it.
Second, the pre-rendered backgrounds I just wrote about. In RE the backgrounds are very low res. and extremely interlaced. If you look close enough, you can easily see this. Another thing about the backgrounds in RE is that everything MOVABLE stands out, a lot. Players built out of pixels, boxes of ammo, monsters, and doors stand out like a big stain on a white shirt. This is slightly ridiculous in the beginning but most players get used to it quickly.
Other than the two staples, RE does well for itself graphically. The human and zombie forms are relatively well detailed and close-ups of characters are not as ugly as in FF7, for example. There is no lip-synching (duh!) but the character models do emote the best they can on screen. The rest of the cast, from zombies to spiders is also very well designed.
The amount of special effects in RE is really limited. You'll see broken windows, broken pavement, etc. but there is no dynamic lighting or anything like that. Firearm muzzles are inexistent, however, firearms oddly enough actually SPIT OUT bullets. That was something games back in the day rarely displayed. As you would expect, there are no frame rate issues to speak of.
Sound: 8/10
Resident Evil games benefit from one of the greatest gaming soundtracks ever. This soundtrack composed of a combination of fast paced music, which is offset in the tense moments by “scary” -music, is amazingly well incorporated into the game. The pieces played in the background are also superb. Everything is crystal clear and the music choice at any given time in the game is stupendous.
Sound effects are another strong point of Resident Evil. The ominous groaning of the zombies, the leaping of the dogs, the shattering of windows, etc. it's not only how good all of this sounds but how well it's used in the game environment.
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past 10 years you've heard about RE's horrible voice acting. Well, the first entry in the series has, by far, the worst voice acting ever in a popular game. It's so bad that at times the fakeness and the absolute LACK OF ABILITY of the actors makes some plot twists entirely predictable hours before they happen.
Gameplay: 9/10
The premise of RE is very simple: Get out of the house with your life. It's how the game executes this premise that makes all the difference.
For the 2 of you that don't know, RE is a game played from a 3rd person perspective. You are either Chirs or Jill, member of an elite anti-terror group called STARS, and are trapped in a house. Your mission was to come and rescue a downed helicopter but you'll soon find that you won't be fighting the boredom of search and rescue but a whole platoon of mutated monsters and zombies. Something fishy is going on here...
Yup from that banal, B-movie caliber intro, the RE story developed into a phenomenon. The reason why that happened is because of this game's plot twists. Some of them are very intelligent you see, and what you find out by the end of the story ALWAYS makes you want to go on, replay the game, or anxiously wait for the next one.
That's what all RE games, and generally all 3rd person Capcom games, do very well: They make you crave the next itineration of the series. The character development in these games is well above most AAA RPG titles. It's quite amazing, but Capcom pulls through like this in every 3rd person game of theirs I've ever played.
Of course all of that would be for naught if the gameplay would be junk but unsurprisingly, it's not.
Upon getting control of one's character in RE the game world becomes your playground. The player is usually involved in a huge fetch quest up until the end of the game where he/she fights the boss. This fetching is far more fun than it seems because a combination of monsters and mutants do everything to thwart your plans.
Each character in RE can carry a set amount of items in their inventory. Items can be anything ranging from shotguns, to healing herbs, to keys which open doors. The inventory has always been an RE staple as it's always minuscule. In order to clear out the inventory players have to go to a magic box, that is bottomless and can send items to any other box in the house, and deposit their excess items there. The problem with this item arrangement is that it's not logical, a key should no take as much space as a shotgun and when I have my pistol equipped it's not sitting in my inventory anymore, it's in my damn hand. However, the inventory systems plays a very important role in keeping the tension up and making combat a lot more tense… even if it is totally unrealistic.
The shooting game in RE is pretty simplistic. By holding the R1 button you raise your weapon and you shoot at the enemy, if the enemy is within your sights, auto aim takes care of the rest. Even if the enemy is outside of your view (which happens a great deal due to camera angles) auto aim takes care of the enemy much like it did before. The real twist about RE's shooting mechanics are that they need to be used wisely. Resident Evil is about surviving, if you mow down every lowly monster that walks around in wide-open areas, and that is easily avoidable, you'll quickly become the dinner of some of the more powerful monsters in the game. Due to this, ammo conservation is a must and RE quickly becomes more adventure than action as it encourages the player to simply run, rather than fight, every zombie he/she encounters.
However, the whole survival thing can get really annoying at times. The problem with the survival part is that if the player screws up once, and loses a lot of bullets, he's pretty much screwed. Trust me, the last thing you'd want to see is a pissed off gamer having to start a game from the beginning because of one dumb mistake he made 2 hours ago. And this does happen in RE, quite frequently if you want to go for high scores.
In tandem with the lack of ammo, there's also a lack of healing and saving. Yes, saving. RE saves your game at pre-designed points throughout the game where the player uses an ink ribbon to save his progress. Problem is, the ink ribbons are strictly rationed. Every time you want to save, you have to use a ribbon. Worse yet, the scoring system encourages that you save as LITTLE as possible, which is just EXTREMELY annoying. Luckily that went bye-bye in RE4.
The healing system in RE is pretty innovative in itself. It’s composed of both homemade ailments (like plants) and spare medical kits you find around the house. Combining a green herb with a red herb gives the player a clean bill of health, just like a first aid spray would. The thing about the healing system is that, it too, is both strictly rationed and strictly scrutinized when the player is being scored at the end of the game. Depending on how many first aid sprays the player uses, his score drops accordingly.
For all the scares and fast paced action in RE there's also a great deal of adventuring to be done. Most of your time in RE is spent solving HUGE puzzles rather than fighting with monsters. As you find new keys, or new artifacts, you open up other sections of the mansion, which may hold boss battles or more information about just what the hell is going on in the mansion. Puzzles in RE are very outlandish but they are also very well done. A guide is never required to finish these puzzles, as they are very intuitive. Thankfully, there's also no "pixel hunting" for keys or other essential items as just about all of them are in plain view.
The mansion and the creatures are all very well designed. The mansion behaves like a Simpson’s episode as its looks change drastically from beginning to end. The monsters too are very well designed and increase in ferocity as you move on. At first, you fight only zombies and dogs but later on you face huge sharks or Hunters. The bosses are also splendid, they spread terror all around and they just make the player crap his/her pants.
All of these elements combined make RE a horror masterpiece. Throughout the course of a the game you'll never be able to calm down or lower the tension because just when you think things are getting calm, another Hunter comes busting through a door or a new monstrous boss comes running around the corner. It's also equally true that most of these scares have already been posted all over the Internet or released to mass media. Hell, even Capcom took away some of the fear by making Wesker’s Report which features the 2 most famous RE scares. Don't let all of this confuse you though: RE still has plenty to give if you can make it through its 5-8 horror-glazed hours of gameplay.
Multiplayer: N/A
RE has no multiplayer and the unlockables you get are pretty weak. Who the hell wants to play through the game again with a new costume?
Overall: 9/10
Resident Evil is a classic. It started a series that, along with Final Fantasy and Gran Turismo, put the PlayStation family on the map.
Resident Evil's horrors, bad cameras, and primitive graphics are, just like a Hitchcock movie classic... even if now days we can put as much blood in video games as the video card can hold.