So, there's a new "new" version of Capcom's "Resident Evil" out known as "Resident Evil Remastered." This latest version is remake/update of the remake/update that came out for the almighty Gamecube in 2002. Sadly, I never played the Gamecube remake. I owned it, but I never got to play it. I was newly married at that time and we had four kids aged 11 to 4 between us, so my priorities were elsewhere at that time. As I recall, I let my son trade it in to get one of the newest Pokemon games that came out a few months later. That's what Dad's do in this day and age, I guess. They make video game sacrifices to the Pocket Monster gods.
The first "Resident Evil" (known as "Biohazard" in Japan) for the original PlayStation is a game that is near and dear to me. The year was 1996 when I bought it, and I was living in a rather large, suburban farmhouse with a couple friends while working at the local newspaper. My roommate Rob and I played the holy bejesus out of "Resident Evil" for the majority of '96. We had no idea what the hell "survival horror" was, but it sounded wicked, so we definitely wanted to take a crack at it being robust 20-somethings and all. We would take turns playing various parts: Rob would play the more exploratory/puzzle parts, and I would play the more action oriented/shooting parts. Rob could never really get the gist of the "human tank" control scheme (i.e. due the limitations of the original PS1 controller, the characters controlled like tanks, pivoting on fixed positions to aim and shoot) and became flustered when the faster moving creatures were lurking about trying their damnedest to rip our faces off, but he was excellent at solving the oddly obscure puzzles the game threw your way from time to time.
"Resident Evil" was state-of-the-art tech in 1996 and it would regularly draw crowds in my room when we would have people over for parties and the like. The six or seven rather intoxicated people that would gather 'round my (large for the time) 40" screen would cheer, jump, and scream along with us as we delved further and further into that accursed mansion. Those were good, good times.
