Resident Evil 0 – Twin Phenomenas

March 12th, 2010

wesker-and-birkin-re0

In Resident Evil 0 there were two “phenomenas” which occurred during my play time that have no relation to the patented “partner zapping” system.

Calculating Progress by the Inch

Sure, it’s probably no Demon’s Souls, but as a game in tune with survival, Resident Evil 0 sure does make you respect each inch of progress. Because resources are so scarce and the chance of wasting precious resources so opportune, minor developments feel like large triumphs. The fear of stifling one’s progress goes hand in hand with the fear of being scared. What I’m trying to say is that the “survival” and the “horror” sure do go well together. ^_^

This also bears a metaphoric likeness to my personal experiences as a kid and maybe your’s too, that is, if you’re anything like me, ie. big scaredy cat. When you had to get up and leave your room in the middle of the night to go to the toilet, it was a pretty big deal, right? You’ll sit their in bed spooked, because you’re so frightened that you become more observant of the sound around you, and psychologically it takes on an imagined life of its own. Finally, you summon the courage to go, you know that you can’t hold it in, it’s not worth it, so you open your door and run down the hall trying hard not to survey the darkness, otherwise if you stare for too long *insert childhood nightmare* will jump out at you. You finally make it to the toilet, do your business, make the fast escape back to the bedroom, climb into bed and only once under the covers breathe a sigh of relief. Resident Evil 0 sort of reminded me of this experience as a child, in part, it’s a simulation of the experience. You’ll check the map, section out the unexplored areas from the safe zones, plan a route which’ll return you safely to a save point. Just as when I was a kid, anytime I see (think I see) a monster of some sort (I mean, one more dangerous than a common zombie), I’ll flee immediately to the nearest door. You kinda tense up in these moments of running down the hallway, the difference being that one is primal fear and the other is more a fear of survival. Once I return back to base, I usually feel pretty relieved and even though I’ve only walked down the hall and bagged a few new items, I feel impulsed to save my game, to seal that progress in amber. Fortunately I could see what was going on, I could see how Capcom were playing gamers right into their hand, intending for them to needlessly save. I avoided this a lot actually and always found myself throwing away ink ribbons. Take that childhood fears!

resident-evil-0-scorpion

As a side note, the route planning aspect I mentioned is very interesting as it matches well with the detective feel to the game, personally speaking, I think it gives the player an independence and I really appreciated that.

Tactical Item Dropping/Littering

The absence of the bottomless item box and the inclusion of a second partner, forms a new phenomena of its own, which I’ll dub “tactical item dropping”, I like the sound of “tactical littering” better, but it doesn’t suggest function so much. Anyways, I digress, tactical item dropping is the phenomena whereby you leave items in the environment based on a strategic purpose. This phenomena isn’t emergent or anything, it’s basically imposed on the player, since the limited 6 item slots per character offer little flexibility. Basically, guns, ammo, health and puzzle items you want to keep with you as much as possible, however, sometimes these pile up, in which case you’ll leave some items and set off to use the others, hopefully returning with free spots in your inventory. The trick is to leave items in “safe zones” so that you won’t have to waste bullets or health retrieving what you’ve left behind later. In many ways, the strategic item dropping enhances the route planning nature of the game and creates a stronger distinction between safe and unsafe areas.This all adds to the co-operative tang to Resident Evil 0.

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It sounds a little overbearing and I have no doubt that Resident Evil 0 was strong criticised over it’s strategic item dropping. There’s a great deal of micro-management involved in the process which can be a little burdensome at times, considering how many menu you have to sorta through, however, I rather enjoyed it.

The items that you drop are shown on your map too, which is handy as upon leaving an area as you’ll refer to the map to see what you’ve left behind and discover a sort of tracing of your history based on the trail of items strewn in your path. Each item is indicative of a sacrifice you had to make, so the symbolism here is important.

Additional Readings

Resident Evil 0 – RE Wiki

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Resident Evil 0 – Detecting a History of Solace

March 10th, 2010

resident-evil-zero-marcus

Three ideas were cycling through my mind when playing Resident Evil 0, figured that they’d go well together in a tasty dish. Bon appétit.

Beccy, Billy and Detective Dan

Even though I’ve completed Resident Evil Remake, Resident Evil 3 and other puzzle-heavy adventure games, Resident Evil 0 was the first time I actually felt like a successful detective. (Maybe these aren’t the intents of the Resident Evil games, but it’s certainly something I’ve inferred from playing). With the other Resident Evil games I usually have to drip-feed my way through on a play guide since I struggle to solve all the puzzles by myself. In Resident Evil 0 though, I only consulted a FAQ for trivial matters such as overlooking small details. I’m so pleased with my new-found interest in “detective” gaming and now I want to try out similar titles. I’ve been thinking hard about why Resident Evil 0 was a softer nut to crack and besides simply getting lucky at times, here’s my reasoning:

resident-evil-0-billy

Resident Evil 0 is very segregated. Sure, the training facility is clearly the largest single area in the game, but each of the 6 self-contained maps are small enough not to be overwhelming, in fact some of them are just short pitstops. The mansion in Resident Evil, on the other hand, is terribly overwhelming. In RE Remake, if you miss one clue then there are plenty of potholes to fall down, but in Resident Evil 0 the options are fewer and therefore it’s easier to remain on track. Resident Evil 0 also begins on the Ecliptic Express which acts as a fantastic tutorial area since there are very few ways to make a wrong move. Resident Evil Remake, however, quite brutally starts you off in an open mansion and every time a new key is discovered the newly available areas are many.

A Slice of History

I think it’s important for us to enjoy a game on its own terms, on what the game is supposing, rather than a fixed set of expectations, hearsay or assumed norms*. As I established in the prior post, Resident Evil is an important part of our history and for this reason I interpret Resident Evil Remake and Resident Evil 0, particularly in a current context (even though I played the GCN version and not the recently released Wii version), as something of a time capsule which has captured a certain style of play, the old-way of doing survival horror, in a very fresh, attractive-looking wrapper. It feels well-worn without suggesting so by the presentation, and that makes it more palatable point of entry for a given slice of our history.

At the same time, Resident Evil 0 is essentially the B-sides of the original game, a classic and that itself quite the companion piece to those wishing to further explore the history of this genre.

*It’s for this reason that 2D games or obscure genres such as shmps or on-rails shooters almost always get panned by critics. Games which involve killing people whilst ripping off hollywood tropes are idealised and other genres are seen as derelict.

Game of Solace

As I discussed in a previous article on Prince of Persia, I’m finding that I prefer games which just shut the hell up when it comes to narrative. I enjoy details being left as implicit and the environment allowing me to become subsumed in the atmosphere. Resident Evil, just like Prince of Persia has the awkward tendency to kill the atmosphere with shit narrative, I just don’t care.

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The sad fact is that both of these franchises feature gorgeous environments and atmosphere that I enjoy becoming immersed in. Resident Evil 0 was admittedly one of the closest games I’ve experience to my imagined “Game of Solace”. It was, for once, quiet and allows the player to explore the environment at their own will, without needless interruption. I guess this is why I’m so fond of Resident Evil 0.

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Resident Evil 0 – Dissecting Traditional Horror

March 6th, 2010

resident-evil-zero-bec

Recently I completed Resident Evil 0 on the Gamecube and have prepared a few articles snuffing out some observations. My primary interests this time around lie in the traditional Resident Evil template (that used in RE 0-3) which I’ll explore in the 2 mini-essays below.

Genre Origins and the Creation of Traditional Horror

The Resident Evil template is ultimately an evolution of the traditional point and click adventure, perhaps the first stage of migration after the genre’s demise from the mainstream. What separates Resident Evil from the genre previously is the inclusion of an entire offensive system, giving Resident Evil more than just a purely investigative, puzzle-solving feel. As with many point-and-click adventures however, Resident Evil’s exploration and shooting mechanics take a back seat, not to narrative though (the narrative is atrocious), but to atmosphere.

The majority of the player’s time in a point-and-click adventure is spent investigating, sifting through for environmental clues and interrogating the locals in pursuit of the next lead. Resident Evil removes the people from the equation, leaving the quiet isolation of the player’s unassuming puzzle solving as the dominate part of the game.

It’s easy to see from here where survival horror comes into play, all we need is a little atmosphere to set the tone. The atmosphere is created largely through soundscapes. Of course, the realism of the pre-rendered backgrounds, particularly those in RE Remake and Resident Evil 0, discomforts the player and the limited supply of items work to suffocate the player, setting a tense mood. Sound, maybe just because it’s more dynamic than the visuals, is the primary director of the experience, it tells the player whether or not they should feel calm or frightened. A prime example of this is in Resident Evil 0’s laboratory area where on the first floor the “tension” music is played in an empty hallway connecting multiple rooms of importance. Although I’m aware that nothing is going to happen (there’s tentacle monster directly downstairs and the music therefore seems misplaced), every time I enter this hallway I feel nervous and rush to the nearest exit.

Some other horror games just stop here, at the preparatory stage, and leave the player hanging with the illusion that horror will occur at some point, most likely when they least expect it. Resident Evil is pretty standard horror, I think, and there are usually two directions where the atmosphere may head, either a climax in tension or a jack-in-a-box scare. On the former, tension crescendos in, in lead-up to a dramatic event which then unfolds and spooks the player; horror which is explicit and affirms the players assumptions (ie. rooms with splatters of blood which leads to other rooms painted in blood, finalising with the source of the killing). The alternative is horror which scares through surprise, where discord is in fact created by the way atmosphere is interrupted by the invasion of a threat. Atmosphere, in regards to music, can be broken by the breaking of a long silence (and damn these games sure are silent, which is why the cheap scares are so effective) or by the clashing of one set of music with another. With this technique, your assumptions that the environment is safe is quickly subverted, leaving you in a panic. Between these two approaches, the build-up and the cheap scare, is variance in the middle, which I don’t think requires much exploration as it’s just a blending of the two aforementioned techniques.

On the whole, the puzzle solving provides the stage for the atmosphere to be set, the limited load-out and item slots along with the realistic visual and soundscapes set a tone where your assumptions can be subverted or affirm in the horror. The effectiveness of the horror is therefore dependent on the developer’s ability to massage the player into psychological states.

Contrasting Traditional and Contemporary Horror

We can learn quite a lot about the way atmosphere is constructed in this traditional mold of survival horror by comparing Resident Evil with similar titles. I choose you Eternal Darkness!

Eternal Darkness is far more dynamic at creating horror since, for one, the game is rendered entirely in 3D, but more importantly the means to horror, the insanity effects, are dependent on the player’s agency. The 3D environment offers more options to create tension than a still, 2D one, and Eternal Darkness capitalises on this, in my opinion, largely through the brilliant camera orientation. Ontop of this the player can shrink, objects can fly around, the player can hallucinate, sound will warp and other strange events will happen in-game; there’s an ample amount of variety. Not only is the horror dynamic, but the jack-in-the-box scares are still viable, and this gives Eternal Darkness a real edge.

resident-evil-0-screenshots

With the horror now player-dependent, Silicon Knights forfeit part of their directive control, one would think. The player’s sanity meter drops upon catching sight of a demonic creature, and it’s here where Silicon Knights can regain control through the placement of enemy types within each chapter of gameplay. Silicon Knights can’t ever have total control, mind you, but they can increase the likelihood of the experience unfolding as they intend it. Interestingly, despite all the qualities this system offers, the psychological course run through each chapter is largely identical: a slow crawl building up towards a tightening squeeze of tension, culminating at insanity. A result of this, as with the repeated use of the same environments, is that the horror becomes routine and therefore less effective.

Resident Evil is less sophisticated and highly rigid in comparison, but it does use its assets well. The horror is scripted through cause and effect scenarios, ie. if the player walks to this point or enters an area, dog will jump out of window, music will start playing, zombie will start groaning. Since Resident Evil’s graphics are 3D models over 2D stills, the stills can be more realistic and the models can support an increased number of polygons, as a result the Resident Evil are supremely more convincing and perhaps better at creating a general sense of tension.

Conclusion

Some people seem to get off on criticising the Resident Evil titles, but it’s pretty unfair really. The Resident Evil games are simply representative of a certain style of horror, be it the traditional style of the earlier games or the new mob-horror approach of Resident Evil 4 and 5, and there’s no denying that these games have each served their respective styles well. The future of the franchise (perhaps evident in this upcoming Resident Evil Portable game for the PSP), I think, comes in the series either A) finding new approaches to explore horror in video games or B) reinterpreting the origins and readapting these mechanics into the modern day. I would like to see both, and I certainly think that there is room for both in the franchises’ extended lore.

Additional Readings

Resident Evil Retrospective – GameTrailers

Resident Evil 0 [GC - Beta] – Unseen64

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