When it comes to my favourite Resident Evil game, my opinion is a pretty common one. In that it's always tied between RE2 and the remake. Though the remake is undoubtedly the better survival horror game (RE2 is far too easy, even if it makes up for it with its overall cinematic presence and story), RE2 is the childhood favourite, so it's tough to knock it down off the pedestal.
The remake is... just truly something else, though. It's easily one of the best games of the previous generation, if not one of the best horror games of all time. It still manages to effectively pull you into its atmosphere, after all this time -- and the amount of change that went into it when put against the original definitely allows it to stand as its own game. Unlike, say, MGS: Twin Snakes.
I will still stand by my assertion that the remake controls really well, too. Far as tank controls go, they're surprisingly smooth and, when speaking for the classic RE's, it's the best controlling RE game next to RE3. Which is why RE0's relative sluggishness surprises me, considering how incredibly alike they are from a general gameplay perspective.
So yeah, I wholly respect the remake as the best RE game in the series (across both old and new), but RE2 still stands as my personal favourite. You just can't compete against those childhood memories :P Plus I think remake was a little lacking in the goofy unlockables; I can understand that the remake is meant to be a much more serious and hardcore game (Real Survivor mode omgwtf) game than REs past, but... well, what it all comes down to is I'm pissed that they never thought up another weird unlockable minigame where you could finally play as Barry/Wesker :P. Sure, RE5 remedied that (and Veronica before it with Wesker), but I would have loved an RE3-esque Mercenaries game where you could play as all of the STARS members.
In any case, I've got pretty much everything to do with RE2 and RE3 in particular glued onto my brain I've played them so damn much over the years. As such, this is how I'd rank the overall series (excluding spin-offs):
- Resident Evil 2.
- Remake.
- Resident Evil 3: Nemesis.
- Resident Evil Zero
- Resident Evil
- Resident Evil 4
- Resident Evil: Code: Veronica X
- Resident Evil 5
- .
- .
- .
- Resident Evil 6.... That's right, I'm gonna rank the Resident Evil games that don't even exist yet over RE6 ;P
And I'll be able to slot Revelations in there somewhere come May once I can finally play the damn thing, too.
Anywhoo it's nice to read something about the classic RE games in a positive light. Kind of a rarity these days, especially on the GB forums.