I could never get into Resident Evil. I dig horror, especially in the immersive sense that I can only get from games. But being a Silent Hill guy, I could never understand what people liked about RE. They lack the atmosphere and mature story telling of SH. I have the first three games from Playstation Plus, fired up the first one, and was immediately turned off by how brightly lit the mansion was, not to mention the voice acting. The overall mythos seems kind of intriguing, and I don't have a problem with the controls or gameplay in general, but I don't know how to get through the games without constantly comparing them to better horror experiences. Where do I start?

Clearly you never experienced RE1 on the PSOne. It was one of the best for it's time.

I was always under the impression that the first Resident Evil ought to be played on the Gamecube. Jus' sayin', why not look into that version if you really want to enjoy it?

Anyway, I haven't played any Resident Evil games aside from 4 and 5. Both of those are great but I don't really want to dive into most of the other ones.

Maybe the games haven't aged well. I tried to play silent Hill 2 like a year ago and I couldn't do it. It wasn't the least bit scary or anything. I guess it was amazing back in the day though.

@laserbolts said:

Maybe the games haven't aged well. I tried to play silent Hill 2 like a year ago and I couldn't do it. It wasn't the least bit scary or anything. I guess it was amazing back in the day though.

Now this poster gets the point

Just play 4.

SH also came out three years after Resident Evil. RE was, at the time, a huge step up from Alone in the Dark's unshaded characters with no in-game voice acting and jerky animation. Also the later areas of RE1 did get a lot darker and more detailed. The opening areas are supposed to disarm the player.

RE2 and 3 show off how much more experienced their team became with their vastly more detailed environments.

If you're not playing the GameCube version of the first game, you're doing it wrong.

Original RE1 is just garbage today. RE2 still holds up, though.

@DeF said:

If you're not playing the GameCube version of the first game, you're doing it wrong.

Original RE1 is just garbage today. RE2 still holds up, though.

Garbage? It was just one the best games of it's generation.

You sir do not know your games.

@Marcsman said:

@DeF said:

If you're not playing the GameCube version of the first game, you're doing it wrong.

Original RE1 is just garbage today. RE2 still holds up, though.

Garbage? It was just one the best games of it's generation.

You sir do not know your games.

You can read, can't you? I said "is garbage TODAY"

A time machine. I don't think people can get into RE1 today. It was an utter revelation back in the day though. REmake still holds up though. That was a fantastic re-imagining. Shame you'll have to hunt down the GameCube disc to play that.

@TeflonBilly said:

A time machine. I don't think people can get into RE1 today. It was an utter revelation back in the day though. REmake still holds up though. That was a fantastic re-imagining. Shame you'll have to hunt down the GameCube disc to play that.

Capcom threw REmake and RE:Zero on Wii discs (without updating anything else, sadly).

@DeF said:

@Marcsman said:

@DeF said:

If you're not playing the GameCube version of the first game, you're doing it wrong.

Original RE1 is just garbage today. RE2 still holds up, though.

Garbage? It was just one the best games of it's generation.

You sir do not know your games.

You can read, can't you? I said "is garbage TODAY"

And I still do not agree with you. It is an old classic.

You sir still do not know your games.

Dude don't sweat it. I never saw the appeal of the series either, from the very first one even back when it came out, still don't.

Different strokes and all that.

@notdavid said:

They lack the atmosphere and mature story telling of SH.

Blood and swearing doesn't make something mature. I've always thought the SH games were cheesy and boring. Resident Evil 4 is where it's at. I didn't like any of the other RE games.

@Marcsman said:

@DeF said:

@Marcsman said:

@DeF said:

If you're not playing the GameCube version of the first game, you're doing it wrong.

Original RE1 is just garbage today. RE2 still holds up, though.

Garbage? It was just one the best games of it's generation.

You sir do not know your games.

You can read, can't you? I said "is garbage TODAY"

And I still do not agree with you. It is an old classic.

You sir still do not know your games.

The remake is clearly the better version in every way, though. There is just no reason to play the original other than for extreme nostalgia with the rose-tinted glasses on or if you want to laugh at the stupid dialogue.

RE4 ruined Resident Evil..... a shame really , yes Im one of thse weidos who likes the older games better >:3 and I think it is bullshit that people say "oh its old is no longer a cool game to play" pfffftttt means you never liked them it in the first place plain and simple.

Yea, I wouldnt really compare SH and RE. Either way the original RE games wont have aged very well with their control scheme. They are games you really needed to play when they came out to understand the experience, and accept their faults. Now all that are really going to stand out are all the faults. All the good things about the games prob arent good enough to cover the bad.

@notdavid: ive thought the resident evil games were kind of a cheesy Grindhouse kinda theme to them. its not high art for surembut you enjoy it for the cheesy dialouge and the bad controls.

@Aetheldod said:

RE4 ruined Esident Evil..... a shame really , yes Im one of thse weidos who likes the older games better >:3 and I think it is bullshit that people say "oh its old is no longer a cool game to play" pfffftttt means you never liked them it in the first place plain and simple.

People are not really saying that, there's a difference between what you're saying and a game that just simply has not aged well. I have to take off my rose-tinted glasses when playing older games because it makes me realize that someone going into it for the first time will most likely hate how it controls.

I think the issue here is that the OP is trying to take Resident Evil seriously. Don't. Resident Evil is silly, absurd, and oftentimes stupid, and it revels in this. You have virus strains with every letter of the alphabet, cranks, box puzzle switches, and rooms with ceilings that will fall down and crush you. It's not one of those games that keeps you up in the dead of night, making you wonder why Umbrella had its own people betray their friends and families. It's the game that throws dogs through windows as you run down a hallway, just to laugh at you.

Think of it as horror, and you'll be disappointed. Think of it as a playable zombie B-movie, and I think you'll have a lot more fun. And if the latter doesn't hold any appeal at all, no sweat.

Resident Evil games are dumb but fun, Silent Hill games are scary but play like shit.

I tried playing the 2nd one and for the life of me I just couldn't do it. Four was great, five was okay. That said I don't see the series as anything amazing, they're just pretty good games that used to have hordes of fans...you know, before the downfall.

@Marcsman said:

Clearly you never experienced RE1 on the PSOne. It was one of the best for it's time.

Do you mean the game that had a terrible translation and took THE WHOLE MEMORY CARD to save with limited typewriter ribbons?

The original Resident Evil is a classic, though a lot of that stems from the unintentionally hilarious B horror movie presentation. That being said, the rest of the old-style games, especially the remake (or REmake, as it were) for the Gamecube and Resident Evil 2 have smarter puzzles and better gameplay.

I think as far as the original RE games go, it was a time-and-place kind of thing. I got a PS1 with RE2 for my 9th birthday, and that forever changed the way I looked at games. They had superb atmosphere that, as a kid, scared the shit out of me. Even as a kid who grew up watching and loving R-rated horror movies and was never bothered by them, the RE games turned me on to horror games in general and made me realize that actually being in control and being responsible for the fate of a virtual avatar could really get to me. Thinking back on it now, they are incredibly corny, especially the first one, but there is a certain quality to them that games today seem to lack when it comes to tone and atmosphere. Nemesis is still fucking terrifying though, and the REmake is far and away one of the scariest games ever made. My faith in Capcom would be renewed if they gave RE2 the same treatment, but that will almost assuredly never happen.
 
I won't defend their control scheme or general gameplay, because it was awkward, but I never really thought it was that bad and actually grew to like it. In fact, I find RE6 to be the worst controlling and least manageable title in the main series.

I like horror games with tank controls, they're always fun to me. I can't really explain it any deeper than that.

I played RE1, 2, 3, Veronica and 4 before the release of 5. And honestly found that all of them held up fine; if you had at least some sort of nostalgia to them; however I can very easily see how if you didn't that they wouldn't.

Skip 1 honestly, jump right into 2 as it by far a much superior game. Don't forget these were Japanese games that were brought to America so the story and voice acting was done on the cheap.

Don't worry about how about that? Let people like what they like.

@notdavid: I thought that RE was a very good product for its time, but I honestly don't know if the older games still hold up today. I can only offer the same advice I got when my friend loaned me his copy of RE2. Play it late at night, turn all of the lights off, and wear headsets with the volume turned way up. The jump scares may be cheap ways to get the adrenaline pumping, but they sure do work.