“Oh man, this game is so scary, you need to play it!”, said my cousin Stuart, handing me a copy of Resident Evil for the Sega Saturn shortly before going on holiday.
My Mum and brother were going on holiday with him, so I had the house to myself for a week.
All alone in a house, at night, curtains drawn, lights off, volume turned up high – perfect scary game playing environment.
My expectations for the scary game to be scary were high.
Sadly, it wasn’t scary.
Nothing made me jump, nothing made me feel uneasy, nothing made me feel uncomfortable.
If anything I was amused by the schlock cinematics, the forced dialogue and the not-at-all-scary zombies.
But then, I got to this shack.
I stepped on a creaky floorboard.
Thanks to the sound being up so loud, and there not being any other noises for a while, I jumped out of my skin.
It’s not even like it was put in the game to be scary.
I feel like such a wuss.
The thing is that this game is 14 years old, the graphics are terrible, the controls are awkward and shows you horrors you’ve seen over and over, but upon playing this a couple years ago for nostalgia sake, I also found myself jumping at certain points as the sound still holds up well over the years. The first time a hunter shows up, the first zombie you see, the spiders, barry’s voice acting…no wait! That was more funny than scary! 🙂
I don’t think I’d like to go back to it – it just seems so clunky and old fashioned compared to Resident Evil 4 and 5!
I’ll sit here and remember it with my rose-tinted specs on.