I would guess that for many people that Resident Evil was their first survival horror game as well since it is kind of credited with establishing the idea as a genre of video games. This game was so momentous that upon buying it I took it home, went to our video game room (yeah, we had one of those when I was in college) and stayed up all night playing it. To us it was simply the most captivating thing that we had ever seen.
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It is important to keep in mind that in 1996, the Internet wasn't something that just everyone had. We didn't have it at all in my house and at that point in my life I had 4 room mates. It just isn't the way the world operated back then - which is tough to imagine these days, especially if you are a younger millennial. I often wonder what it is like to have grown up always having the internet in your life.
The point I am trying to make it that back in those days our game purchase decisions were made on much different grounds: Either you read about it in a magazine prior to its release, or you bought it in the store based solely upon the box art. We didn't know much about game developers back in those days (some people might have, but no one I knew paid attention to that back then) and new genres had as much chance at being garbage as they did at being great. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into when we bought RE1, but man oh man what a ride it was.
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I still remember how shocking and terrifying the very first zombie encounter was at the end of that first hallway. It is important to also realize that zombie films were not an overdone concept at that point either. In fact, I think I had only seen one zombie film at that point in my life and it was "Night of the Living Dead" which is a cult classic but also kind of a dumb film that not many people paid attention to.
Therefore, everything about this game was brand new for most people. The limited ammunition, the confined spaces, the feeling of urgency in certain situations, and the respite you felt upon reaching a certain safe area was brand new to gamers like me.
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This is also the first game that I can recall having genuine jump scares that scared the crap out of you. I'll never forget that after that first zombie kill things get relatively quiet in the mansion for a while and after a puzzle in the next room there is no music and things are really calm as you slowly meander down an empty hallway only to have a mutated dog jump through the window and run after you. Its movements were in stark contrast to the extremely slow walking zombie you faced a few rooms ago.
This was Capcom's way of letting us know that we could expect a lot of surprises as the game went on.
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The terror made its apex for me in the game room that you encounter much later in the game where giant spiders attack you and once again, you don't initially even realize that they are there. On a replay of the game I realized that it was actually hiding in plain sight on the ceiling as you walk in the room but is totally motionless as you make your way in. I think most people have a fear of spiders to some degree but I remember screaming a bit when this happened.
One aspect of the game that I was unaware was going to be a factor until I had already done it incorrectly was the use of typewriter tapes in order to save your game and how you only had a limited amount of them that you could possibly use. This added an entirely new element of challenge to a game because it was almost entirely up to you when you were going to save your game: Do you take a chance and carry on without saving or do you use up one of your precious ribbons and play it safe? I know that I made the wrong decision many times during my first playthrough.
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An genuinely interesting story involving an evil corporation, inventive gameplay, and a nearly completely new concept in gaming made Resident Evil what I consider to be one of the greatest gaming experiences of my teenage years. For myself and millions of other people this was up to that point one of the most fantastic gaming experiences of my life up to that point and playing the game still stays in my memories to this day. I can actually see (in my mind) where I was sitting when I was playing it for something crazy like 14 hours in a row.
The voice acting was pretty bad but as it turns out that is one of the things that people appreciate most about the original game these days... Especially Barry (say "what is it" one more time buddy!)
All in all, this game was a masterpiece and it lead to the Resident Evil series being one of the most successful franchises of all time. I will admit that I haven't played any of the recent remakes, and perhaps it is about time that I did something to remedy that.