What I Hate About You 2.09.09: Resident Evil

Posted by John De Large on 02.09.2009

Back up in your ass with the resurrect-SHUN!

Wow, that was a long break for me, huh? I went on vacation, so I couldn't get near a computer long enough to focus my bitter hatred into an article, mostly because I was distracted by the shirtless boobs of my host.

Then when I came back from vacation I went straight to college and ever since, I've been painting, analyzing, acting and.... um, sociologing?

Yeah, I've been a bit busy getting my life together.

Now the last time you heard from me:

-I complained about your favorite heroes, favorite games and your favorite overbearing preacher.
-I held contests to see which fictional characters you'd sleep with.
-I endorsed several products.
-And I brought the best Gamertags to your attention.

Well, I'm back from vacation, off from school for a bit and I'm here to do more of the same!

GAMERTAG HALL OF FAMERS: Crunchy Ass Hairs, Atomic Handjob, Squidwards penis
NEW CHALLENGER!: Krotch80

JDL APPROVED!:
Axe sprays
Applebee's 10 oz. Steak burger
Boston Market creamed spinach with a hint of sweet potato
(NEW!) Ruth Chris steakhouse, ribeye steak

Onto gaming: In an effort to keep up with the times, I played the Resident Evil 5 Demo. It was okay, but nothing about the game is making me want to reserve it or buy it all that much. I thought about how good older Resident Evils like 2 and 3 were.

Then I remembered I don't like anything good, so I must not like Resident Evil. Maybe I've playing it the whole time because everyone else had said how good it was and I just wanted to fit in.

Then I remembered how awesome it was to mix ammo and build guns in Resident Evil 3, now THAT was the tits.

Well, whatever the case, Resident Evil, it's your ass! This Is What I Hate About You!



COMBAT
Running from zombies keeps you alive, shooting zombies keeps you alive and kills them dead, so why can't you do both in a Resident Evil game? In the RE5 demo, you're being chased by an axe wielding executioner and a chainsaw wielding maniac. Both are pretty quick, not that they're doing wind sprints, but I can't ever put enough distance between us to put enough caps in their ass. As soon as I set up to shoot 'em, I get chain-sawwed or boom-axed.

Metal Gear Solid 4 managed to fuck a lot of things up, but even they knew enough to keep both the ability to shoot from a first person perspective and the ability to run and gun. That's what everyone wants, not a "sit here in an armchair and chip away at the zombie's skull," experience.

HEALING

Okay, so where was I?

.....

Right, chainsaw to the face. You can incur a shitload of damage (stab wounds, bites to the head, getting impaled, the aforementioned chainsaw) but don't worry, you can shake it off as long as you have some aerosol and herbs.



I understand HERBS have a healing property, a calming property, a mood altering property, but ground up herbs do not stop zombification and hemorrhaging. I mean, I've tried, failed and tried again (the herbs also have a "make-you-think-that's-a-good-idea property) but the green herbs I keep picking up and adding to my inventory at my friends house don't make me feel any healthier, just really hungry and really sleepy.

STANDING STILL
Ok, I've covered shooting and healing. Let's say you've got your trusty handgun with unlimited ammo and 85.6 green herbs. Now you're ready to blow up half of Pakistan. The only problem is, is you've got to blow them zombies up while you STAND THE FUCK STILL OR TAKE IT EASY IN AN ARMCHAIR.



Yup. There ya go. Now that you're all Rambo-ed up and roided out, you don't get to jump from building to building, AK in hand, you can't strafe and weave in and out of zombies, headshotting them all the while.

No, you stand there and pick 'em off inch by inch. Chip-chip-chip...

Chip-chip-chip....

Chip. It usually takes about 6 or 7 handgun bullets and about 10 machinegun bullets to take down a zombie. The shotgun is a fickle mistress too, only lightly damaging your opponents unless you make them bite the gun barrel then press X. Only the Magnum or Rocket Lawn-Chair will get the job done in battle and good luck finding a steady stream of ammo for those.

"CO-OP? DO WE NEED THAT?" - CAPCOM
What's the point of co-op in a zombie game anyway? You don't need a partner to heal you since you can pick up healing items like the game is one big pharmacy, you'll almost never need a buddy to fish you out of a sea of zombies since they're always too far away to gang up on you (and you can just pick them off), so what's the point of co-op other than to talk to your mates and pretend you're having fun?

At least in TF2, you can make some damn effective teams out of two guys: Pyro and Engineer, Pyro and Sniper, Medic and Heavy, even Engineer and Heavy go together. In Resident Evil you're either a guy with a gun or a girl with a gun. LAME.

Wait, I'm not done griping about the co-op! RE5's co-op (or at least the one that comes with the demo) takes me 5 minutes to set up! It scans through potential members and it sure has no problems taking it's sweet time to find me a partner. They better fix the online play and make it nice and fast by March.

DEEP DARKNESS
My mentor and future collaborator Yahtzee Croshaw pointed this out long ago: Almost every Resident Evil (even Outbreak!) features a base underneath a big unassuming facility (see also: mansion, police station, chemical plant, military school another mansion and a college for starters). I'm not sure what inspired this fetish, maybe someone on the developmental team has a hard on for urban exploration?

I'm all for RPG's having altars underneath buildings and dungeons below castles, that's fine. In survival horror though, the facilities should be some sort of armored fortress guarded by tanks, Navy SEALS, the 82nd Airborne and marines. Also, said base should be placed as high up as possible.

SO WHICH KIND OF ZOMBIES ARE WE UP AGAINST? THE OLD SCHOOL GUYS, THE NEW SCHOOL RUNNING BULLSHIT ZOMBIES OR THOSE GUYS OUT THERE?
Zombie game difficulty appears to be controlled by ammo dropped and damage taken, but how about if the zombies actually got smarter and more dangerous as the difficulty went up? Let's say on Easy you get these guys:


Here's your classic lumberer from early zombie movies. Pretty weak, easy to avoid. Then on Medium you get:


The zombie from traditional Resident Evil games, he can lunge or pick up the pace if there's food nearby and has medium strength and durability. On Hard level, ya got:


Running new school bullshit zombies! Fast, strong and really durable, you don't wanna fight 'em.

If the difficulty gets any higher, just give the zombies the ability to unlock doors or do tricks like backflipping. Better yet, give 'em the ability to do Stone Cold Stunners.

(Artists rendering coming soon never!)

CHARACTER CONTROL
The controls in Resident Evil have always been weird. Usually you press right while standing still to move right. In Resident Evil, you use it to change direction then press forward regardless of direction to move forward.

I'll let a friend and former 411 writer help me out:
"FUCK Resident Evil, I'd rather play Need For Speed 9: Enter Nick Hogan! Trying to control your character is like trying to dodge rain during a monsoon! It's like: HEY! Here's a door. Let me walk to this door, but not look anywhere but straight ahead 'cause FUCK COMMON SENSE! It'd be easier to lodge a suppository in your anus using nothing more than your tongue than walk across a room in one of those fucking games."

I hate my brother, but he's right.

Fuck Marry Kill?
Well, you commented and e-mailed me about this, so here's results!

The winner and first champion of Fuck Marry Kill is:


I'd beat.

In a competition between Rinoa, Tifa and Lulu, I actually got no votes on Lulu's behalf. So between 3 comments, 3 e-mails and about a dozen of my mates votes, we got 9 for Tifa and 7 for Rinoa, so Tifa wins!

My vote? I didn't vote. I think I would've banged and married Yuna, even if I voted for Lulu during the FFX round. Now that's the good girl you want make go bad.

Anyway, due to the recommendation of one Drew Robbins, I'm going to put FMK games on the backburner and go with something more traditional.

FOR ALL TIME, SUPERFIGHT, THE DREAM MATCHES!
I figured why haven't I done a versus series yet? This week let's have it out between:

ALBERT WESKER


THE NEMESIS


Who'd win in a fight? Let me know what you think and I'll let you know who'd actually win. I'm John De Large, I'll be here all week awaiting your "You should've stayed on vacation comments," and that's WHAT I HATE ABOUT YOU.