I remember it as if it was yesterday, even though it was (holy mother of all yikes!) 20 years ago…
The first time I played Resident Evil changed the way I thought about videogames forever. Sure, I’d had fun with them before, but this was something else entirely. I struggled with the unnatural controls as that first zombie staggered through the dimly lit corridor towards me, and the panic I felt was like the paralysis of a nightmare. That, in other words, was some good s**t right there.
These days I’m still a sucker for survival horror, although I sadly lack the leisure my teenage self had to indulge in it properly. So many zombies, so little time… Still, when I watch The Walking Dead I know I’d be great in the Zombiepocalypse. I had plenty of practice blowing the heads off the undead hordes.
Looking back at it now, we’ve sure come a long way (See below for a couple of then-and-now shots). Gone is the hilariously bad scripting (fans will fondly remember Barry’s classic line: “Here, Jill, take this lock pick…”) but the truth is that as crude as the graphics might seem now, they truly were nothing short of revolutionary, as was the theme and the gameplay.
There are, however, some serious obstacles to making that work. It is unlikely that we will be able to play a whole game like this in VR any time soon, it’s simply too intense and disorientating, and even veterans have reported feeling sick when demoing it.
Which is why it makes sense for there to be such hype around the fact that Resident Evil 7 – due for release in January – will be one of the flagship titles of the PlayStation VR. If any title could leverage the immersion and presence of VR to make us pee our pants in terror, it should be RE.
Sony really needs to get around to sending me a PlayStation VR headset #HINT Click To Tweet
There are, however, some serious obstacles to making that work. It is unlikely that we will be able to play a whole game like this in VR any time soon, it’s simply too intense and disorientating, and even veterans have reported feeling sick when demoing it.
Being very susceptible to the curse of VR nausea myself, I’m curious to see how I bear up – #HINT: Sony really needs to send me that headset to try as they promised, theirs is the only major gear I’m yet to try out! – but the videos and screenshots so far really have got me excited. The mixture of the familiar and the cutting edge seem to be there, and if they get it right, Capcom could well revolutionize gaming (and horror) all over again for a new generation of bloodthirsty teenagers. And about time too.
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Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.
