Resident Evil is quite possibly one of the most recognizable titles in gaming history. The same franchise that shares its fame with the company’s other flagship franchises such as Mega Man, Street Fighter, and Devil May Cry. While it may share the fame with Capcom’s other mascots, it is the only franchise to actually have its own movies which are loosely based on the series. The fame and success of Resident Evil of course started with its very first game simply titled Resident Evil. The game was revolutionary at the time of its first release and launched the golden age of survival horror games today. Originally, the game was released on the PlayStation in 1996.

It’s no surprise that the game has been given an HD remake, seeing as how it is one of the most popular video game franchises out there. However, it is surprising that Capcom is one of the few companies to deliver a high definition remake that people actually want. The game has been fully resurrected in terms of visuals from the last remake on the Nintendo GameCube. It’s a remake of a remake, sounds weird right? While the game does look impressive, does that make it a better game than the original? Let’s find out.

Let’s focus on the main issues of the game first. One thing Resident Evil is known for is its horrible camera angles. Although the game is much more visually pleasing to look at, it’s still the same awkward position like always. Most of you probably are more familiar with the modern Resident Evil where the camera is an over the shoulder third person perspective. Resident Evil 1’s camera however is always in a fixed position, which is a problem. In Resident Evil 1 as you would guess you can hear zombies coming from everywhere. Problem is because of the camera you don’t even know where they are coming from. It’s also hard to place yourself in a good enough position to shoot the zombies because the camera is always changing with each room you go into.  More often than not you’ll end up going in and out of the same room because of how disorienting the camera can be. On the subject of doors, there are many doors in the mansion of Resident Evil. Each door has a loading screen. Every time you enter a door, there’s a loading screen. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. This was fine on an early CD based console, but it’s been almost 20 years since then. You would think technology today could prevent something like this happening. Finally, in terms of shooting, you REALLY have to aim. For those who don’t know (though I’m sure you all do) the only way to really kill a zombie is to shoot the head, in other words, a headshot. While not the case in Resident Evil, it’s your best way of defeating enemies, otherwise you just waste ammo.

What confuses me about the remastered Resident Evil is the lack of original content. You would think with a game that got two re-releases with graphical overhauls would be given extra content to differentiate it from the previous remake. The only new feature to this game really is different styled controls to use because of how awkward the default controls are.

Pretty much this game is the exact same as the GameCube version with a few extra costumes and a control switch. Other than that, not much has changed. While the new high definition graphics make this a heck of a lot more appealing to look at, it really had nothing new to offer. If you enjoyed Resident Evil on PlayStation or even GameCube, you’ve got yourself some delicious eye candy.