For those unfamiliar, the first Resident Evil game came out in 1996 for the Playstation, and created a phenomenon among gamers, both for it's complex (if occasionally incomprehensible) story line and its graphic violence. It was followed by what I consider to be the best game of the series, Resident Evil 2. Then came Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, Resident Evil: Survivor (adapted from a Japenese Arcade game), Resident Evil: Dead Aim, and Resident Evil: Code Veronica. In 2002, the series went to the GameCube, with a prequel called Resident Evil 0 and a graphically-intensive remake of the original game.
For my money, that was the end of the series. At that point, it pretty much jumped from survival horror to action/adventure with Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 5, followed by the Wii rail-shooters Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles and Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles.
There have also been a series of (so far) four movies, with the first one being okay, the second being excellent, the third being pretty good and the fourth sucking rocks.
The basic plot of both the games and the movies is the battle of a handful of freedom fighters opposing the multi-national conglomerate The Umbrella Corporation. Gotta love that name for a conglomerate. While doing experiments in bio-weaponry for the US government, the corporation discovered the T virus which, among other things, turns people into flesh-craving zombies.
Lost In Nightmare is add-on content for Resident Evil 5. It can be downloaded from Xbox live for $4 or the Playstation 3 for $4.99. Because Playstation uses Blu-ray as its disc format, which has a storage capacity of 60 gigs, the “Gold” edition of Resident Evil 5 includes this add-on, as well as one other on the disc. Since Xbox uses standard DVD, with a storage capacity of less than 10 gigs, they can't do that.
It takes the original pair from Resident Evil, Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, and puts them in a spooky mansion inhabited by monsters and filled with puzzles.
THE GOOD: For fans of survival horror, this is a breath of fresh air, returning the series to its survival horror roots. It is scary, and filled with spooky locations and situations.
THE BAD: A severe monster drought. There are a handful of zombies, several new monsters called “Guardians” from the main Resident Evil 5, who made it into the fourth Resident Evil movie for about five minutes, and the consistent villain from both the games and the movies, Albert Wesker.
Also, the game is SHORT. I played through it in about 50 minutes, with a total of about two and a half hours of play time, including dying and restarting from checkpoints.
THE UGLY: No saves. Although if you die, you restart from a checkpoint, of which there are many in the game, you cannot save and come back later. Once you start the game, you are committed to finishing it, unless you want to restart the game from the beginning. Trust me, after I had been killed for the third or forth time by the same monster in the same place, I started to really think that this sucked.
All in all, well worth the four or five dollars that it costs, especially for fans of the survival horror genre.
Peace.
Rev. Randal
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2 comments:
So, do you consider yourself a gamer? I like playing only ONE game, and that is whatever NCAA edition is out. But I haven't played anything since '08 and I wonder what Playstation to buy... I don't care for XBox and the Wii is something that you get as an adult if you expect to have company.
Be well... maybe I will get into the first shooter games when I start my life again.
I do, actually, although being kind of an old guy, i don't get into the games that require... you know... fast reflexes and the like. Which rules out most modern games. I recently played through 3-d dot game heroes for the PS3, which i enjoyed a lot. It's a little like old-school Legend of Zelda, but with everything made out of lego. Mostly i play monopoly, bowling or uno.
Randal
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