So I finally played and beaten the first Resident Evil. My thoughts? It alright. It set the standard for survival horror and its definitely enjoyable.

I think my main problems with game is that a lot of the things meant for horror just piss me off more than anything else. The bosses are easy but annoying because of the tank controls so it never hits a high point. You have limited saves which is insanely infuriating for me personally. There's an argument that too many saves makes the player feel too safe and it makes the game not as scary. Counterpoint, the game can and should still just be scary. RE2 is still scary without limiting saves and putting save areas in the worst locations. I see this argument be made for games outside this genre like Dark Souls 1 and I hate it. I dislike the idea of losing tons of progress and doing it all over again. The enemys all take place in small corridors making running past them hard, and some are really fast too. The pistol is one of the worst guns in the franchise, it takes like 5 clips to down a zombie. Burning zombies bodies are tedious because of the process you have to take to do it. You have to watch a door animation every time you go through one, which is slightly confusing for me because I thought they were gonna use this to eventually scare the player but it never did. For others, this is scary, for me, this is annoying. Which is to not say that I don't get scared often, because I can, but my immersion is broken by all these tedious things you have to do. One last thing to top off my list of annoyances is the box pushing. There is a lot of fucking box pushing segments in this game, like a lot, like holy shit. This is a push-like video game.

Now to list some good things and be positive for a moment. I do think the atmosphere is pretty spooky, and the decision to keep the color palette of areas to a black and white helps create a iconic setting. Speaking of iconic settings though, the mansion is the most iconic setting of this whole franchise, the vibe of the mansion is absolutely stellar, with this feeling that something is always trying to kill you (which is probably true). The ost is pretty enjoyable, sometimes I do think it neglects the spooky atmosphere but in turn, it is kind of a bop. My favorite part of Resident Evil games is that they let you get right into the action and don't bog you down with tons of story. The story is there and it exists to give the player a reason to keep going, and that's all I want from a story that isn't aiming high.

I enjoy this game but a lot of moments did upset me from small things that compounded to annoy me. If I had to rate the RE games I played from best to worst it'd probably be: 4, 2, 5, 1, 3. I tend to prefer the action focused ones because they can still maintain a scary mood if done well like 4, and unlike 5.

One of the greats. It's been a while since I have been so immersed into a game world.

The shooting has been improved from 1 and progression is a lot more meaningful and enjoyable even if the rpg elements were stripped back. They also removed the bad car segments from the first game which automatically bumps the rating up half a star. I also like that the renegade options aren't strictly evil, but more so just aggresive. In the first one, renegade was just being a horrible person which made me wonder why anyone would ever go that path for the first time. The best part of this game is how it makes you feel like you are Shepard.

Immersion is hard to establish and it doesn't hit the same for everyone, but giving players key options for all of their teammates is major. The ending is great and makes you ponder on all your choices before and during it. This is not a main story game however, if you just rush through the main story, you probably will not like it much. This is one where you have to take it at your own pace and savor it.

So far, I am enjoying the Mass Effect franchise way more than I thought I would. How great 2 is in comparison to 1 is not blatantly apparent at first but it gets you right into it. The game went from like a 8 to a 9, to a 10 in the course of like 3 hours of playtime. I would try these games even if you aren't a sci-fi guy, because I am certainly not. It's like 6 bucks on sale for all three.

I really wasn't expecting this game to appeal to me so much. I am not really a sci-fi guy but I did like this game's atmosphere and environment a lot. It kinda feels like playing a video game version of The Fifth Element, given, It's probably inspired by it. The world is vastly more detailed and interesting than other immersive sim-esque games I have played in the past. The shooting is nothing crazy, it is pretty standard, but it is not the highlight of the game. The highlight is the story, or rather how interactive it is. I don't mind that every choice I make is not important, what matters is making you feel like your in the game talking with these characters which I think Mass Effect does a great job at.

Some complaints I do have is that the driving segments suck. Like they are just bad, it's mostly monotonous driving down straight paths, sometimes there's some enemies but they never pose a threat which is probably for the better. The car doesn't control the best either, any small slope flips you all over. I wish there was also more options for good or bad choices in dialogue. I almost had to kill one of my teammates, Wrex, cause my intimidate wasn't high enough until I reloaded. The skill tree is pretty bare bones and the little powers you get aren't that useful besides the damage up ones.

The game was a little short but sweet, I hope 2, which people say is better, is just an improved formula of what we have here. For how old this game is, I wasn't expecting it to actually hold up. I really enjoy this structure it has, and hope the 2nd will be better.