in an era defined by the demand for remasters, remakes, updates of successful works, it'd be easy to insist you leave this one to the gamefreaks and just play the impeccable REmake instead

but you'd miss out. this game has an utterly unique look and feel -- rooms lit strangely and painted in sickly yellows, browns and greens, as if the house itself has gone rotten. rooms in REmake look like, well, rooms -- incredibly lit, atmospheric rooms. rooms in resident evil don't look like any room you've ever been in outside of a dream. the zombies shuffle and pivot jerkily and make funny noises, but that doesn't stop a lucky pair from stun-locking you to an instant death if you underestimate them. the music shifts between mocking you and terrifying you, because the fact that something's a bit camp wouldn't stop it from eating you alive

the first zombie scene hits hard in this game due to inconsistent details. the zombie's face looks more like just some old guy than a monster. the half-chewed head is so strangely clean, as if willing flesh was merely sucked from it, not chewed. go watch the FMV again, look at how oddly out-of-scale the zombie is compared to the tea room. guy looks like he'd be about 9 feet tall

absolutely play resident evil. the non-dual-shock director's cut has some cool features for returning players, but the original is just fine too.