A brief history of me and the original Resident Evil.
It's the mid-'90s, I'm in elementary school and I see the original RE1 on PSX at a friend's house. I'm blown away by the live-action cutscenes (the cheese factor completely lost on me at the time), and I'm legit shook by the scene where the first zombie (resembling Nosferatu) turns around and looks at the camera. I vividly recount the experience on the NeoGAF at the time, a.k.a. the playground.
Fast-forward to the early 2000s. My friends and I enjoy the "Summer of Horror," spending many bright sunny days indoors alternating between the GCN remake of Resident Evil and the equally captivating Eternal Darkness. At this point in time my tastes in gaming are more refined, and I'm disappointed to find that despite the tense gameplay and intriguing world, RE1 is difficult for me to play because I can't wrap my head around tank controls.
Fast-forward to last night, where on a whim I decide to play the digital copy of REHD that's been languishing on my PS4 for months now. The tank controls have finally clicked, and now I see the light.
The key to understanding tank controls is, well, controlling the character like a tank! "No shit," you murmur to yourself... But for whatever reason, I didn't grasp it before.
Now I understand you're supposed to treat Up on the D-Pad like an accelerator. No matter which way your character is facing in relation to the camera, Up on the D-Pad will always make the character move forward, and Down will always make them move backwards, while Left and Right will make them turn left and right — their left and right. So when their back is turned to you, left is left and right is right, but when they're facing the screen, left is right and right is left. It's better to think of the character as a vehicle than an actual human being, lol.
It finally makes sense, which is allowing me to appreciate the original in a profound new way. The Spencer Estate is simply masterful level design, with many interconnecting rooms and hallways, interior and exterior locations, all iconic in appearance thanks to the fixed camera angles framing each scene for maximum impact. The maze-like progression is brilliant, with one-way doors (or doors that become one-way after several uses) and enemies intelligently deployed for harrowing stakes when you backtrack for supplies, a save point, or to manage your items at the chest.
Since it's been years since I saw my friend play through the game, I feel like I'm discovering everything anew. I felt like the smartest man in the world when I figured out how to get the Armor Key last night, which is where I left off. I'm playing on the highest difficulty ("climbing a tall mountain").
Anyways, just wanted to share this happy development. With tank controls finally making sense to me, I feel like the survival horror genre is wide open. I've always admired this genre but hesitated to play many of the classics for fear of cumbersome controls. Now I'm thinking about trying other titles, most notably Haunting Ground.
It's the mid-'90s, I'm in elementary school and I see the original RE1 on PSX at a friend's house. I'm blown away by the live-action cutscenes (the cheese factor completely lost on me at the time), and I'm legit shook by the scene where the first zombie (resembling Nosferatu) turns around and looks at the camera. I vividly recount the experience on the NeoGAF at the time, a.k.a. the playground.
Fast-forward to the early 2000s. My friends and I enjoy the "Summer of Horror," spending many bright sunny days indoors alternating between the GCN remake of Resident Evil and the equally captivating Eternal Darkness. At this point in time my tastes in gaming are more refined, and I'm disappointed to find that despite the tense gameplay and intriguing world, RE1 is difficult for me to play because I can't wrap my head around tank controls.
Fast-forward to last night, where on a whim I decide to play the digital copy of REHD that's been languishing on my PS4 for months now. The tank controls have finally clicked, and now I see the light.
The key to understanding tank controls is, well, controlling the character like a tank! "No shit," you murmur to yourself... But for whatever reason, I didn't grasp it before.
Now I understand you're supposed to treat Up on the D-Pad like an accelerator. No matter which way your character is facing in relation to the camera, Up on the D-Pad will always make the character move forward, and Down will always make them move backwards, while Left and Right will make them turn left and right — their left and right. So when their back is turned to you, left is left and right is right, but when they're facing the screen, left is right and right is left. It's better to think of the character as a vehicle than an actual human being, lol.
It finally makes sense, which is allowing me to appreciate the original in a profound new way. The Spencer Estate is simply masterful level design, with many interconnecting rooms and hallways, interior and exterior locations, all iconic in appearance thanks to the fixed camera angles framing each scene for maximum impact. The maze-like progression is brilliant, with one-way doors (or doors that become one-way after several uses) and enemies intelligently deployed for harrowing stakes when you backtrack for supplies, a save point, or to manage your items at the chest.
Since it's been years since I saw my friend play through the game, I feel like I'm discovering everything anew. I felt like the smartest man in the world when I figured out how to get the Armor Key last night, which is where I left off. I'm playing on the highest difficulty ("climbing a tall mountain").
Anyways, just wanted to share this happy development. With tank controls finally making sense to me, I feel like the survival horror genre is wide open. I've always admired this genre but hesitated to play many of the classics for fear of cumbersome controls. Now I'm thinking about trying other titles, most notably Haunting Ground.
