I gave an IGDA talk a few years ago about the horror genre’s roots in Adventure games. You can draw a line of influence, I argued, from Colossal Cave Adventure and King’s Quest all the way through modern titles like Slender and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. This line, which crosses through all of the survival horror classics, is best understood […]
For the first time in four years I’ve written a new feature for this site. This one is called Recursive Unlocking: Analyzing Resident Evil’s Map Design with Data Visualization, and it’s about analyzing the layout of Resident Evil‘s map in order to understand better how it was designed. This analysis is based on a data […]
Resident Evil is often credited with inventing the survival horror genre. While that particular accolade may not be entirely factual, the game is worthy of recognition for cementing horror as a viable, mass-market console genre. Critics are quick to point out that Resident Evil’s basic game system, consisting of static backgrounds, 3D characters, and character-centric […]
It’s with great shame that I admit that I finished Resident Evil 5 more than a month ago, wrote 90% of a review, and then did nothing with it until now. You can go read my thoughts on the game if you are interested. The executive summary is thus: Resident Evil 5 is clearly a […]
I’m close to ten hours into Resident Evil 5. So far, I’m throughly enjoying it; it’s not some great masterwork but it’s an extremely well-made game and I haven’t run into any major frustration points. Unlike the technically similar Dead Space, the moment-to-moment game play is deep enough that simple pattern alterations (new enemy, new […]
The Resident Evil 5 demo went live on Xbox Live today, but only for residents of Japan. Luckily enough, I happen to now be a resident of Japan, and I’ve put a little time into the demo (if you live in another country you’ll have to wait, but if you are adventurous you could try […]
MTV’s Multiplayer blog has an excellent series of articles about black professionals in the game industry. The entire series is a really interesting, and I recommend that you read the whole thing. I decided to post about the series because one of the topics that is discussed is the Resident Evil 5 trailer, which, as […]
If you run a site about video games, or read message boards about video games, or even give Wikipedia articles on video games a passing glance, you are sure to find people arguing about asinine details of unimportant topics. I’m sure this is true for all kinds of subjects, especially those that have to do […]
Back around Halloween I mentioned that a CG Resident Evil movie had been announced by Capcom. Well today the first screens from the film are available over at Destructoid. The aesthetic reminds me of Resident Evil 2, which is good because Leon S Kennedy and Claire Redfield are the main characters. Update: Kotaku has a […]
I’ve been thinking for a while about how best to address the controversy surrounding the recently-released Resident Evil 5 trailer. The trailer, which depicts Chris Redfield (a white male) shooting black zombies in what appears to be Africa, has raised more than a few eyebrows. Kim Platt is one of many people who find the […]