Grave Gamer News & Views — horror

[Originally posted on When Nerds Attack.]

“You’re about to see something wonderful.” Jack’s freshly charred skin is peeling off his body. But he’s still alive, and strong. He’s clutching your wrist, pulling it to his face. He wraps his mouth around the handgun you just plucked from the desiccated cop now lying dead on the floor. With a resounding pop, a chasm erupts from the top of his skull. His body falls limply to the ground. You survived, but you didn’t win. Jack will be back. He deliberately ate a bullet just to prove a point.

It’s been a long time since Resident Evil has scared me. For the better part of a decade, Capcom remodeled the franchise that coined “Survival Horror” into gun-centric action games meant to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Familiar draws were included to bait fans that remember the fixed perspective, tank controlled days of yesteryear — whether it was tangential ties to the sinister Umbrella Corporation, hulking bio-weapons, or the franchise synonymous living dead. More often than not, though, these nostalgic additions felt like window dressing. While latter day sequels like Resident Evil 6 coated their levels in shadows and foreboding atmosphere, at their core, they were third-person shooters. True horror, the kind that the original trilogy is lauded for to this day, was left behind.

With Resident Evil 7, Capcom has finally returned to the franchise’s roots. It takes inspiration not only from its own past but from other stand-out horror experiences in order to rework and revitalize the genre they helped inform. The result is an expertly paced, incredibly tense hell-ride through a literal madhouse — and it’s actually pretty goddamn scary. Long-time fans have been yearning to hear this for years: Resident Evil 7 is pure survival horror.

Capcom Reveals Resident Evil 7: A First-Person Survival Horror Game (in VR!)

Sony’s E3 conference was such a whirlwind, it’s hard to keep my thoughts straight. They essentially shoved a funnel down our throats and didn’t stop feeding us game after amazing game.

In the deluge of video game delights, Sony slyly announced Resident Evil 7, a brand new chapter in the storied horror series that reinvents itself from the ground up. Not only are we back to hard horror, our perspective has shifted to the first-person just to shove our noses in all the photo-realistic creepiness – brought to you by Capcom’s own RE Engine, tailor-made for the game.

You can even immerse yourself in the horror on a whole ‘nother level with full PlayStation VR integration. Sony fans will also be treated to first dibs on the game’s demo, Resident Evil 7: Beginning Hour, where you navigate a real fixer-upper of a cottage (to put it lightly) in events that lead into the main game. PS Plus members can access the demo now, apparently (as of this writing, on the East Coast, it hasn’t populated on the PlayStation Store… goddamnit).

Now this might just be the all out horror game we’ve been clamoring for since things took a boulder-punching turn in 2008. Either way, we don’t have too long of a wait to find out: Resident Evil 7 releases for PS4, Xbox One, and Windows PC January 24th, 2017.

Welcome to the Umbrella Corps – an online third-person shooter set in the Resident Evil universe

We caught a slight wind of this last month but the hurricane known as the RE2 Remake blew it the hell away.

SCEJA, a Sony-centric press conference held in Tokyo today, featured Capcom’s first unveiling of Umbrella Corps – a competitive third-person shooter planted in the Resident Evil mythos. The game’s promised to play host to fast-paced, close-quartered skirmishes in battle zones that recreate historic RE environs.

If you’re having sudden and terrible flashbacks of Operation Raccoon City, you’re not wrong (also, have a sit and let the nausea settle). “Make an online third-person shooter outta Resident Evil” was verbatim Slant Six’s mission objective on ORC. Here, though, instead of forcing a threadbare, canon breaking story into the affair, Umbrella Corps takes place in modern day, over a decade after the pharmaceutical company’s demise.

Other diabolical corporations have taken hold of Umbrella’s research and are now pitting mercenary squads against each other in virus-soaked testing grounds. Bobbing and weaving through hordes of the undead (and other happy horrors), player teams will have to master an arsenal of guns, axes, and shields to best other mercs. Savvy players won’t just dodge zombies – they’ll use them against opponents, and gadgets like the Zombie Jammer, which repels the dead from a player, will help you do just that.

Okay, on paper, it’s a solid idea. But Operation Raccoon City was a solid idea on paper too. It’s all about execution. It sounds like Capcom is trying to create a leaner, tighter experience over UC’s spiritual predecessor… but as history shows, Resident Evil’s track record for spin-off’s is horrifically mixed. Oh, the horror.

Umbrella Corps ($29.99) releases digitally sometime next year for PS4 and PC.

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