I’ve never liked the Resident Evil thing where they make the main characters badass international zombie-fighters. It makes the game less scary, it makes the characters less interesting, it makes the story less human, and it makes everything else about the story make no sense.
People don’t line up to play this game because they can’t wait to see what the Umbrella Corporation is up to this time. And I never hear people saying, “Oh man, I hope Chris Redfield is in this one. He’s the best character ever!” They play this game because they want to shoot zombies, a noble tradition observed by decent people the world over. Just drop a regular Joe or Jane into a zombie town and task them with getting through it. It will make sense that they’re alone and starting with nothing, and you can spend the opening cutscene telling us about them instead of a bunch of international mumbo-jumbo about Umbrella.
I promised myself when I bought Resident Evil 5 that I wouldn’t flip out about the story. I know it’s really aimed at some other audience – some group of people who actually might care about Umbrella, Chris, Leon, et al. I tried to “just ignore the silly parts and enjoy the zombie stuff”, playing technique that people usually prescribe, but after just a few hours I feel compelled to catalog the agonizing contrivances just as a way of getting them out of my system. The game probably only contains 20 minutes of cutscenes, and yet so far every single one has been brimming with teeth-gnashing stupidity. I hate main character Chris now. When I get a game over screen I get a little dose of satisfaction because it means Chris got the death he so richly deserves.
The zombie-shooting stuff is kind of fun, though.
Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.
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