Resident Evil: Director's Cut

Reviewed by Sho (October 30, 2009)

The game that put Shinji Mikami on the map may owe an obvious debt to the creepy Cthulhu-conjuring madness of Alone in the Dark, but there's a reason that his own franchise went on to become an unstoppable money-making juggernaut while its predecessor slipped away into obscurity. Infogrames had already defined the concept of cobbling together inventory puzzles from the graphic adventure genre alongside combat with deformed monstrosities that refused to rest in peace, but now you had to carefully conserve a limited resource of weapons and healing items, nor could you carry more than a few objects at any given time. Was it better to clear out a room that you'd need to access frequently, or risk dashing in and out around them? Take another herb with you just in case or save room for newly discovered keys? Each subsequent sequel greatly expanded upon the formula introduced here, even reinventing it from the ground up with considerable success after the series began to stagnate – and that original formula was rock solid to begin with.

Reviewed by eddy555 (October 06, 2004)

The first survival horror game was called Alone in the dar... *gets shot*