31 Days of Horror Games: Resident Evil

In celebration of Halloween, we’re counting down the days with some of the greatest horror games ever made -- 31 of our favorites! Every day, we’ll take a look back at a horror game that gave us goosebumps, made our controllers tremble, and chased us out of our living rooms. Long live the horror game! And make sure to check out our full list of 31 Great Horror Games To Play In October!

Is there any more important series to the world of horror games than Capcom’s iconic Resident Evil? My first Resident Evilgame was actually Resident Evil 4, which I picked up on a whim one day and naturally fell in love. After seeing Leon and Ashley’s adventure through to the end, I then went back to where it all began, in the dark and gloomy manor that defined the Resident Evil franchise and made Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine household names among gamers far and wide.

To me, the best thing about the original Resident Evilis how perfectly it captures the essence of what a survival horror game should be like: namely, the struggle to survive. This meant limited items and weapons, which made each encounter with a zombie in the game a true battle (or escape), in which every move must be overly calculated to succeed. In addition to the tense combat mechanics, the environment was also riddled with, well, riddles, and all kinds of puzzles that really made you put the old brain to use.

Better yet, the mansion setting is perfectly suited to meet the methodical gameplay of Resident Evil, and I love the way you’re forced to move through room after room, never knowing what terrors lurk behind the next door, and backtracking to areas that were previously inaccessible to open up the map. It is this exact sense of close-quarters survival that makes the game so unnerving, and it’s a true testament to Capcom’s creativity in containing so many frightening ideas in such a tightly-knit area.

Of course, not only is the original Resident Evilsuch a wonderful horror game in of itself, but it has also helped pave the way for a long and terrifying future of the horror genre at large. Resident Evil has spawned numerous sequels and spin-offs, and the classic survival horror game is so legendary that it has even received multiple rereleases over the years, including the acclaimed 2002 remake on the Nintendo GameCube and the upcoming remastered version planned for next-generation consoles in early 2015.

So whatever version you end up playing, just make sure that you do play one of them, because the original Resident Evil is survival horror at its finest.

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