1. The Game Actually Looks a Bit Scary
The first two Resident Evil games were the most terrifying games I ever played. Actually that isnt strictly true, for the first 2 or 3 years or so I watched my brother play these games and was so scared that I would refuse to have the boxes for the games in my room. I was only 9 at the time and I would only play the first game if there was a completed save file so I could use the rocket launcher from the beginning. It wasnt until I played Code Veronica when I was roughly 12 that I actually went back and started to play the first couple of games properly. I still found them terrifying even though I knew about all of the tricks such as the zombie dog jumping through the window at the start of Resident Evil or the licker confrontation in Resident Evil 2. There is a combination throughout those first couple of games that was perfectly horror inducing; the music, the graphics, the zombie shuffling noises and the fact that you were completely alone. Resident Evil 4 shattered these illusions just a little with the innovative controls and Hollywood-esque cut-scenes but the general atmosphere of the game was still one of horror. The changes had to be made to reinvent a failing series however the gothic nature of the Eastern European setting and fantastic musical score were enough to keep the series on its terrifying roots. The fact that Leon was mostly alone throughout the story also helped. On the other hand, Resident Evil 5 broke completely away from all of the things that made the franchise genuinely scary. For a start, throughout almost the entire game you are pitted with a co-op partner called Sheva; now Im not going to get into whether she was a good character or not but the fact she was there was distracting and too welcoming. You just knew that if you were stuck in a tricky situation then she would be there to give you a herb or some ammo or just have a quick chat... There was also the issue of atmosphere, almost all of Resident Evil 5 is set in scorching African sunlight. Capcoms idea was that the player would get scared by the few dark corners and shadows, sadly it was an idea that didnt work and the player was made to feel comfortable with their surroundings. Then there was the musical score which was full of Action themes rather than horror, however the final nail in the coffin was the complete elimination of Survival Horror. Resident Evil 5 was far too easy to play-through as a horror game, I remember the first time I died was something like Chapter 3.3, whereas on Resident Evil 4 my first death came at the introduction of Dr. Salvador in the village siege. The problem with Resident Evil 5 was that there always seemed to be a large safety net whenever you got into trouble; whether it was ammo from Sheva or a First Aid Spray mysteriously spawning from a dead enemy, there always seemed to be a way to survive fairly easily. In comparison with the first couple of games, the difficulty of Resident Evil 5 was a complete change of direction. We were actively encourage to kill as many enemies as possible and were given the fire-power to do so; on the older games it was pretty much impossible to do this due to the scarcity of ammo. So how does Resident Evil 6 look a bit more scary? Well Im mostly focusing on Leons campaign here but it looks as if Capcom have tried to take the series back to its roots. The re-introduction of zombies is the first obvious change but Leons campaign seems to be genuinely dark and gloomy by using light in the correct ways and building up an atmosphere rather than giving us an action set-piece. They seem to have tweaks the controls so battling crowds of zombies is more of a challenge rather than too easy. The scenes when the President of the United States changes into a zombie look terrifying and what could be more scary than the politicians of your country turning into mindless zombies? (Isnt George Osbourne already one?) So overall, there are clues and suggestions that Resident Evil 6 may have returned to its roots in at least one of the campaigns, whether this is true for the rest of the game remains to be seen but the whole game certainly looks like an exciting prospect even if it does turn out to be a little dissappointing.