So I've never actually played any survival/horror games before. And the closest I've come to watching that sort of movie was The Messengers, half of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and the dvd menu of The Grudge (I don't give a disproportionately outsized vermin rodent of Norwegian heritage's fuzzy posterior if you laugh, that's some scary bizness right there).

I have never been more freaked out by a video game. It's creepy, atmospheric, and somewhat disturbing. Plays nicely, I can't fault the controls for my deaths so far, it's more along the lines of "'Wha...wha...oh my teddy bear, there's a WOMAN PINNED TO THAT WALL WITH A PITCHFORK! Through her head! Escape escape augh what's behind me SCYTHE blamblamblamAIIIIEEEEEEE."

Pardon the stream-of-consciousness writing. Anyway, the plot's already fascinating and suspenseful and stuff, although I'm only a tiny way into it. I think I'm really going to enjoy this, and it might actually be worth getting the others.

So, what are your thoughts on this and others? Can you recommend similar games? Have you had amusing experiences? No spoilers, please, remember some of us are experiencing the...magic for the first time (not Disney magic, more like dark necromancy).

On a final side note, this game just reminds me so much of the sort of game that Lovecraft would write were he a modern author.

Are you playing the PC version? Ubisoft did a diabolical port of that game. It literally did look like arse. The laser sight wasn't even transparent. Have a google you will find some mods to make it look better but don't expect miracles.

I have the game on the GameCube myself and it looks a fukton better than the PC version.

No, I'm playing the PS2 version. Apparently it's a pretty faithful port of the GameCube version, but with slightly muddier textures and dumbed down lighting. Still good for me though, since I haven't seen the GameCube version. Ironically, although my PS2 is backwards compatible, I'll probably end up buying the GameCube remakes of Resident Evil 1 and 2.

That muddyness is rare in most games. You only get it in games that were specifically written for the GC chipset which were few and far between. Killer 7 and Viewtiful Joe are a couple I can think of. It was something to do with the GC being able to display more colours than the PS2 or Xbox.

Interesting! On a side note, this...uh...drat, forgot his name. We'll call him Fred. Your player character, Fred, is the first character I've seen hold a pistol properly in a video game since I played Ghosthunter for the PS2.

Leon S. Kennedy (I dont even like RE and I fucking know that??). Yeah I actually preferred the camera and style in RE4. RE5 doesn't look right. Or maybe it's those massive melons that Capcom have given Chris Redfield as biceps.

Leon. And I played the PC version, and it wasn't nearly as bad as people say. Of course, it was just a straight port of the PS2 version and we were promised GC graphics with PS2 extra content, so that sucks. Also, no mouse support. And for some reason I can't get the mouse patches to work on the American copy I have. No idea why.

Well, 2 is just a port, right? But holy crap, 1 is without a doubt the best remake I've ever played. It's just flat-out incredible, one of the best games there is.

Yeah, 2 and 3 are just ports, 1 is a remake and 0 and 4 were originals.

That's really odd, Doc.

Wait...is the guy from RE5 wearing a black shirt? Carries all his gear visibly on his back? I think I saw a fragment of an LP for that.

+1 I also thought Resident Evil 0 was decent.

If you mod the fuck out of it and use a controller like the Xbox pad (with modded hud elements for the pad) it actually looks and plays pretty damn good. It still lacks a couple of elements of the gamecube original, but overall I would question whether it was worse overall.

Silent Hill games are great also. I prefer them...they get in your head a lot more than RE games, though I love them too. The king though is Amnesia -- no gimmicks, just straight up mind rape.
There's a mouse mod, though I'm not sure how well it works.

The only Silent Hill I played was 3, which gameplay wise did nothing for me but it had AMAZING music.

Yep, even with how great I think REmake is, even Silent Hill 1 blows it out of the water. Holy crap again, when horror games are good they're so good. And yeah, anything made by the Amnesia guys is sure to be a must-play.