Resident Evil

Thank God GOG is sticking to its name and bringing us the superior OG RE games for all of us to enjoy hassle-free. RE1 may be outdated by today's standards but if you're a retro game lover (who here isn't??) it's hard to not love this absolute classic, which pioneered the survival horror/zombie survival genres into mainstream.

You can probably imagine the joyous expletives which filled the room as soon as I looked at this site and saw that none other than the original RESIDENT EVIL had finally got a re-release :) Instantly, I scrabbled for my card. Yes, I have two copies of the PS1 version but my old CD-ROM of the PC version had long since been lost to time. Thank you so much GOG and Capcom :) This is a win for game preservation :) It's a game with cinematic camera angles, zombies, puzzles, cool pre-rendered backgrounds, old-school "tank controls", a creepy mansion and endlessly quotable voice-acting, especially in Jill's campaign ("You were almost a Jill sandwich!", "Stop! Don't open that door!" etc...). The game also changes depending on your character choice and you can complete some parts of it in any order that you want. Modern players might find the game to be a bit old-fashioned, but it's a classic for a reason. As for this PC port - I've only played it for about half an hour but I'm impressed by what I saw :) Yes, it isn't the 1997 "director's cut" (which had alternate costumes, alternate camera angles etc..) but it's also different to the original PS1 version. Not only are the graphics slightly better, but there's the original uncensored intro movie, unlimited saves and I think I even possibly noticed a moment of auto-aim too. The keyboard controls in-game are a bit interesting, and I had to rely on my memories of playing this port over two decades ago. Arrow keys are for movement, the "Z", "X", "C" and "V" keys perform various actions. "A" (?) opens the config menu (where you can rebind the keys) and you can use "F9" to exit the game.

It's very nice to see the PC versions of the original back in action, down to the uncensored/colored intro sequence. This is a very barebones release of the original USA PC version, with none of the improvements or changes seen in subsequent re-releases on various platforms and in various regions. There are also no enhancement features included with this release, beyond a simple DirectX 11 wrapper and promised compatibility of modern day controllers. Have not been able to test if these map keyboard to contrller or replace the built in support for generic joypads or the Microsoft Sidewinder. Whilst the experience seems to play mostly fine, I've seen first hand notable judder whilst playing, which is not optimal and somewhat distracting. Whilst this is an easy and affordable way to get ahold of the original, I'll still recommend the fanmade Classic REBirth wrapper/patch for modern day users and owners of other versions that are compatible with it, due to its many quality of life improvements, expanded configuration options, and general ease of use.

If you like the original Resident Evil experience as it was back then when it was first released, then this product is perfect for you. The game is running perfectly from start to finish with both characters. GOG is releasing hotfixes now and then, and they are working hard to make this game playable for everyone. If you're complaining about "Oh, this hasn't HD upscaled textures; I can't skip cutscenes!; Why can't I run it at 1000 FPS?; This is this and that... blah blah blah..." then you completely misunderstood this --->GOG<--- release. GOG simply took the original game and made it legally digitally obtainable and compatible with modern systems. GOG did that. This has nothing to do with CAPCOM. They just gave it a green light. Thanks, GOG!

It's wonderful that GOG negotiated with Capcom to distribute this game on their platform! I had a great time. Zero bugs, zero issues. I just downloaded and played. Sure, you could say that adding the not-so-popular Windows 95/98 version after almost 30 years isn't exactly a dream come true, but the whole thing is very stable, has that divine option to speed up the door opening animations, etc. Pros: - Stable - Very faithful to the original - Additional graphic options - Uncensored Cons (if I have to be picky): - Sometimes the dialogues are too quiet compared to the background music - The blood under the bodies of fallen enemies is barely visible, making it hard to tell if the enemy is truly down