Category: Video Games

The History Of The Resident Evil Franchise Part 2

Published November 1, 2021

Here is my continuation of “The History Of The Resident Evil Franchise Part 1“.

In 2007, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, a rail shooter game covering the events of Resident Evil 0, Resident Evil and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, was released for the Nintendo Wii while the third Resident Evil film “Resident Evil: Extinction” was also released and performed well at the box office. In 2008, an animated film called Resident Evil: Degeneration was released and, unlike the live-action films, was actually canon to the universe of the video game series. In 2009, Resident Evil 5 was released with an emphasise on co-op gameplay. The game sold record numbers and was praised critically although some were concerned that the franchise was losing its horror roots in favour of action. Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, a sequel to Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles that covered the events of Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil – Code: Veronica was also released in 2009 while the next Resident Evil film “Resident Evil: Afterlife” was released in 2010 and proceeded to double the box office gross of Resident Evil: Extinction which had previously been the highest grossing movie in the franchise.

2012 saw an unbelievable wave of Resident Evil content with Resident Evil: Revelations released for the Nintendo 3DS, pushing the graphical limits of what the handheld was capable of, a squad-based co-op game called Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City and the next major entry, Resident Evil 6. Despite selling millions of copies worldwide, Resident Evil 6 received backlash for continuing to strip away the survival horror elements and turning into an outright action game (perhaps a tad harsh in my personal opinion but I understand where they’re coming from). Additionally, the second Resident Evil animated film “Resident Evil: Damnation” was released while Resident Evil: Retribution, the fourth film in the live-action film series, continued to prove successful at the box office.

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The History Of The Resident Evil Franchise Part 1

Published October 28, 2021

When the topic of horror video games is brought up, it’s nearly inevitable that someone will mention Resident Evil. Having sold 117 million units since its inception, Resident Evil is not only the most successful horror video game franchise of all time but is also one of the best-selling video game series ever. In addition to numerous video game entries, this success has led to a wide variety of spin-offs such as movies, TV series etc. and, given how large the franchise can appear to be, I thought it would be worth covering the history of the Resident Evil franchise.

Let’s start with the history of the first game. The origins of the first Resident Evil game lies in an earlier game that was released by Capcom, the company that develops and releases Resident Evil. Sweet Home, released in 1989, was based on the Japanese movie of the same name and features characters exploring a mansion while encountering supernatural beings with the gameplay revolving around RPG mechanics as well as item management, puzzles and multiple endings based on how many characters survive. Tokuro Fujiwara, who had directed Sweet Home, assigned Shinji Mikami, who had previously worked on several Disney video games, to be the new game’s director in 1993 with the intention of remaking Sweet Home under a different name due to rights issues. Initially being developed for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System before switching to the PlayStation, Resident Evil was released in Japan in 1996 as “Bio Hazard” with the name Resident Evil being used in the Western release. The game stripped away the role-playing elements that were present in Sweet Home, emphasised zombies although other creatures do exist within the mansion and a third-person fixed camera inspired by the 1992 Alone in the Dark game. The game was a surprise success with the original release and a later director’s cut version selling a combined 5 million copies over their lifetime and is often credited with popularising the survival horror genre.

The cover for the Resident Evil PS1 release.

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The Wonderful And Spectacular Composer Yoko Kanno

Published October 21, 2021

With the news that Yoko Kanno is returning to the Cowboy Bebop franchise by composing for the live-action adaptation, I thought it might be time to take a look at her history and career. Famous, and justly so, for her work on composing soundtracks for anime, this is merely one facet of her work and only one reason why the composer Yoko Kanno is so wonderful and spectacular.

Let’s start by looking at her early life. Yoko Kanno was born on the 18th of March, 1963 and found herself fascinated and drawn to the hymns sung at the church she attended. She learned how to play the piano at a very young age and ended up participating in a variety of composition contests. She eventually attended Waseda University, majoring in literature although she did end up joining a band elective where she discovered popular music such as pop and jazz. During this time, a company named Koei, which later merged with Tecmo to become Koei Tecmo, approached Yoko Kanno and asked her to compose the soundtrack for a game called Nobunaga’s Ambition. She accepted and the success of the game ended up jump starting her professional career.

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Why Single-Player Video Games Are Not Dead

Published October 14, 2021

One of the joys of playing video games in the modern age is the sheer variety of titles that are on offer. From AAA games to amazing indie titles, it seems the video games industry has never been better. However, as time has progressed and technology has developed, we’ve seen multiplayer games steadily grow to the detriment of single-player. EA infamously declared that single-player video games were finished (i.e. dead), something which would later prove to be quite ironic. However, I truly love single-player video games and I thought it worth discussing why I like them so much, why they are not dead and their place in the modern video games industry.

To begin, let’s discuss what a single-player video game is. As the name suggests, a single-player video game is an experience designed for a single player and has, historically, been the primary way that games have been designed. Admittedly, there are a few games that seem a little less obviously single-player than others. For instance, Dark Souls is, for most intents and purposes, a single-player game where the player explores the world by themselves, interacting with NPCs and progressing the story. However, there is an asynchronous multiplayer aspect where players can leave messages, either helpful or deceptive, for others to find. Additionally, other gamers can invade the player’s world and attempt to kill them or be summoned as allies to help fight the bosses. I still consider the Dark Souls series to be inherently single-player but I do confess that games like Dark Souls blur the line between single-player and multiplayer.

A promo image for Dark Souls Remastered. — Is Dark Souls a single-player game? I believe it is even though it has multiplayer elements.

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The Influence Of Manga On The Dark Souls Series

Published October 11, 2021

As I’m sure readers of my blog are well aware of, I’m a big fan of the Dark Souls series and, in turn, the works of Hidetaka Miyazaki. Understandably, as with any creator of media, he’s been influenced by a wide variety of media such as other video games, literature, Western tabletop games etc. However, I thought it might be particularly interesting to take a look at the influence of manga on the Dark Souls series since it feels like we don’t often hear of the influence of manga on other media.

Let’s start off with the manga most often referred to when it comes to the influence of manga on the Dark Souls series, Berserk. Created by the late Kentaro Miura, Berserk is set in a dark fantasy world and follows Guts, a swordsman who ends up joining a mercenary division named Band of the Hawk, led by Griffith. The manga was critically acclaimed, has been adapted into several anime TV series and films and has been cited as an influence on various manga series and video games.

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Discussing The Exciting But Not Straightforward Nvidia Games Leaks

Published September 30, 2021

I was perusing some gaming websites, in particular PC Gamer, and I came across a news story that momentarily got me incredibly excited. It turned out that a developer named Ighor July managed to find a complete list of games within the GeForce Now database which included some games that were recently announced and, much more interestingly, numerous games that have never been announced! The sheer number of games that were potentially leaked is unbelievable and near unprecedented. However, several details have since surfaced that have both confirmed the validity of these leaks as well as how some of these games may not actually be in development. Therefore, I thought it worth discussing the exciting but not straightforward Nvidia games leaks.

First, I should give some background on these leaks. GeForce Now is a cloud gaming service run by Nvidia allowing users to play a variety of games for a subscription as well as some games you own under a “bring your own games” system. According to Ighor’s own blog post on Medium, he accessed the console.log when you download GeForce Now, found app configurations and used them to fetch “the list of all of the games from GFN servers”. This resulted in a list of over 18,000 games which included a lot of game development applications but, more importantly for this article, also included numerous games that haven’t been announced yet.

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Compilation Of Final Fantasy VII: An Unusual And Weird Subseries

Published September 16, 2021

When it comes to the Final Fantasy franchise, there can be no doubt the success and impact that Final Fantasy VII has had. Credited with popularising role-playing video games on consoles in the Western market, the game has also proven to be the bestselling in the series with an estimated 12.8 million copies sold as of 2020. While I’m not quite as fanatical about Final Fantasy VII as some people, I still acknowledge how important it was and have ranked it as my fourth favourite main Final Fantasy game. Despite the Final Fantasy franchise being an anthology series with each entry featuring a new world, characters and story bound together by similar themes and gameplay, Square Enix couldn’t let the success of Final Fantasy VII go and decided to create a subseries called “Compilation of Final Fantasy VII” which has included a variety of unusual and weird spin-offs.

Despite the original Final Fantasy VII being released in 1997, it took 7 years for the first entry in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII to be produced with the release of Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII in 2004. Produced for mobile devices, specifically FOMA (Freedom of Mobile Multimedia Access), Before Crisis takes place before the events of Final Fantasy VII and follows the Turks, a group that works as intel and investigative operatives for Shinra, and follows their conflicts with Avalanche. The game proved to be highly successful in Japan but was never released in the West, making it the only major entry in Compilation of Final Fantasy VII to not be released outside of Japan.

The logo for Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII.

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Genres of Video Games Best Played On PC

Published September 2, 2021

I was recently perusing some video game news sites when I heard that Crusader Kings III is being ported to both PS5 and Xbox Series. While I’m not opposed to such a move, allowing video game developers to make more money by releasing their games on other platforms can only be good, I confess that I’m rather confused by how they’ll have the player interact with the game using only a controller. Based on my personal experiences with Paradox games, it’s extremely difficult for me to see how this can be accomplished in a way comparable to the PC version which uses a keyboard and mouse to interact. Taking this into account, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at a few genres of video games that I believe are best played on a PC.

Of course, as usual with these articles, I feel that it’s important that I give a disclaimer that the genres of video games that I believe are best played on PC are my own personal opinions. I play all of my games exclusively on PC and I personally consider PC to be the best gaming platform. However, I understand that many people prefer to play on consoles, mobile, etc. and I am not trying to discredit those platforms if those are what you like to use to play video games. However, I do genuinely believe that there are certain video game genres that are a better experience on PC due to the control scheme and I simply wish to share that information.

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My Thoughts On The New Handheld Steam Deck

Published August 19, 2021

On the 15th of July, 2021, the Valve Corporation, the creator of Steam and many revered gaming franchises, announced that they were developing a handheld gaming device called the Steam Deck. Given the lacklustre announcement of the new Switch OLED, the internet grew excited at a new handheld gaming device that could compete with Nintendo as they’re the only major gaming company with handheld devices on offer. Given how exciting the Steam Deck might be for both PC gaming, of which I’m quite the fan, and handheld gaming, I thought it might be interesting to share my thoughts on the device.

I should probably first start by giving my thoughts on handheld gaming in general. As a child, I was quite the enthusiast of handheld gaming devices. One of my first gaming devices was a Game Boy Colour on which I enthusiastically played the first and second generation Pokémon games. The Game Boy Advance was probably the peak of my excitement for handheld gaming devices. Generation three of Pokémon was the generation that I spent the most time playing and I became enthusiastic about many other franchises such as Fire Emblem, handheld versions of the Final Fantasy games, Advance Wars etc. While I did pick up a Nintendo DS as well as a Sony PSP, I spent less time playing them than I did previous handhelds as my enthusiasm for PC gaming was on the rise. Once the Nintendo 3DS, Sony PS Vita and Nintendo Switch had been released, I had lost almost all interest in portable gaming and didn’t bother picking up any of these new consoles. I confess that when I first heard that the Nintendo Switch was going to be a hybrid system that involved both portable and home gaming, I assumed that it was just a gimmick and that the system would do poorly just like the Wii U did. Turns out that I was completely wrong on that account since the Nintendo Switch is now estimated to have sold around 89 million units and has proven that there is still a demand for portable gaming.

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My Thoughts On The Price Of Video Games

Published August 5, 2021

The past year or so has seen several AAA game publishers make the decision to raise the price of their video games to $70. Understandably, this has raised concern amongst gamers and led to a debate on the true value of video games. In order to give my own thoughts on the price of video games, I’ve decided to share a bit of my history with video games, their prices and to then discuss my thoughts on video games prices in the modern era.

First, I should explain that I’ve always had a skewed view when it comes to the value of video games. The first video game to ever have a major effect on me was Final Fantasy IV. While a short JRPG by today’s standard, I can remember spending at least over 50 hours playing the game as a kid due in part to both being unfamiliar with the genre and inefficient time management. Nonetheless, I was hooked on JRPGs and sought out others of its kind. I even dipped my toes into Western RPGs as well and came to expect that all video games would take at least 30 hours or more. However, as I began to branch out into other video game genres, I came to the realisation that many other video games averaged around 10-20 hours. This caused me to reject purchasing many other game genres for a while and to favour RPGs since I felt that I got more value out of them. I eventually got past this and came to appreciate the variety of genres in the video game medium but I think it’s important that you’re aware of this history.

For me, Final Fantasy IV and many other RPGs set unrealistic expectations for the length of video games in general.

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