1. Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour (PC)
2. Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter* (PC)
3. Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter (PC)
4. D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die (PC)
5. Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (PC)
6. Deadcore (PC)
7. Yakuza 4 (PS3)
8. Hyper Light Drifter (PC)
9. Doom 2: Valiant megawad (PC)
10. Resident Evil 7 (PS4)* replay
I think I'm a bit cranky lately with personal things going on, but either way I guess I'll be the first to be a little neutral on RE7. My history with the series dates back to nearly the beginning, I played RE2 at a friends back in 5th grade when it was new alongside FF7 and MGS. Great times and RE2 left an eternal mark. Half the series remains to be one of my main stops for replays over the years and I am a huge fan of the original tank controls fixed camera angle style, and adore a lot of the PSX clones. My top favorites are REmake/RE1, RE2, RE4, and RE5, just straight up some of my favorite games of all time. Yes, RE5 makes the cut because the gameplay is incredible and I got the platinum on the PS4 solo, so Sheva is manageable... that's another discussion.
If you've followed RE7's release at all you already know a good deal based of things most people are saying and with the reactions. This is one of the unfortunate things to me, but there is not much payoff, if any, for long time fans. There's a little nod or two at the very end, but that's about it for tie ins. It's to the extent that it almost feels like a reboot. I know the RE story was never anything to take too seriously, but the B-grade slice of sci-fi and camp was something I always loved about it, and the series always had some cool mysteries in the backdrop. RE7 on the other hand, 90% of it just feels like a Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie most of us have already seen by now... which is one my favorite horror movies of all time, but as a game it's not quite as compelling. Ethan doesn't have a lot of personality or leave much of a mark. But maybe it was intentional, as Ethan is the avatar of the player, he is just as inexperienced going into this new first person perspective and gameplay changes as us gamers, so that's maybe the positive take on them going with a new character.
My other nitpicks are on the technical end. I played vanilla (without VR) and the game runs at a nice 1080p/60FPS on PS4... but there are other problems. The field of view feels like it's somewhere around 75 or something, topped off with no HUD to fixate your view on, lots of shaky camera movements and blood/particle splattering on the screen, and the majority of the game is extremely dark so you only have this circular/oval flashlight for your view... all this combined with the fact that you have to constantly look around claustrophobic rooms and halls for items, makes for a bit of a nauseating experience as if you're looking through a fish bowl. As a long time gamer that's evolved with the tech, rarely does a first person game bug me at all, but RE7 kind of did give me headaches. Easy solution is to take breaks like I did today as I finished it up, but it's odd that the PC version has a FOV slider that can go up to 90 (which I find perfect on my 50" TV). You can turn camera acceleration off too which helped, but yeah. Still a very chunky, slow, wobbly claustrophobic camera experience that might be bothersome for some players. The walk/run speed is really slow and chunky too. So there are a lot of weird quirks I had with how the game controlled and "felt" that I think brought it down.
The music didn't stand out at all either, sadly. But the music really hasn't been a highlight of the series since the PSX/CV days.
Finally onto the positives. The settings and environments are amazing. The game definitely pulls a LOT from RE1 with a mansion like property and some intricately detailed buildings, backtracking, etc. It was awesome to sink into a new wretched and isolated setting. As you progress it's humorous how formally haunting and unfamiliar areas become a safe haven whenever you return back to them. A nice sense of progression. Item management and save rooms are a thing again too and handled well. As usual I hoarded a lot more than I needed too, but you still can't go guns blazing and it's better to run when possible. There were some cool boss fights, but some frustrating and annoying moments with the first one... though you sometimes get some forgiving checkpoints. I think the game only had checkpoints near bosses, which is fine with me. Jack Baker is the new Nemesis and that was really cool early on, he can follow you through doors whereas most normal enemies usually can't. The way the game handles door opening was really cool and different too, but you can't really explain it until you play it. Combat was solid enough and I'm glad they didn't go full on Outlast and make this a hide-and-seek thing since a lot of horror indie games do that nowadays (I do like Outlast a lot, but that's not Resident Evil).
The game does feel a bit short though and the majority of it is the infested home/cabin levels. The final level was one of my favorite areas, so I wish it maybe could have been a little longer or had an extra area or two. Didn't care for the tanker too much though, I'm sick of tanker levels in RE haha.
The way they handled the VHS tapes was really cool too.
Overall it is a nice blueprint for inevitably more to come. I just hope they work out the kinks with the technicalities and controls, and come up with a scenario that's way less generic. Give me a game like this with one of the classic characters and I think I'd dig that a ton.
7.7/10.
I clocked in 8:23. It's probably a lot of fun VR and I have a friend who owns the game and PSVR, so I'll probably get to check it out that way sometime.