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Ah, Resident Evil. The Resident Evil videogame franchise is near and dear to my heart not because I like playing the games but because I loved watching my brother play the games. It's been kind of our bonding activity, where his love of (killing) zombies and my enjoyment of watching zombies be killed and stories unfold meet for hours of entertainment.
Recently I've discovered that tons of game walkthroughs have been captured and uploaded onto YouTube. I've been freaking myself out by watching the Silent Hill ones--I'm too cowardly to play these survival horror games myself--and decided to lighten my mood by returning to RE memories. I remembered, then, that there was a "new" RE out for Wii that my brother and I never looked into since we had become slightly disillusioned with the change in game play in RE 4 and because it was a first person shooter. I decided to check it out on YT. Called the "Umbrella Chronicles" it actually looks like a lot of fun, where the story lines actually recreate REs 0, 1, and 3 with lots of familiar faces and adds little in between stories like Wesker's involvement and an Ada part. But what caught my attention was Jill's voice--not only does her voice actress do a fine job but the quality of her voice makes Jill sound sexy and cool.
For anyone who has ever played the original Resident Evil 1, this will sound like a lie. What makes Resident Evil 1 (not the remake) so amazingly enjoyable to watch is the atrocious dialogue done with the even more atrocious voice acting. It's simply amazing. I would make everyone sit through hours of gameplay just to experience it. It's just... so amazingly bad. (Besides their sounding as if they were yelling across a room at each other when they're standing two feet apart, my favorite part of Jill's game has to be when the voice actress's accent slips when she says to Wesker, "Where have you been?" with the "been" sounding like "bean." It's like a strange English accent that occasionally slips into Jill's voice.) RE 1 is as laugh worthy as it was scary with its zombie surprises. Its B-movie aspects are infamous.
The dialogue and voice acting kept improving with each game, thank God. (Even if there were some characters that made you want to poke their eyes out. Yes, I'm thinking about you, Leo-DiCaprio-wannabe Steve in Code Veronica with your squeaky little voice.) But what puzzled me when I looked into it is the series' continually changing roster of voice actors. From what I saw, only Claire Redfield has had a repeat voice actor from RE 2 to Code Veronica. Considering how big the regular cast is--Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Rebecca Chambers, Leon Kennedy, Wesker, a host of S.T.A.R.S. members that keep reappearing to die over and over again in the overlapping story lines of the games--it's surprising and intriguing to think that with each new game (and character redesigns as game graphics continue to improve), the characters "change" in small ways every time. The voice you hear and associate with each character isn't actually their voice, like they're always going through some off screen puberty between games. Sometimes it does feel that way, like with Leon's drastic cool-ification from RE 2 to RE 4. From what I can see, "Umbrella Chronicles" seems like an attempt to keep the series' continuity intact and smooth over plot holes.
Although my brother and I will probably never get to play it since we don't own an XBox, it'll be interesting to see what plotline emerges from Resident Evil 5 starring Chris Redfield. What characters will return? Archnemesis Wesker? (Is he even still alive? He's died like 10 times, I swear.) Former S.T.A.R.S. colleague Jill Valentine, from whom he seemed separated with RE 3, but Chronicles seems to have brought them back together after the events in Raccoon? Also former colleague Barry Burton, who may have just returned to his family after RE 1? Little sister Claire Redfield, whom Chris rescued and reunited with in Code Veronica?
Ah, the RE mythos--I won't stop loving you despite the drastic changes in your game play, where it's less about puzzles and bad camera angles so that zombies can give you a cheap scare and now about killing endless amounts of zombielike humans. It's always been good times with your head-popping action and self-destruct sequence endings.
Recently I've discovered that tons of game walkthroughs have been captured and uploaded onto YouTube. I've been freaking myself out by watching the Silent Hill ones--I'm too cowardly to play these survival horror games myself--and decided to lighten my mood by returning to RE memories. I remembered, then, that there was a "new" RE out for Wii that my brother and I never looked into since we had become slightly disillusioned with the change in game play in RE 4 and because it was a first person shooter. I decided to check it out on YT. Called the "Umbrella Chronicles" it actually looks like a lot of fun, where the story lines actually recreate REs 0, 1, and 3 with lots of familiar faces and adds little in between stories like Wesker's involvement and an Ada part. But what caught my attention was Jill's voice--not only does her voice actress do a fine job but the quality of her voice makes Jill sound sexy and cool.
For anyone who has ever played the original Resident Evil 1, this will sound like a lie. What makes Resident Evil 1 (not the remake) so amazingly enjoyable to watch is the atrocious dialogue done with the even more atrocious voice acting. It's simply amazing. I would make everyone sit through hours of gameplay just to experience it. It's just... so amazingly bad. (Besides their sounding as if they were yelling across a room at each other when they're standing two feet apart, my favorite part of Jill's game has to be when the voice actress's accent slips when she says to Wesker, "Where have you been?" with the "been" sounding like "bean." It's like a strange English accent that occasionally slips into Jill's voice.) RE 1 is as laugh worthy as it was scary with its zombie surprises. Its B-movie aspects are infamous.
The dialogue and voice acting kept improving with each game, thank God. (Even if there were some characters that made you want to poke their eyes out. Yes, I'm thinking about you, Leo-DiCaprio-wannabe Steve in Code Veronica with your squeaky little voice.) But what puzzled me when I looked into it is the series' continually changing roster of voice actors. From what I saw, only Claire Redfield has had a repeat voice actor from RE 2 to Code Veronica. Considering how big the regular cast is--Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Rebecca Chambers, Leon Kennedy, Wesker, a host of S.T.A.R.S. members that keep reappearing to die over and over again in the overlapping story lines of the games--it's surprising and intriguing to think that with each new game (and character redesigns as game graphics continue to improve), the characters "change" in small ways every time. The voice you hear and associate with each character isn't actually their voice, like they're always going through some off screen puberty between games. Sometimes it does feel that way, like with Leon's drastic cool-ification from RE 2 to RE 4. From what I can see, "Umbrella Chronicles" seems like an attempt to keep the series' continuity intact and smooth over plot holes.
Although my brother and I will probably never get to play it since we don't own an XBox, it'll be interesting to see what plotline emerges from Resident Evil 5 starring Chris Redfield. What characters will return? Archnemesis Wesker? (Is he even still alive? He's died like 10 times, I swear.) Former S.T.A.R.S. colleague Jill Valentine, from whom he seemed separated with RE 3, but Chronicles seems to have brought them back together after the events in Raccoon? Also former colleague Barry Burton, who may have just returned to his family after RE 1? Little sister Claire Redfield, whom Chris rescued and reunited with in Code Veronica?
Ah, the RE mythos--I won't stop loving you despite the drastic changes in your game play, where it's less about puzzles and bad camera angles so that zombies can give you a cheap scare and now about killing endless amounts of zombielike humans. It's always been good times with your head-popping action and self-destruct sequence endings.
