Although the corridor is well-lit and seemingly zombie-free, you prepare yourself for the worst, inching forward, waiting for some unamiable beastie to appear. In the first installment in the Resident Evil franchise, you must walk down a hallway to reach a significant room. Although the game raises just as many questions as it answers, superfans will surely relish the narrative crumbs dropped from the table as they discover a bit more about Wesker’s motivation. Umbrella Chronicles allows you to play from the perspective of several of the game’s characters, most notably Albert Wesker, a mysterious villain with unknown intentions. This game is more about good ol’ geysers of blood and decapitations than Eastern philosophizing and social commentary, so don’t expect too much zombie zen. It’s no surprise that the game comes from the same nation that brought us Akira and a host of other manga that deals with similar plot elements. This conflict between the scientific and the supernatural is an eerie cultural critique, a popular theme in Japanese pop art.
The plot is actually quite inventive, as the traditional zombie story begins with some kind of Haitian voodoo rather than scientific experimentation for paramilitary purposes. To make a long and convoluted story short, Raccoon City is infested with zombies due to a shadowy organization called Umbrella’s clandestine experiments with the T-virus, exposure to which will turn you into a drooling, decomposing cannibal. While story and dialogue ( Resident Evil is notorious for its wooden voice acting) take a back seat to thrills and chills, Resident Evil serves up the heebie jeebies in abundance. Granted, the bar is a bit lower for horror than for other genres of film, as typical horror movies aren’t exactly the highest art form, but it’s a promising mile marker in the evolution of the games medium. The tactile involvement and decision-making elements create a deeper horror experience. Playing a horror game is in a way closer to walking through a haunted house than watching a horror film. It’s certainly better poised to scare, as the use of an avatar personalizes the danger in a way that films cannot. While we’re still waiting for the Citizen Kane of video games, perhaps the survival-horror genre has already surpassed its film kin.