The love for survival horror games is a deep one in the gaming community, judging by yet another remake of the original Resident Evil game (or rather its Director's Cut). This DS version should NOT be confused with the 2002 GameCube remake (or REmake), which was a completely re-styled, re-imagined and re-animated version of the very first game. RE: Deadly Silence is more an enhanced port of the first game, in all its retro-graphical, cheesy glory.
And why not? A lot of gamers still have warm feelings for the very first Resident Evil, which was also one of the first games with a cinematic experience that they were exposed to, and which set a new standard in survival horror. It is a game that drips with copious amounts of nostalgia for fans of the series.
I wasn't necessarily one of them. I tried the Sega version a few times but I had problems getting past the crappy controls that have plagued the series ever since. Any close encounter with a raving zombie got me in a state of panic which quickly killed any adequate reaction and led to an undeserved death by poor maneuverability. For a long time, I had to admit that Resident Evil just wasn't my thing.
However, I kept having this nagging feeling that I was missing out on something great. So when the GameCube remake came out, I gave it a well-deserved second chance. Several more years of gaming experience had surely paid off; I mastered the controls within a few hours, and I currently rank REmake as one of my all-time favorite games, having already lost count of all the replays.
I was re-introduced to the 'primal' Resident Evil when RE: Deadly Silence came out, and looking past the graphic limitations and lack of detail as compared to the REmake, it struck me how much of the setting, plot and monsters were already in the original game. The intriguing setup of plunging players into a personal hell, having them find out what happened and find a way out for themselves, is still the best way to draw the player into the narrative. There is a nice balance between the zombie threat and ammunition, which means there is no room for a gung-ho gun battle, and every shot must count. The retro-style graphics feel well at home on the DS, and the game retains the 180 degree turn option introduced in RE3, making it far better playable. It even adds a nice new gameplay element in the form of battles where the stylus and touch screen are used to counter attacks with a knife.
What quality is present in the plot and atmosphere is still almost undone by the sheer horror that passes for a script and performances. The game is as famous for its scares as it is for its heroically bad acting and dialog. Hilarious quotes like "You were almost a Jill sandwich" and "I found this weapon. It's really powerful, especially against living things!" would be the stuff of bad legends on its own, but it has to compete with the crappy way the actors deliver their lines. It is hard to replicate here, but the line "WHOOOOAAAAAA! This hall is DANGEROUS!" is still the stuff of gaming lore in an unintentionally funny way.
You might think that both quality and lack thereof in a single work would make for a very bipolar game, but the opposite is true. Upon playing, I found this game to be like an amusingly bad horror movie where the tense parts are periodically interrupted by unintentional comic relief. Because the script is cheesy all the way through, it really adds to the overall B- movie quality of the game, but at the end, you'll still be satisfied by the decent plot, gameplay and challenges.
So, to say that this is a hokey game wouldn't actually do justice to one of its most endearing qualities. It is a B-movie-type horror game that works betters thanks to its flaws rather than despite them. After all these years it is still fun, scary and challenging. Just like The Original Series of Star Trek, it lay the building blocks for an entire franchise, and no amount of cheese will ever change that.
