Hello folks,

A recent slightly-more-erotic-than-it-should-be dream involving Leon "Your right hand comes off?" Kennedy prompted me to decide to dust off the old PS1 emulator and replay my favourite Resident Evil game of the group that I admit actually happened (read: every one until RE5). It's a funny old game, so I thought I would make it a bit more interesting by documenting it in a form that some guy on SomethingAwful did a lot better many years ago. I will probably end up achieving the same thing I do when I play most games these days, which is get about a third of the way through it then lose interest. With that in mind, here we go:




Let's do this. We're playing as Claire, partly because it is apparently the canon version of the story (not that Capcom decided to care come roughly the time of RE:CV), and partly because I don't think I've actually played this scenario as her.




Pshaw, for 1998, maybe. This trout doesn't even touch the sides anymore. The police hand it out to kids at schools as part of their 'get off the streets' campaigns.

We start off with a standard slideshow-voiceover intro detailing the events of the first game, and how they essentially have no bearing on anything that happens henceforward, apart from the whole zombies part. Remember this guy?



That trout gave me the fright of my life back in 1997, no joke. Made me stay away from this game until at least a decade later.

So yeah let's just skip the lengthy intro that I'm sure looked pretty impressive at the time but is now just laughably bad, and have the cliffnotes - Claire is in town to look for her brother Chris (of RE1 fame), and bumps into rookie cop Leon (first day on the force! What are the chances?) while escaping from the recent zombie infestation. They get separated, and...



...the DFS sale has finally ended!?



Nope, just zombies. Welcome to the game. The objective at the moment is not to get the hell out of town, but to the safety of the police station!




Claire's pea-shooter carries slightly fewer bullets than Leon's, and I swear is actually less powerful, but my memory may have faded. She also comes equipped with a gigantic pocket knife (she's obviously just come back from a trip to Swansea), and a lockpick, which will soon be saving us the ballache of going around looking for tiny keys, which we would have to do if we were playing as Raccoon City's finest.

A quick dash around the corner, ducking from some zombies leads us to the local gun shop.



Woah, there! Can you not tell I'm not a zombie by the fact that I just used a door!?




"Nipple bleeding affects thousands of men nationwide."




Kendo the gunsmith makes his introductions and assures as that we'll be safe here, handily locking the door which for some reason he didn't lock earlier as he barricaded himself in from the hoards of the undead.




Well, it is a zombie apocalypse. I'm sure we can raid the local gun shop for ammunition.




But suddenly! Zombies crash in through the window and attack Kendo in a savage free-for-all that I totally forgot to screenshot! Let's get the hell out of here!




Actually, let's stay behind for a moment. Kendo doesn't look like he needs that crossbow anymore...





Yoink. If we were playing as Leon, we would get the shotgun here, which is arguably far more useful, but who cares, it's a god damn crossbow!




Okay, let's continue to the police station. As streets do not exist in Raccoon City, one can only get from one place to another via a complicated system of alleyways.




Unfortunately, a few of the local pondlife want Claire to engage in some 'full contact b-ball' on the court first. Sorry, but we have places to be.




The alleyway ahead is blocked by Kendo's ridiculously precise parking. Fun fact: on the demo version, this van isn't here, and you can just carry on and bypass the next few screens (don't let anyone tell you I don't teach you pointless trivia). As it is, we must take a short detour.

A few corners and a game of tag with a few zombies later, and we reach the police station!





Or at least what a police station would look like if the blueprints were drawn up by the phantom of the opera. Seriously, what the hell? Now I know where Raccoon City Council's road budget went.


All the rooms bar one are locked. The one that isn't leads us to the first living person we'll meet on our adventure. Meet Marvin, the friendliest cop ever.



He tells us that Chris has already left town. Then tries to get us to save the other survivors in the other rooms. What do I look like, Leon Kennedy? No thanks pal, we're getting out of her-



...fine.




He kicks us out and locks the door behind us, all while sitting down




Continuing on, then. First up, we'll take the door on the left side of the main foyer. And we find our first magic box! Time to do the first thing every RE player does when they find their first magic box:



Get rid of the god damn knife. Continuing our unguided tour of the police station opera house...



A headless body!



I twist off my head all the time AMIRITE? shut up

Unfortunately we don't have much time to feel sorry for the guy as we're about to meet our first of the monsters that was relentlessly hyped before release of the game! Meet Jimmy Savile!:



"THIS IS MY FINAL FORM"




Nah, this guy is a pansy. Huge letdown. We can just run past him for now.




Ducking down the next corridor, we find the first of many rooms inside the police station that inexplicably contain full sets of medieval suits of armour.




And also the first of many bizarre paintings of nude women. In a police station. This surely can't be part of some ridiculous key-fetch quest, right? Unfortunately, yes it is. Whoever was in charge of security for this building came up with the novel idea of hiding an item integral to the operation of the police station behind a painting in an obscure hallway. And we can't just move the painting out of the way, no. We need to set it on fire . If we were playing as Leon, we could use his lighter, but it looks like we're going to have to find another way.




After dispatching another group of the undead in the next hallway, Claire decides that now is as good a time as any to stop and roll up.





(SPOILER)BLAZE IT




Our first legitimate save room.




The magic box is here, so we're going to offload the crossbow for the moment, as I just spent all the ammo taking care of Raccoon City's finest outside the room.




The RPD Red Light District was hit hard by the recession.




Moving onwards, it's time for our first pointless puzzle. We need to get the big red jewel out of the statue's hand. Obviously, if Claire just reaches up there and grabs it, the terrorists win. So instead, every officer that wants to gain access to the part of the station it unlocks has to shift the adjacent busts around (then presumably move them back when finished).





We'll leave our prize there for now, and just continue on as if nothing happened.




The STARS office!? In this dingy hallway? What is this trout?




Where the magic happens.




"You just hold R1 and tap X! Snipers hate me!"




Filthy MRAs! mad.gif Oh, sorry.




Searching Wesker's desk 50 (fifty) times yields a mysterious 'Film'. Yes, I actually did this.

...aaand find out what it contains in the next episode! Or use google.