Resident Evil HD

You can’t keep a good zombie down. Nearly 20 years after its debut, Resident Evil returns as a high-def remaster of the 2002 GameCube remake of the 1996 original. This new version for Steam, Resident Evil HD ($19.99), grants the remake a new lease on life by unshackling it from Nintendo consoles and spreading it across current- and past-gen consoles for mass zombie consumption (yum!).

However, Capcom had some trouble during the transition to HD. The remake’s gorgeous pre-rendered backgrounds and video cutscenes were apparently difficult to update for the modern era of widescreen displays and maxed-out resolutions, if Resident Evil HD’s numerous visual gaffes are any indication.

Don’t let that deter you, though. It’s still basically the same great game, even if it is a little worse for the wear. Resident Evil HD is also available for PlayStation 3 , PlayStation 4 , Xbox 360 , and Xbox One .

A Horror Masterpiece
Before I go into the HD version’s problems, I want to praise Resident Evil for the masterwork it still is. A case study in using hardware limitations to their fullest, the game uses cinematography as a means of level design; the mansion and its outskirts are broken up into rooms, visible via static camera angles.

You play as Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine, members of a special police force called S.T.A.R.S., and you must navigate and explore each room, angle to angle, picking up items, solving puzzles, and blasting or avoiding creepy creatures along the way. It’s an incredibly well-designed and perfectly paced adventure that the HD version keeps solidly intact.

Leveling Up the Horror
There are some welcome improvements. The sound and music, essential to the spooky atmosphere, are better than ever. The rumble of midsummer thunder in the air as heroes Chris or Jill tap-tap-tap their way down hallways still makes my skin crawl, and the iconic piano of the save room theme sounds better than ever, thanks to higher sampling rates for the audio.

All the 3D polygonal models trump their GameCube and Wii counterparts. Chris has some new detail—I never noticed his stubble before—while Jill looks the best she’s ever been. It’s nice to see Julia Voth, Jill’s original face model, back again. All the monsters receive the same treatment, from decaying zombies that display a wide range of detailed looks (fat, slim, bespectacled, and bearded, to name a few) to the scaly snakes and hunters that plague you later in the adventure.

The swinging doors that appear during load times and the inventory items you pick up (think guns and health sprays) sport similar higher-quality models.

The tank controls, long held as a flaw in the original games, return and still work well as a way to skate the characters around the static camera angles. Alternatively, you can now use an analog control scheme. Push the stick on a gamepad and Jill or Chris will run in that direction. Nudge it slightly, and they’ll walk.

You need to reorient yourself a bit since camera angles change constantly, but the added mobility means you won’t have to deal with the quick-turn move and you can now practically run circles around some of the game’s tougher enemies. The choice between classic tank and new analog controls is welcome.

The Horror of HD
Then there’s the quality of the pre-rendered backgrounds. They’re a mixed bag. I was delighted one moment, repulsed the next. Some areas, like the mansion’s main entrance hall and most outdoor areas, look so superb you would have to squint to find flaws. The entrance hall, with its new lighting effects and reflective marble floor, looks superior to the GameCube game version.

However, many other locations, like the various smaller rooms and hallways within, are merely resized rather than redone with new textures. The piano room and four-armor puzzle room appear so blurry and pixelated as a result of the upscaling, they made me wince.

Outright mistakes were left in, too. The outside area where you use the dog whistle has a conspicuous white outline smack dab in the middle of one angle, perhaps a sign someone forgot about the magic wand tool in Photoshop.

This mish-mash of uneven quality backgrounds, many of them inferior to the GameCube originals, gives the HD remaster a sloppy feel. Similarly, the cutscenes either look great redone with the in-engine 3D models, or they’re untouched, murky, muddy messes. Cropping the game to enforce the 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio and adding in a pan-and-scan effect that wasn’t there before (and that you can’t control) to ensure you see everything as you move around further exacerbates the compromised feel of the visuals.

Granted, I got used to the bobbing camera pan as I ventured further into the abode, and there is a 4:3 mode for purists who don’t want to feel as if they’re on a ship at sea. The map and inventory screens are 4:3 no matter what.

Another thing that nags at me is that the typewriter save screen no longer plays an animation that types out your save file information. Instead, you see a static list of files, and when you choose one to overwrite, only the typing sound effect plays. No animation. Bummer.

On the bright side, some backgrounds look beautiful. The sub-par backgrounds don’t ruin the thrill of collecting keys and fragging zombies. And the core game is wonderfully smooth at a full 60 frames per second (the PlayStation and Xbox versions all run at a languid 30) and 1080p resolution (depending on the background).

Horrific Goofs
Finally, the game has a few goofy quirks, because hey, this is a console port and there are bound to be a few. Capcom would be wise to address these no-nos before the wrath of Steam forum users turns them into a rampaging zombie horde.

The game initially opens in windowed mode for some reason, but don’t worry. You can change that in the settings. You can’t change the graphics settings mid-game, however! That would be too convenient. You need to quit all the way back to the main menu to do that. Don’t expect to alt-F4, either, as you can’t do that. But you can alt-tab.

The biggest goof is the appearance of the mouse cursor onscreen at all times. It just doesn’t go away no matter your choice of input. You can hide it in a corner, but if you’re using the very viable mouse and keyboard controls, it’s going to pop back up from time to time.

White Knuckle Horror Fun
I enjoyed my time with this new version of the Resident Evil remake. It’s a perfect game to speed-run, and a Steam achievement dares you to beat it in under three hours. There are a lot of difficulty options, from Very Easy to Very Hard, and the bio-horror storyline dishes out some equally disturbing and cheesy twists that hold up remarkably well.

But it disappoints me that Capcom didn’t go all the way in retooling the graphics. Regardless of some blurry textures, however, Resident Evil is just too good to ruin. Its blend of white-knuckle action, deliberate tension, and methodical resource management has stood the test of time. While Resident Evil HD isn’t perfect, it’s a fine and inexpensive choice for those willing to enter the mansion again or for the first time.