Diary Entry #46: Resident Evil HD is Stupid, Abhorrent Revisionist Garbage

Two things really, really bothered me yesterday (I wrote this in January, which was not yesterday).

First thing: everyone's problem with some guy leaving blink 182. In 2015, these old assholes have absolutely no relevance. The only reason they're even pretending to be together is for cash, and the fact that one guy left the group is not going to affect anything creative, only profit margins. Honestly, I thought the band had broken up years ago and this was just some reunion bid gone wrong, but no, they're just sacks of crap who don't care enough to actually do something.

Second thing: I was reading that the new HD version of Resident Evil 1 eschews the tank controls that defined the survival horror genre.

This is heresy people.

Tank controls: it's probably easier to use this than to 
navigate Resident Evil 1's crazier sections.

Think back to all the bad jokes revolving around Steven Spielberg and George Lucas remastering their films, which ultimately led to some marked content revisions. Taking Star Wars and throwing in some extra CG beasties isn't improving much, although it does go far in terms of alienating the true aficionado.

For years, I recalled magazines speaking volumes about how great Super Castlevania IV was, how it improved on the original's time honored formula. But playing it years later after mastering the original NES classics, Super Castlevania feels like easy trash. Now that Simon Belmont can change direction while jumping, whip multiple directions, and leap onto stairs, almost all of the difficulty is gone. As with many games with limited controls, Castlevanias are largely difficult and compelling because you can barely move your character from point A to point B.

Super Castlevania IV = baby mode Castlevania.

The same principle goes for Resident Evil: how difficult is it to run away from a pack of zombie dogs when you can hardly tell what's happening? The tank movements are also done for aesthetic purposes: in Alone in the Dark, PC technology made it so that players could only move forward and turn very slowly through pre-rendered "camera angles", and it just stuck with the genre for years. It was fun, stylish, and while it might have just been done for technological purposes, it simply looked great. Eventually, even LucasArts used a similar set up for its 3D adventure games, which essentially were Alone in the Dark sans combat and add dialogue system. Almost every survival horror game was like this, and with several coming out a year, it was a total blast.


Now, just like Castlevania IV made jumping all easy and the whip all floppy, I'm supposed to believe that getting rid of limited movement somehow makes Resident Evil better. Just like I'm supposed to believe that extra CG makes Star Wars better. Just like I'm supposed to believe Final Fantasy 3 on the DS is somehow a remotely playable game.

This man will forever be Jabba the Hutt in my eyes.

If someone told me to rewrite the Great Gatsby and make Jay a Rambo type character with syphilis who spread his vile disease using a rocket launcher attachment in a vicious attempt to destroy humanity and simultaneously fulfill his abhorrent homoerotic desires, even though I think it would make it a better book, it would be a revisionist atrocity that any decent human being with a tenth grade education would absolutely abhor.

I haven't looked at gameplay footage, I haven't read any further than the whole new control debacle, I just know I'm pissed. This trend will totally ruin everything that made the game industry purer than the disgusting, derivative, glossed-over music, film, book, television, radio, and just about every other media industry out there.