Lockpicks and Green Herbs
By: C. L. Carol
Tags: Horror, Gaming, Culture, Videogames, PlayStation

Lockpicks and Green Herbs

Surviving horror sans memory card

“This is just my personal take, but to me the definition of survival horror is a game where fear and the sense of exhilaration coincide.” Shinji Mikami, Director of Resident Evil

Sometime in 1996 I made plans with my best friend to pull an all-nighter and tackle what was being praised as one the hardest — and scariest — games ever: Capcom’s Resident Evil. The two of us had grown up on Romero and Raimi movies. We each had our own private Zombie Contingency Plan. But we’d never fully immersed ourselves in a true “survival horror” scenario. Indeed — up until then, there really wasn’t even a survival horror video game genre.

I relished the upcoming weekend, but there was a catch — my friend had managed to save up enough of his meager part-time wages to buy a used Sony PlayStation along with a copy of Shinji Mikami’s survival horror masterpiece.

But they didn’t have the cash for a memory card.

Source: Capcom.

No big deal. We’d just have to finish it in one setting. After all, most games back then weren’t that much longer than 12 hours or so. If we got started shortly after school Friday, by Saturday night, without doubt, we would be victorious. It turns out we horribly mistaken — but it still remains some of the most intense and memorable gameplay I’ve ever experienced.

The original Resident Evil is a pressure cooker in health and item management. Everything has limits — from the number of bullets you find to the number of health items, even down to the number of times you can save your game, which could only be done with a limited supply of ink ribbons hidden throughout the game. To make matters worse, players have a limited inventory (albeit there’s a semi-magical bottomless box that makes the inventory management a little more onerous rather than downright impossible).

Our first attempt ended miserably. Out of the box, we picked Chris Redfield as our main character — not realizing he would only start with a knife and a zippo lighter. Our bravado got the better of us as we attempted to slice our way through the first few zombies, only to get quickly over powered and eaten alive. “You died” the game informed us in bloody red letters, as the screen faded back in, showing our lifeless body on the ground. Back to the drawing board.

Source: Capcom.

Each new playthrough brought much needed knowledge. We learned, for instance, that we could just run from the first zombie. That we could, in fact, avoid certain zombies — the zombies themselves became simply moving obstacles, not something we were required to conquer on each encounter. We learned the game wasn’t meant to be played as some over powered, god-like hero. Our players were very much fallible; very much human. They had to be careful. They had to think. Otherwise, they stood little chance against these super natural horrors.

After several more deaths, our curiosity got the better of us and decided to try the game out with Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield’s female compadre. Lo and behold — Jill had the advantage of starting with a handgun and a knife. With Jill, we were able to quickly progress much farther into the game, more than we ever had with Chris. But this brought about new kind of horror all together: our own penchant for mistake.

Making new progress in the game was equal parts exhilarating and horrific. In 1996, there was no such thing as a save state or an auto-save. Without the benefit of a memory card, all we could do was hope and pray that we’d have the skills necessary to defeat the next new obstacle. We had no idea what was coming around the corner — and the game loved to surprise. Picked up a new key? Wonder where that leads — how about into a room with a giant poisonous snake? Re-enter a hallway that was empty just a little while ago? Zombie dogs jumped through the window and gave chase. And then there were the Hunters, a mutant hybrid that resembled some obscene amalgamation of a lizard-man-ape. The Hunter’s unique cutscene introduction should have tipped us off that this enemy meant business. But the first time we encountered a Hunter we were over zealous — it quickly chopped our head off and sent us all the way back to the title screen.

The scariest moment by far came when we realized we were getting too tired to continue playing. As we took our respective “turns” (taking over on death; letting the other play through certain difficult parts), our progress started regressing. Mistakes were piling. Frustration mounted. After a grinding back to nearly where we were on our last personal best, we decided to pause the game and leave the system running. Then we turned off the TV and told ourselves we’d try again after some rest.

We ended the night in a fugue of a several-hours-long gaming marathon. I remember closing my eyes and reliving various moments in the game, committing to memory the locations of key objects and dangerous enemies. I also remember praying the system would keep our progress intact — that no bogeyman in the form of a power outage or some other hiccup would come in the night and cause us to lose all progress once again. But more than anything, I was exhilarated at the prospect of pushing forth into a new area, of getting that much closer to the game’s final showdown.

Today’s autosaves and pattern of consistently spaced save spots makes for a less frustrating gaming experience, to be sure. But there’s no substitute to the truly horrifying experience of playing a survival horror game and knowing a simple mistake could cost you hours of progress.