Our None Gamer Donna tackles 2007's Resident Evil 7 for the first time (in non-VR), she wasn't ready for it.
Overview:
Resident Evil 7 embodies the series’ signature gameplay elements of exploration and tense atmosphere that first coined “survival horror” some twenty years ago; meanwhile, a complete refresh of gameplay systems simultaneously propels the survival horror experience to the next level.
What she thought she knew going in
Genre of the Game: No idea, I know its not side scrolling platform
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What's the story: I think that I heard it had something to do with zombies
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How difficult the game is: No heard nothing about it
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Anything else:
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I think its a shooting game and you an play it on VR, but we don't got it. (A VR that is)
How it went
We managed to play for an hour and 30 mins before Donna had had enough and in that time she didn't manage to get very far into the game but she did open every draw and look under every chair, fully exploring the world she was inhabiting. I'm not sure how much of this was fear to move on or intrigue in the world she was playing.
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She has not played very many modern games at this point and takes a very long time to get to grips with a games mechanics but when she finally does she will play a game to beyond completion and I'm sure after watching her careful and methodical way of playing Resy 7 she could do quite well at this game. If she can ever stop spinning the camera round like a hyperactive puppy about to be fed.
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What she thought
I started the game with very little knowledge but I thought it had something to do with zombies so I was already on edge, then the game told me that if I became disorientated I should take a break, so I did.
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After a cup of tea, I began, the game started with my characters (Ethan's) girlfriend leaving him two video messages and then it cuts to a car ride video and we are off. The first thing I noticed was the game was in first person and I'm terrible with first person games because ,as with this game, I struggle to use the camera controls in an effective manor. I realised quickly however that this problem I had with camera controls could be fixed by the VR compatibility of this game because I would be able to completely control the speed of the camera movement with my head, but without a VR system to test this I can't be sure.
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moving through the forest and towards the house I instantly began to feel unsettled all the way up until the point where I entered the house where upon I stopped feeling unsettled and started feeling s**t scared, the game is dark and creepy, however with the simple on screen tutorials I was finding it easy enough to navigate through my surroundings with minimal effort which to be honest allowed me to fully concentrate on being really scared.
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I found the darkness of the game to be quite straining on the eyes and that coupled with the fear began to make my eyes and head hurt so it was time for another tea and a quick break. Once I got back to it the game started to move along from jump scare to jump scare building the tension gradually as I went along and then I started to realise that although VR might help with my camera issues I'm not sure I would be able to handle the atmosphere without going into a fully on hysterical fear meltdown.
Before calling it quits for the night I managed to make it to the second encounter in the game and this showed me a little of how the game develops the story along as you play, using encounters and actions to active the next part of the story, which sometimes means in order to move my character forward I have to make my character go back through the level to active the next thing to open a door or cause the next encounter. Finally I managed to acquire a gun before I finished playing and I found that once again I was fighting the games camera sensitivity, but by this point I was fully aware that it was probably my own short comings rather than the games, but also in these final moments of gameplay I fired said gun and I found the gun to feel to unrealistic for my liking, I was madly clicking away at the fire button on my controller but my character seemed to be counting Mississippi's in-between each shot rather than matching my input. This I found pulled me out of my emersion a little, I found myself thinking that Alloy from Horizon Zero Dawn would be able to fire arrows into my target quicker than my resident evil character was firing his gun into them.
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Once I finished my time on the game I was exhausted emotionally and through the tensing up in fear physically too, however I still wanted to see more; the story had gripped me already. I do think though that I would enjoy watching the game more than I would actually playing the game myself but that may change when I eventually try the game in VR or possible get better with first person perspective but that's a long shot.
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