BA3: Contextual Studies

The History Behind Resident Evil

Since my last post our group has decided its best to try and focus on 1 primary game as opposed to 2 and then link it in with others if it is applicable. My game remains as Resident Evil 1.

Today I have been looking through the internet for accurate “histories” of the game, how its genre was developed, where it came from, why it was made, what its influences were and much, much more. 

The first thing I looked for was the history. I came across an interesting article piece published by IGN titled “IGN Presents the History of Resident Evil”, which of course is completely relevant to my studies. I have highlighted crucial information that will further aid my research.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“It was early 1994 when Mikami began his project, and the next chapter of console gaming was still unclear. Sega was preparing multiple new systems, and newcomer Sony was still many ways away from their launch, with many doubting their ability to knock down the industry's titans. Mikami had six months to develop a concept and deliver it to Capcom. Perhaps tiring of the licensed fare he had spent so much of his career working on, he chose instead to target the growing number of older gamers craving more mature games.

"I wanted to do a really scary game," Mikami remarked in a 1996 interview, "not ghosts or crap like that, but real monsters that you could see that would come and attack." The horror genre had been around in games forever, but they tended to either lack that visceral element, or they veered too strongly toward action to be truly scary. Everything from George Romero's Living Dead movies to Alien and Jaws were named as influences, as well as an old Capcom RPG called Sweet Home – a game that might have played like a typical RPG, but had the perfect setting and premise.

Mikami's biggest influence was the one he was least vocal about, a French game called Alone in the Dark. It was from this classic that he was able to find the right template for the gameplay. The blend of dynamic pre-rendered backgrounds and real-time 3D characters could show off the strengths of new hardware, and balance of adventure and action fit perfectly with the zombie survival scenario. The Lovecraftian fantasy elements and spooky supernatural tones might have turned the Capcom director off, but the influence was more than obvious. When Ed Semrad asked Mikami in an interview how his game would be different from Alone in the Dark, he answered simply, "The graphics kick ass."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The key thing to remember about this project which has been hard to remain focused on is that we aren't simply doing analysis’s of American and Japanese “stuff”, we are looking at the crossovers between the two, finding out if and how they influenced each other, looking for evidence of 1 within the other and how it affects the culture. By picking media in general (films, books, games and literature) we can be sure that our references and points are incredibly solid and valid. 

 

Locating & Refining Western & Eastern Research

Getting a basic structure to our group presentation hasn’t been easy. Mine and Sophie's research is depended heavily on what Olive and Stacey find out with their literature and film based research because whqat Sophie and myself wanted was to place what they had found into our game analysis’s and relate it back to their research in a sort of "backing up what they said" sort of way.

With a basic understanding on what everyone in the group is doing, Stacey and myself (unfortunately due to group illness & living miles away from each other we weren't able to do this part as a group but we did keep the others clued in to what the “plan” is) were able to pile together the groups research and construct a basic plan of how our presentation would link together based on our research and key ideas/thoughts/findings. 

The list was compiled with key points that link between all our different parts of research. Here is the list so far: (KEY: Stacey, Myself, Olive, Sophie, Links (what will link research together betweenmain parts of the presentation)  

• Brief intro gothic (what started it)

• Define horror/terror

• The difference between Japan horror and American "horror" aka terror.

• Talk about JapanAmerica (nicely links the 2 together!)

• Discuss Stephen/lovecraft
  
  

THE LINK: "lovecraftian" is a term coined to express fantasy, supernatural and spooky elements in horror. Leads into how this was an influence to resident evil (all acording to the IGN article). 

• Brief intro into Resi - Mention Capcom Japan/Biohazard/Japanese roots

• Link to AMERICAN films (Alien, George A. Romero) & how they influenced Resi

• Resi influenced by WESTERN game Alone in the Dark - talk about how it helped create the survival horror genre

• Talk about the main JAPANESE influence, Sweet Home (RPG made my Capcom before Resi)

• Link resi (AND OTHER GAMES, Dead Space etc) horror genre to JAPANESE horror in film through screenshots showing the similarities in the Japanese's perception of horror. 
  
  

THE LINK: I finish with shot comparisons between Ju-on/Ringu & Resi/Dead Space (& any other games). This then leaves Olive open to introduce her film section of the presentation.

• American and Japanese influences on horror films.

•  Key point to make: Silent Hill is an AMERICAN film based on a JAPANESE game > Silent Hill film links to Stacey and Jess to talk about the mist point

• Olive continues with Silent Hill talking about how it has a creepy girl which could be a direct influence from Japanese horror films Ju-on/Ringu although the Silent Hill film is AMERICAN (shows the Jhorror infecting the Ahorror market)
  
  

THE LINK: Sophie makes the link of creepy girls (JAPANESE horror trait) to her AMERICAN game, FEAR.

• FEAR has creepy girls like JAPANESE horror films, but is an AMERICAN game, evidence of JAPANESE influence?

•  Alan Wake links back to Stephen King stuff with mist - take it further 

Okay, so where does this leave me?

Well, I really was at a loss for  my part of the presentation. I had SO much I could research that I became lost and often found myself going off on an complete tangent with regards to the “Western/Eastern” cross over theme.

Luckily, making this rough presentation list acted as a guide and Stacey and I were able to pick out our key areas and important notes to discuss and we were also able to link them together to make an outline on how the presentation will actually run. 

My next move is to take the key points that are listed under my section of the presentation guide and find out as much as I can on those main ideas. That is what I plan to do next :D

Image: http://botchweed.com/game-news/resident-evil-retrospective/