The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater – Throwback 10

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

'It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive. Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

'His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

'But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

'For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.'

In previous book related throwbacks I’ve mostly been covering books that I’ve already read, or books that I’ve wanted to read for a long while, and have used their anniversaries as an excuse to finally get around to reading them. And whilst I’ve enjoyed them all and seen why they’ve been considered classics, this is the first book I’ve actually regretted sitting down to read, as The Raven Boys left me feeling baffled more than anything else.

The book, the first in a series of four, follows the character of Blue Sergeant, a totally plain and boring teenage girl who is way more than plain and boring. Blue has moved to the small town of Henrietta in Virginia, where she’s staying with a group of female relatives who all have psychic powers. Unfortunately, Blue doesn’t follow in the family footsteps, and doesn’t really have any psychic abilities of her own, though she does have a power that makes other psychics around her more powerful. Whilst living with her psychic relatives, it gets predicted that if Blue kisses her true love they will die.

When attending a traditional watching of spirits that pass through the town, Blue ends up talking to the spirit of a teenage boy named Gansey. Her aunt tells her that the spirits are of people who are doomed to die within the next year, and that the spirit of Gansey is her true love. Blue discovers that Gansey is a real boy, Richard Gansey III, who’s part of a gang of teens called the Raven Boys, who all attend one of the local rich schools. Over the course of the book we learn that most of the group have dark, tragic, and mysterious pasts that will absolutely become big plot points across the series.

Despite wanting to stay away from the boys so as not to fall in love with Gansey and kiss him (because it will kill him), Blue ends up befriending the group and joins them on their mission to search one of the mystical ley lines around the town. The Raven Boys are searching for the body of Welsh king Owain Glendower, who is thought to be near the ley line. In their search they find a magical forest that can talk to them, learn that one of the group is secretly a ghost, and get involved in other supernatural shenanigans.

The Raven Boys starts off being one book: a story about a teenage girl who has grown up being told that if she kisses her true love then he’ll die, and is trying to deal with that. The book is about whether or not Gansey is actually her true love, whether she should stay away from him or not, and all kinds of teen love angst drama. Whilst I get that love angst is a big part of YA stories this one feels a bit off to me. It’s not a love triangle type situation, or a will-they-won’t-they, it’s something a bit different. The way I see it, there are some really simple solutions for Blue here. Blue can either stay away from Gansey, or just not kiss him. Call me weird, but you can be in love with someone, be in a relationship with someone, and not kiss them. There are happily married people who are asexual and don’t have sex, so I’m sure you can be in a relationship with someone and just not kiss them. It doesn’t make it a lesser relationship or anything. But alas, teen drama needs to be had.

Another thing that I found odd about the book is the sudden shift towards over-the-top and confusing supernatural plots. The Raven Boys are searching for an ancient Welsh king who may or may not be dead, and is for some reason buried in the US. Magic talking forests exist. One of the boys turns out to secretly be a ghost. There are also domestic abuse plots thrown in, dangerous gunmen, people doing strange rituals, human sacrifices… it all feels very cluttered and not a huge amount is really explained or makes sense. Perhaps this is something that ends up making more sense if you continue reading the rest of the series, but as it stands I find myself hard pressed to carry on with it.

I’d heard a lot of good things about The Raven Boys, and it had been on my list of stuff to read for a while, and whilst it seems to be a popular YA series it definitely seems to be a niche one. It tries to do a lot of things and uses as many tropes and cliche’s as it can in an attempt to try and tick all the boxes. Unfortunately, this results in a book that fell far short of being great for me.

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Action Comics #1046 - Comic Review

 

Originally published on Patreon

The latest issue of Action Comics gets things ready for the big, final showdown on Warworld as the story comes to a close in the next, special issue. But first, Superman finds himself fighting his way towards a fabled artefact, buried deep beneath the planet's surface, hoping that it will provide him with enough power to take on Mongul.

I really liked this issue, due in large part to the fact that the focus was solely on Clark, rather than it being split between the different teams as has been done in previous issues. Yes, there's more going on elsewhere as the rest of his team, and the resistance movement that has formed around them, fights for their freedoms. But Clark is the most important one, and his mission is the one that may most turn the tables; and so focusing on him makes a lot of sense.

But other than that, this issue is also one of the best for showing how wonderfully kind of a person he is. Whilst fighting to get this ancient artefact he is acknowledged as having never killed anyone, something that sets him apart on Warworld, and whilst that seems to stand him in good stead with the forces protecting the artefact it's his kindness that wins the day. He risks his life to protect this being, this energy-like creature that may not even really be alive in the way that we understand it; and that proves that he's the kind of man worthy of wielding this power.

This is, what I think, most encapsulates what makes Superman he kind of hero he is. He's fighting for his life, fighting to get a power so that an evil despot doesn't, fighting to save the lives of millions, but risks it all to save one more person. That's who Superman is, that's what makes him worthy of the name.

It feels like this was a nice issue to remind readers of who he is, of what he stands for because for months we've seen him leading a crusade to free an alien world. We've seen him fighting to overthrow a tyrant. He's been leading a resistance group, fighting in arenas, and he's less like the man we think of as Superman all the time. But he's still him. He still does the right thing and is a kind and decent man. And next issue he's going to finish this fight.

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DC Mech #2 - Comic Review

 

Originally published on Patreon

DC Mech is a strange series, and this second issue already starts to show the cracks as things start to grate a little as the story falls into some rather annoying tropes.

One of the biggest things that makes this second issue drag is that because this is the first time some of these heroes are coming together in this universe it means that they have to fight each other. Because god forbid we have a team origin story where we don't have the misunderstanding fight. I know it's just the done thing for these kinds of stories, but I'm bored of it. I don't need to see heroes clashing because they don't know if they can work together or not yet.

This issue does introduce us to some cool new mech designs, however. The Green Lantern mech is a transforming jet fighter that turns into a humanoid suit, that has two pilots inside it; Hal Jordan and John Stewart. The suit isn't based on any kind of Oan technology, however, but is instead powered by the Star Heart and Alan Scott's equipment.

There's also Wonder Woman's mech, which is an ancient battle suit that has a Grecian warrior design, covered in gold and wielding a sword and shield. One of the cooler parts of this mech is that where others work along the same lines, with pilots in their seats working controls, Diana is standing inside a special chamber where the maps her movement onto the machine, making it faster and more fluid in combat.

Whilst our heroes fight against each other and do the typical 'I can't trust you even though you're clearly a good guy' type rubbish the villains launch the next stage of their assault on Earth, with Kalibak and the Female Furies attacking a Luthor compound.

The series had a somewhat interesting start, but I'm beginning to feel like perhaps the conceit should have maybe been done as a one-shot rather than a miniseries. Things are already starting to feel a bit stale, and this makes for the second drastic re-imagining of the Justice League where the big villain is Darkseid (the other being Jurassic League).

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Poltergeist – Throwback 40

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Ghost stories are a popular genre of film, and over the last few decade they’ve begun to come back into popularity, with stories of families being haunted by sinister spirits and having to call upon help from ghost hunters being a plot used in big franchises like The Conjuring and Insidious. But one of the first films to do this, and to become a big hit, is Poltergeist, which has just turned forty years old.

Telling the story of the Freeling family, the film introduces us to this average American family living in a new housing estate in California. The father, Steve (Craig T. Nelson) works for the company building the new community, and got to move into one of the very first houses along with his wife Diane (JoBeth Williams), his teenage daughter Dana (Dominique Dunne), and two young children Robbie (Oliver Robins) and Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke). Strange events begin to happen around the house, such as furniture moving on its own, and the television acting strangely, hinting at something sinister in the home with them.

The small events begin to build, and the benign haunting soon starts to turn sinister, with a tree coming to life and attacking the sleeping children. When the family try to flee the home, Carol Anne is pulled into a portal inside the closet, vanishing. The family search for the girl, but find no trace for her apart from her voice, which comes through the television. The family are forced to call upon a paranormal expert and her team in order to try and save their daughter.

The plot for Poltergeist is one that is fairly familiar, because it’s one that’s been used a lot since Poltergeist came out four decades ago. And considering how well received the film was it’s no surprise that it’s been emulated time and time again over the years. However, the film wasn’t always what it ended up being, as it began life as something very different.

Poltergeist was not originally supposed to be a film about ghosts, instead it was envisioned as a horror sequel to Steven Spielberg‘s 1977 sci-fi film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, titled ‘Night Skies’. The script told the story of a family farm being terrorised by a group of alien visitors, and would lean much more heavily into the horror elements than science fiction. Whilst MGM loved the idea, and wanted to make it, Spielberg would eventually change his mind about the project, and would shift towards a story about a more friendly alien visitor, creating E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial instead. However, he had agreed to help produce a horror film for the studio.

Instead of directing the film himself, which he was unable to do as he was working on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, he recommended that horror director Tobe Hooper helm the project instead. Whilst Hooper was happy to make a horror film with Spielberg, he was less excited by the science fiction side, and suggested turning the film into a ghost story. Bringing in writers Michael Grais and Mark Victor, the film was reworked into the story that fans know and love.

And people did love Poltergeist, as it became an instant hit upon its release in cinemas. The movie made $78 million in the United States alone, making it the highest grossing horror film that year, beating out films like The Thing. Whilst some horror films, like The Thing, were met with a poor reception and built their following in the subsequent years, Poltergeist was given rave reviews as soon as it was released, with publications such as The New York Times giving it high praise and promoting it to its readers. The movie would go on to be nominated for a number of awards, including Oscars, and eventually won a number of Saturn Awards and BAFTAs.

However, not everything was great for Poltergeist, as soon after the film was released there was talk that Tobe Hooper was not the true director of the film, with some claiming that Spielberg, the producer, was more of a co-director. Some claims even said that he was the ‘real’ director of the movie and Hooper was merely a presence on set. These claims would go on to dog the film for decades, with cast and crew frequently being asked about it in interviews even to this day.

Another thing that ‘haunts’ the film, and that I feel almost can’t be ignored when talking about Poltergeist is the film’s ‘curse’. There have been claims that the film is a cursed production thanks in part to one of the key scenes making use of real human skeletons in place of plastic ones because it was cheaper. The idea of the curse was continued when four actors connected to the film and its sequels died. Julian Beck, who appeared in the sequel, passed away from stomach cancer shortly after working on Poltergeist II: The Other Side. Will Sampson, who also appeared in the sequel, died during a heart-lung transplant procedure after being sick for a while.

But the most tragic stories centre on the two Freeling daughters. Dominique Dunne, who played Dana, was tragically murdered by a former partner at her Hollywood home in November of 1982, just a few months after the film’s release; which is the reason why Dana would not appear in the sequels, as the studio did not want to recast the character. Heather O’Rourke, who plays the young Carol Anne was the only member of the Freeling family to appear in all three films, but sadly passed away a few months before the third film’s release due to suffering a cardiac arrest following emergency bowel surgery, dying at the age of just twelve. Due to these tragedies, the film, and the series in general, was seen as cursed, and there have been many articles written about it, as well as documentary television specials.

Despite these tragic connections, Poltergeist has remained a classic of horror cinema, and is beloved by many fans of the genre and casual viewers alike. It has had a huge impact upon horror, changing the way that haunted house stories have been told ever since, inspiring other stories in the decades since it was first released. Whatever you believe about the curse, or the directorial rumours, it can’t be denied that Poltergeist is deserving of its iconic status.

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Harley Quinn #21 - Comic Review

 

Originally published on Patreon

The more this story-line goes on the less and less it becomes a Harley story. Whilst it is enjoyable to read, Harley is relegated to being a part of a team here, and the book reads more like a story from the pages of Suicide Squad rather than Harley's own book. 

A large reason for this is because it becomes pretty clear who the lead of this story is in this issue; Luke Fox. The book is filled with narration from Luke's point of view, with his opening and closing the book. We follow him for much of the story, and his moral and emotional dilemma is the big focus here that Harley has to help with. Plus, he debuts a new, unnamed, super hero identity.

Whilst I'm not against this, and have bee enjoying the story since it first began, the longer its been going on the less it feels like it should be in the pages of Harley Quinn. Perhaps this is because the stories up to now have been very focused on her, with the stories having happened because of her actions, or to people wanting to get some kind of revenge against her; but even then I look at other series and even when the characters team up with others the headline character always maintains the focus and gets the biggest part.

That's not been happening here, however, as this issue hardly features the titular vigilant at all. This results in an issue that might work well as part of the whole, but feels a little odd on its own. I think it's a good thing that the Harley Quinn issues are coming weekly at the moment, as it means that this doesn't have too long to take up spotlight before the next part of the story begins.

Overall, this is an okay entry in this particular story, and it helps to get all of the pieces in place for the finale in next week's annual; but it could have been better. Hopefully Harley will get to come out on top in the final part, justifying the reason for this being a story in her series.

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Deathstroke Inc #12 - Comic Review

 

Originally published on Patreon

There's a lot of action in the latest issue of Deathstroke Inc as the masked mercenary comes face to face with his first superhero, Green Arrow.

Slade, having been used and thrown away by the military after the experiment he was a part of was deemed to be a failure, has agreed to murder the man responsible to prevent him from revealing the secrets of the programme to the public. Whilst Slade could be seen to take the job on as a means to make money, and as part of his duty for his country, it becomes very clear that it's also because he harbours a lot of trauma, and wants revenge.

This is a big reason why when faced with overwhelming odds, with a vigilante able to counter his every move and to actually hurt him, he still refuses to back down. It's interesting to see a relatively young Slade, one who hasn't fully become the super human killer we know he ends up, starting to head down this path. His stubbornness at giving in, his always wanting to fulfil a contract no matter the odds, we see it rooted in a much more personal stake here in this story.

This is also the issue where he chooses to take on the name Deathstroke, speaking it for the first time when Green Arrow demands to know who he is. And it feels like a big moment, because it's here that you realise Slade really has become Deathstroke, that he's not going to back down or give in. That small moment becomes the end of the soldier and family man that we've seen struggling to find his place in the world in the early part of this story.

These character moments are scattered throughout the tons of action that make up the bulk of this issue, where we get to see Slade fighting Ollie for the first time, taking on government agents, soldiers, helicopters, and more as he tries to take down his target. It's not the biggest fight we've seen Slade in in regards to scale, but it still feels big, with each moment escalating more and more until the big, dramatic conclusion.

I wasn't sure if I was going to like a Deathstroke origin series when this arc first began, as when they're not done well character origin stories can end up being some of the most boring ones around; but this series does it incredibly well. For a few issues now I've reached the end and been upset that I've got to wait another month to find out what happens next; and that's the sign of a great comic.

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Godzilla vs Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #5 – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The final issue of Godzilla Vs. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is finally here, and it feels kind of good that the mini-series has come to a close. As a fan of both Godzilla, and Power Rangers, I was looking forward to this series, and was excited to see these two franchises come together. Unfortunately, thanks to a threadbare story, little to no variation in what’s happened issue to issue, and a lack of any real characters, this has ended up being one of the comics I look forward to least each month.

Over the last four issues the Power Rangers followed their evil adversary, the moon witch Rita Repulsa, to another dimension as she used an ancient artefact to leave her own world seeking out new places to conquer. However, despite finding a world without Power Rangers, they did not find a world free from conflict, as both groups landed in a version of Angel Grove under attack from alien invaders, and giant monsters called Kaiju. And since the first issue set up the basic premise of the story it’s been hard to keep track of what’s been happening. In the broad strokes it’s easy, there have been giant robots fighting giant monsters, but as to which issue had which bits, I’d be hard pressed to tell you.

The series has been one long monster fight, and that’s essentially what we get more of here. The Rangers and Godzilla manage to find a way to beat King Ghidorah, not through any tactic or by gaining anything special in helping them in the fight, but simply by shooting him over and over with their big weapons. There’s nothing here that screams originality, especially because we’ve seen it in pretty much every other issue so far when they’ve fought against all the other monsters, but also because it feels no different from every other Zord fight that has taken place across the last three decades and 900 plus episodes of the show. They win simply because they keep on fighting even when they’re being beaten, because they never gave up, and because they kept on shooting.

Other Power Rangers comics have offered readers stories where the Rangers are given character, where they struggle through adversity and have to overcome stuff by learning and evolving. They have conversations about their lives, their hopes, their worries. In this book, the Rangers are barely more than one dimensional. Other than Tommy being given different things to do because he’s Tommy and Tommy is always the special one, none of the Rangers do anything that feels like that particular Ranger. None of their personalities are on show, and you could swap around any of their lines to any other Ranger and it’d read exactly the same. There’s nothing here that makes me think of these characters, other than their costumes and robots, and the Power Rangers have always been more than that, even back at the beginning of the show when they had nothing more than a slight gimmick each.

Godzilla feels a bit better served, but only really because he has very little personality to get wrong. He does what he does in the films and other comics (fights other big monsters) and that’s it. And whilst that’s fine and you can’t really say that it’s bad, people who love the Godzilla franchise will tell you that the best films are the ones where interesting things are happening around the monsters. Some of my favourite films in the series have great stories with fun characters that just happen to include Godzilla. But it seems like this story is expecting to be considered that way simply because Godzilla is here, because nothing much else really happens.

After five issues of build up, the conclusion comes incredibly abruptly, and you get two pages of any kid of wrap-up to bring the story to a close. This results in the ending feeling incredibly rushed, and I can’t help but feel that perhaps if a monster fight or two had been lost or trimmed down along the way then we’d have been able to have some character moments and a proper ending. The only real highlight of the issue is the final page, which shows the shared multiverse with images from all the different Godzilla reboots and refreshes, and the various Power Rangers universes. But that’s about all. The biggest thing of note about the whole issue was one of the variant covers including the Zeo Megazord amongst Mighty Morphin Power Rangers stuff for some unexplained reason.

The art on this issue is once again provided by Freddie Williams III, and is perfectly fine. Everything looks good, the action looks dynamic, and it’s great to see these iconic monsters and machines sharing the same panel. But decent artwork alone isn’t enough to save a book that has been testing my ability to care for a while now.

Overall, this is a series that had a great concept, but started to drop in quality very quickly out of the gate. Reading it all at once in graphic novel form, or with all of the issues waiting for you, might result in this being an okay, middle of the road kind of story. However, reading it month to month, seeing the same basic thing of monster arrives, they fight, beat it, new monster, with no real characters or story, had ended up with this being one of the biggest disappointments. As a fan of both franchises this felt like an easy win, but it ended up being a major loss.

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Detective Comics #1063 - Comic Review

 

Originally published on Patreon

The second issue of Ram V's new run on Detective Comics continues to play out as a strange, almost dream-like mystery where you're hard pressed to know what's going on. Batman is investigating a series of strange events across the city where people are being changed into monsters via magic and music.

In this issue he tries to discover more information, first by visiting the reformed Harvey Dent (who's sporting an odd new look), and then by visiting the criminal Maestro so that he can examine the unusual music box Batman has discovered. 

We get hints as to what might be happen by following Batman, with him learning more about the music box and the strange 'black noise' that it emits, which may explain the drastic effects it seems to have on people. But the biggest information reveals comes from following the members of the Orgham family; who we learn are part of the Arkham family.

It looks like the Orghams feel like they have a claim to Gotham, especially the old Arkham properties, and are coming to claim the city with magic and demons.

I'm sure many of us have seen Batman go up against various strange threats over the years, aliens, gods, demons, and villains from other worlds, but it still feels a little odd when the fantastical happens in a book like Detective Comics. Whilst there may be a more grounded explanation to come later in the story, for now it looks like magic and demons are the big thing behind the Orgham family. And whilst this absolutely fits within the DC Universe, it feels slightly jarring to see Batman investigating the case the same way he would any other crime.

I also found Harvey Dent to be a little odd here too. Having seen him in Task Force Z recently I knew that he'd reformed and was trying to do better, but there he at least looked like the Harvey Dent you'd know. Here he's sporting a new look, with a grey streak in his hair, and a fancy golden mask across the scarred part of his face. As far as I'm aware, this is the first appearance of this new look, and it certainly adds to the feeling of unease and weirdness, as Dent's new golden face brings forth images from classic mythology.

The art on the book is decent, and it certainly helps to set the mood and the tone tanks to the way it's coloured. There are times where the book begins to feel like it might be messing with reality and the way you're seeing things, due in large part to the way the colours start to shift, or the way characters are drawn; so the art here is definitely a big art of the storytelling process.

I'm not sure how I feel about the new series yet, and I think I'm going to have to have a bit more of the story before I can make my mind up. There are some interesting things here, and some stuff that feels a bit weirder than I was expecting. Hopefully by the time more issues are out I'll have a more solid opinion.

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The Swamp Thing #16 - Comic Review

 

Originally published on Patreon

The final issue of The Swamp Thing feels like something of an anomaly for this series, and for the character of Swamp Thing in general; because it ends on a note of hope and happiness. From everything I've read for the character in the past this feels like a rarity. Swamp Thing seems built to suffer, to be depressed and in pain, but here the series ends in such a way that if he were to never appear again you could feel satisfied and happy with how his story ends.

Not a huge amount happens, the Parliament of Gears must make a choice this issue, with two options for it to pick as its avatar, each with a different outlook on humanity and how to use the power it has. Swamp Thing stands in the middle, urging the parliament to make the right choice.

Whilst it's not an action packed issue, with not a huge amount happening in it it is the culmination of multiple issues that have all been building towards this; and as such it feels a lot bigger than the individual parts.

And as far as endings go it's decent. I enjoyed it, and overall I liked the entire series. I've mentioned in previous The Swamp Thing reviews that I was growing tired of the series a little, and whilst it was an enjoyable read I am glad that it has finally come to an end. I think perhaps it's a series that may sit better with me if ever I choose to reread it again in the future as a single collected piece, rather than waiting month to month for each chapter.

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Resident Evil (2002) – Throwback 20

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The Resident Evil series is a franchise that has some pretty frightening moments in it, with games, films, books, and comics, that have some truly memorably frightening scares. But perhaps one of the most frightening things that I’ve only just come to realise is that the hugely popular 2002 remake of the original game came out only five years after the first game, but has now turned twenty years old. The franchise continues to frighten with simply the passage of time.

The original Resident Evil game was a huge success around the world, and many would argue that it was the true birth of the Survival Horror genre of games. Thanks to the popularity, it spawned a number of sequels over the next few years, with Resident Evil 2, and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis both joining the original on the Sony Playstation. There were also a few spin-off games, like Resident Evil: Survivor on the Playstation, and Resident Evil: Gaiden on the Gameboy Color. The series made a big jump in 2000 when Resident Evil: Code Veronica debut on the Dreamcast, with improved graphics and game-play. By now the series was well established and well loved.

When it was released in 2001, Nintendo announced that the Resident Evil games would be coming to their new console, the GameCube. And whilst it was initially planned that the first three games and Resident Evil: Code Veronica would be coming to the console as ports, Shinji Mikami, the designer and director of the original game, felt that the first game hadn’t aged well enough to be put onto the GameCube and that it could even put off new players. Instead, a bold new plan was devised: a completely new version of the game that would not only push the new consoles graphical capability, but would allow Mikami to make a game closer to his original vision. 

The story for the game would largely remain the same; it would still star the characters of Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield, Barry Burton, Rebecca Chambers, and Albert Wesker as they made their way through the vast Spencer Mansion, hidden deep within the Arklay Mountains. Having entered the surrounding area looking for their missing compatriots, the members of the Special Tactics and Rescue Squad (S.T.A.R.S.) end up running for their lives from monster dogs, taking refuge within a large mansion estate. However, inside they discover zombies, giant spiders, and other monstrous creatures created by a bio-weapon gone wrong.

Instead of simply recreating the original game with improved graphics, the programming team, which consisted of only four people, redesigned the game from the ground up. The Spencer Estate was given new areas for players to explore. The series’ iconic puzzles were included, but went through some drastic changes that would challenge even veteran players. As well as the new areas, story that was cut from the original was reintroduced in this game, introducing players to the character of Lisa Trevor for the first time.

These changes offered something new for returning players, and meant that even those who had completed the game dozens of times and knew the Spencer Estate like the back of their hand would be facing something of a challenge. The game also came with much improved performances from the voice actors. And whilst the original was well known for its bad acting and terrible dialogue (something that gave that game a lot of charm), the new game never ended up feeling ridiculous like that original did; and this helped to greatly increase the sense of horror.

To begin with the team tried to create the game using computer graphics animation, but soon realised that this would be too challenging for the new console. Instead, they went back to a similar approach to the original, where 3D models would be placed into environments with pre-rendered backgrounds, albeit ones with much better graphical quality. The game also kept the fixed camera style of the original, although there were parts where they camera was able to move in a more dynamic way, enhancing the game-play experience and helping to present a more movie like product.

The team also gave the combat system a bit of an overhaul, and added new weapons that would allow players to escape from enemies as they were being grabbed; this helped with the increased difficulty. The difficulty itself was something that took the team a while to perfect, as some wished to make the game tougher by adding invisible enemies, though this was deemed to be too hard on players. However, the game did introduce a new mechanic where if certain zombies were not burnt when killed they would mutate, and come back as faster, tougher, and more vicious creatures. The game also decreased the amount of ammo that could be found, and increased the number of enemies, forcing players to have to carefully consider when to fight and when to run.

Upon its release the Resident Evil Remake, or REmake, received critical acclaim from most journalists and reviewers, and the improved graphics and tougher game-play quickly had the game being referred to as one of the scariest video games ever made. The new game not only showcased the graphical capabilities of the GameCube, but showed a vast difference in it and the original. Even now, twenty years on, the game is still held up as one of the most visually impressive entries in the series. Even though there are more powerful, and graphically superior games in the series, the quality of design, and the tight, claustrophobic nature of the game still keeps it looking great two decades later. Since its release the game has been re-released a number of times, with a version on the Wii, a HD remaster being released across several consoles in 2015, including the Playstation 3 &4, and the Xbox One, and most recently, a version on the Nintendo Switch.

Despite being twenty years old (cue internal screaming) this version of Resident Evil remains one of the high points of the franchise, and is often held up as one of the best horror games of all time. And for fans of the original, it offers a great alternative to the charming yet clunky game that started it all.

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