Resident Evil 7 was meant to breathe new life into the legendary zombie horror series. The developers from Capcom promised to radically redesign the game mechanics and make the franchise truly scary again. They kept their promise. found out how the Japanese managed to release the most creepy and naturalistic horror of our time.

Restarting evil

Ethan Winters rushes along the endless Louisiana highway, squeezing everything from the powerful engine of his rare Dodge. Three years ago, his wife Mia disappeared without a trace, and suddenly he received a laconic letter from her with a proposal to take her from a certain Baker farm.

With the Bakers themselves, the matter is clearly unclean - the whole family disappeared simultaneously with the protagonist's wife, and since then their vast estate has been enveloped in legends of ghosts and monsters. However, this does not bother the protagonist, although he, like any American, seems to be aware of the whole danger of illegal entry into private property.

It is curious that all of the above is more like not a new part of the cult Resident Evil series, but rather like the outset of the standard horror movie of the 1980s, which were riveted in batches by masters of the genre like Wes Craven. It is possible that it was from there that the Capcom developers drew ideas for the new part of the series, which clearly fell into stagnation after a very mediocre previous episode.

Released in 2012, Resident Evil 6 was scolded for its obvious bias in the direction of a shooter and crooked references to the original. Despite the presence of several campaigns for cult characters such as special forces officer Chris Redfield, presidential security guard Leon Kennedy and mysterious beauty Ada Wong, the game has completely stopped scaring. Ordinary opponents died from a couple of machine gun fires, there were always enough cartridges, and all proceedings with giant bosses designed to inspire horror turned into a banal pressing of several buttons.

Meanwhile, the horror genre was actively mastered by daring competitors in the person of Outlast with a completely defenseless protagonist who always escapes from enemies. Moreover, the legendary game maker and director released an ominous demo version of Silent Hills - a continuation of the equally cult horror series and, in combination, the main competitor of Resident Evil.

Frame: the game "Resident Evil 7"

Capcom gritted their teeth angrily and announced a global restart of the franchise. And this decision seems to have given the world the best horror game for last years... And Silent Hills joined the ranks of projects that never saw the light of day.

Mind and defenselessness

The new Resident Evil immediately captivates with its atmosphere. Inappropriate shootouts and chaotic running through the levels are a thing of the past, and the sticky atmosphere of real horror has come to the fore, the best examples of which are gathering dust on the cherished retro shelf with VHS tapes.

The faded Louisiana sun and fetid swampy haze are quickly replaced by an ominous abandoned house that makes you shudder from every rustle and creak. The injected horror more than compensates for some imperfections in graphics, and if you play in PlayStation VR, you can do it before meeting the first enemy.

By the way, it does not keep itself waiting long and convincingly demonstrates the main advantage of Resident Evil over the same Outlast, where players could not resist the villains at all. Here everything is much more subtle - it seems that you can beat them with an ax or shoot with a pistol, but this does not always help. You have to frantically run in circles and dodge their crushing blows, which involuntarily resembles the silly behavior of the heroes of the already mentioned horror movies of the 1980s.

At the same time, the fights are luxuriously animated - opponents knock the hero down, cut off his limbs in one fell swoop, or stick a knife into his stomach. The first encounter with the head of the sinister family is completely worthy of the game analogue of the Oscar - he laughingly takes two clips from the Glock into his head and grumbles in response to Ethan's futile attempts to kill him.

In general, killing each member of the mutated redneck family is a local analogue of a boss fight. Moreover, this is done several times and in places strictly designated by the plot, and the rest of the time you have to run away or hide from them. This gives the game all the same charm of classic horror films - when Ethan frantically slams doors and winds circles along mossy corridors, and a bawling giant rushes behind with a shovel, his heart literally breaks out of his chest. Moreover, the hero dies almost from a couple of blows, and saving in the form of voice recorders is rare.

However, opponents who, on the contrary, must be killed are much more troublesome. Ethan is regularly attacked by abominable mold monsters and giant swamp mosquitoes unexpectedly climbing out of the walls. The first can be eliminated only by full dismemberment or a couple of accurate headshots, and the swarm of the second is best burned with a flamethrower.

But this is not easy to do. The game regularly reminds that Ethan is not a special forces officer Chris Redfield or an agent of the secret service Leon Kennedy, and therefore he regularly puts scarce bullets into milk, takes a destructively long aim and, when injured, moves at the speed of a turtle. This adds to the gameplay hardcore, but sometimes makes you throw the gamepad into the walls in impotent anger.

Frame: the game "Resident Evil 7"

In between fights, the hero will have to wander through numerous locations and solve puzzles. At these moments, the seventh part resembles the original trilogy as much as possible - in order not to miss an important subject, you have to scrupulously examine the decoration of each room and read numerous notes. This is quite interesting, since the developers have worked hard on the decorations. The Baker's possessions are vast, and each location is remarkable in its own way - the head of the family loves to fill the refrigerator with human flesh and shoves the victims' bloody things in the corners, and his old wife enmeshes the house in the swamp with disgusting cocoons and webs.

Sometimes on the way of the hero come across VHS tapes and VCRs, with which you can play for other guests of the Baker's house. Usually, their misadventures end with a heart-rending scream, after which another stump flies into the chamber, but such inserts competently inject tension.

A limited inventory has also migrated from the first three parts to the new Resident Evil, so the player willy-nilly has to combine items and get rid of unnecessary junk, storing it in the chests next to the checkpoints.

Closer to the end of the puzzle, there are fewer and fewer, and the number of enemies, on the contrary, increases. Many have already considered this a departure from the canons of the genre and accused Capcom of trying to turn the game into a standard rail shooter, but to be honest, after several hours of helpless running around and frantically searching for bullets, it is a real pleasure to shoot monsters from all the cracks. At the same time, to the credit of the writers, the main plot intrigue remains unsolved until the very end, which also contains a reference to the previous parts of the series and even the seemingly destroyed Umbrella corporation, which has already delighted fans.

Virtual experiments

All of the above concerns the gameplay without PlayStation VR, but with it on your head, Resident Evil 7, without any exaggeration, turns from the most terrible and bloody horror of our time into a real work of art. For Sony, Capcom's creation is the first large-scale project in virtual reality, and the developers are trying with all their might to show that the owners of the helmet did not spend 30 thousand rubles on it in vain. In this, the game resembles the movie "Avatar", where special effects constantly flying in the face of the audience served as the best justification for unjustifiably high ticket prices.

The Baker Estate inspires a sense of primal horror.

But even this does not compare in abomination with the scene in which the head of the Baker family forces the bound Ethan to eat a festive dinner from human entrails, unclenching his jaw with a knife and shoving the pieces down his throat. After that, you involuntarily think that the developers should have released not only candles with the scent of wood and sweat, but also branded emetic bags.

Eerie creepy

Resident Evil 7 is one of best games released in recent years. Capcom breathed life into the already seemingly fading series and filled the new part with the atmosphere of real primal horror. And it's not just the suspenseful plot intrigue and the amazing Baker family. The developers have approached the matter so thoroughly that the game is generally devoid of weak points - it is perfectly balanced, varied and does not let you get bored.

And most importantly, the new Resident Evil has something that Outlast and other good first-person horror films have lacked so much. The game completely immerses you in the realities of classic slasher films and gives you the opportunity to finally give the usually invulnerable villains a cough. Or put all the cartridges in their inventory into their heads and understand that it is better to flee after all.

I could no longer be sure if the heavy breathing I was hearing came from Ethan, the protagonist of Resident Evil 7, whom I played on PS4 using a PS VR headset, or if it was my own breathing. I lean forward, sitting on my couch and craning my neck to peer around the corner in the game, trying to see if Jack has already passed (a huge mass of mutated and unkillable flesh). But as soon as I take a step around the corner, Jack, to my horror, grabs me from behind, and for a moment I felt his breath on my face. He throws me to the ground, cursing me, and raises his shovel high over his head. With a loud thud, he hits me in the leg, cutting my leg in half. For a split second, the illusion of pain appears - a sudden spasm of realism - before Ethan bleeds and dies, not only in front of my eyes, but inside of me as I sit there on the couch, dumbfounded by the power of sinking into.

To be honest, I'm not sure if the world is ready for a game like Resident Evil 7: Biohazard in VR, but that's exactly what makes it so exciting.

For years, the horror genre was synonymous with Resident Evil, until everything changed overnight. The first few games did their part to popularize the entire concept of horror games in general, but since the ubiquitous Resident Evil 4, Capcom has struggled to reclaim that magic. In an effort to rediscover what made the franchise so special in the beginning, Capcom decided to shuffle things up yet again by moving to a first-person game, and try it for the first time in VR. It's a glorious return to form that shakes up Capcom's formula enough to make the game feel fresh yet familiar.

I played the full 12+ hour story of Resident Evil 7 from start to finish in a PS VR headset and it was absolutely incredible. This is the first single player game I've seen with a fully developed and implemented story that lasts longer than a couple of hours and can be played entirely in a helmet and in first person. Movement in the game is done using a Dualshock 4 gamepad (no Move controllers support) with a set of customizable comfort options for adjusting rotational speed, FOV dimming, and several other options. Capcom has listened and built a game with options to ease motion sickness for most of the people it may affect.

However, it is worth noting that this did not affect me personally and I have never suffered from motion sickness in VR. Your playthrough may vary, and I would recommend alternating between VR and non-VR modes with occasional breaks.

The story begins with the game's protagonist, Ethan Winters, who sets out to find his missing wife Mia, which leads him to a marshland, abandoned and harassing Louisiana property of the Baker family. Once you step into this scene, everything quickly becomes clear, and all kinds of horrors try to crawl out on your escape and escape route.

If you've ever played Resident Evil, then you know they've always been in third person, which automatically makes Resident Evil 7 a game that's rooted in its roots. Yet despite this change, its tone, pace, and gameplay elements feel much more like Resident Evil than anything Capcom has released since the late 90s. And towards the end of the story, everything is very nicely tied around the main mythology of the franchise.

The story is told through real-time incidents and videotapes found that recount past events. Ethan and Mia are at the center of this whole story, but you'll play as a bunch of characters as you live this exhilarating adventure.

You will spend much of the first half of the game playing hide and seek and running away from various members of the Baker family. From Jack's whispers or shouts like "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" I still have goosebumps. But what really makes Resident Evil 7 stand out above all is its ability to create a very believable hopeless and overwhelming sense of dread.

No matter how many times I walked a certain corridor, I felt it was better to walk - not run - and hold on to my horses just in case. And it wasn't just fear of playing a horror movie, because new dangers literally lurked around every corner. Unlike the original Resident Evil, you won't find hordes of zombies here. The most big number there were about four or five enemies that I encountered at the same time and in one place, playing on the normal difficulty level, but it cannot be said that it was not difficult; each opponent was dangerous enough to kill you. In Resident Evil 7, there is not a single creature just for extras, the outcome of each collision is either life or death.

The game contains many typical genre elements. I found green herbs scattered throughout the game for healing, managing my inventory like playing Tetris, and looking everywhere for all kinds of keys and other necessary items. My gear included pistols, machine guns, a shotgun, a flamethrower, and more - complete with tons of enemies and completely unique boss fights to test my weapon skills. there were also some pretty dastardly puzzles. Some of them only needed to solve small riddles or arrange the pictures in the right order, while others were full versions of “Escape the Room” with multilevel problems to be solved.

After playing for a long time in VR, it was physically difficult for me to continue. My body ached from the exertion, and I didn't know how to move forward due to the sheer number of ways the game developed to scare me. There are all sorts of horrors jumping out of nowhere, scattered in good numbers throughout the game, along with moments of slow build-up of tension, a wonderfully haunting soundtrack, monstrously disgusting creatures that make you feel sick, and the ever-present anxiety that ammo or items will run out - all it's here. Choose your poison.

Many VR games have already managed to find this elusive sense of immersion - and presence - they rarely immerse you in the emotions of the world around you, you just see how your hand is sawed off, punched in the face, thrown through walls, everything is at the level of your psychic sensitivity. But beyond all that, Resident Evil 7 is relentless in its quest to scare you.

Resident Evil 7 outside VR looks better visually due to more high resolution and accuracy, but overall the game feels less exciting. Joystick flicking is not a good substitute for physical head movement within the game. I also noticed improvements in aiming in VR, thanks to tracking even the smallest head movements. However, there were technical distractions like emerging textures inside VR that weren't visible outside of the headset. The menus were also worth working on as they didn't always display correctly.

If you want to switch between VR and non-VR mode, you need to exit to the main menu. And for some reason, the game only displays hands and wrists in VR in most scenes - not the entire arms or the entire body of the character, but everything is fully animated outside of VR. Some of the enemies were more frustrating than frightening. Fighting small and fast flying opponents like moths or hordes of beetles was no longer fun. It was difficult to deal with them and they had no other purpose than to annoy you.

After all the experience in Resident Evil 7, it was difficult to subject the game to any serious criticism. The master of horror G.V. Lovecraft once wrote, "The oldest and most powerful form of fear is fear of the unknown," and this is absolutely true, but today in 2017, fear has a new name, and this is Resident Evil 7.

Final Score: 9/10

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard sets a new bar for horror gaming and stands side by side with some of the best titles in the franchise's history. Combining elements from the past such as slow walking, a focus on exploration, unsolvable puzzles, and a desperate desire to survive, together with heart-beating gameplay, Capcom has created a real modern classics... Resident Evil 7 uses virtual reality and proves that you don't have to look for workarounds or sacrifice to create a compelling VR experience.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard will be released on January 24, 2017, for the PlayStation 4 with support for PS VR, as well as Xbox One and PC. The developers promise support for other VR headsets in 2018.

Finally Capcom managed to really feel the universe Resident evil and put a real genre story in it. After Resident evil 7 Inevitably, one even wonders: why was this action-oriented break of 8 years long necessary at all? The answer, probably, lies in the conjuncture and other commercially profitable conditions of the interactive entertainment market. Today, when the survival horror genre is at its peak, Capcom has very gracefully slipped into this newly dissolved window with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard... We can say with complete confidence that there is nothing better with the series Resident evil hasn't happened since the release Resident evil remake in 2002.

Welcome to the family

Protagonist Resident Evil 7: Biohazard Ethan receives a letter from his wife, Mia, who went missing three years ago on a business trip. " Come for me”- said in this mystical message. So Ethan, driven by hope, goes to the sender's address in the small town of Dulvey, located in Louisiana, where a certain Baker farm is located.

After reaching the place, Ethan finds himself in a creepy house, reminiscent of the vile dwelling of the cannibal family from the painting "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".Buzzing flies overhead, the basement stench, sacks of rotting meat, dismembered animal carcasses froze in a highly questionable work of art. In other words, if Evil has an abode, then you cannot imagine a more suitable place.

Amidst this horror, Ethan manages to find his wife safe and sound. But something is wrong with the girl. Mia attacks her husband as if she were possessed by a demon; she is extremely serious and ready to tear her lover to death. The couple's desperate battle for life and death is interrupted by the head of the Baker family in order to explain to the newly arrived guests how, in fact, it is necessary to behave in the circle of the “family”. And the deeper Ethan gets to know the philosophy of the Bakers, the more he realizes that the chances of getting out of the godforsaken farm alive are practically zero.

Plot Resident Evil 7: Biohazard completely independent. There is no place for epic clashes in the fight for peace against the bioterrorist threat. This is a tragic story of ordinary people in a death trap, who with their last strength grab onto life. The bakers are as crazy as they can get. They injure themselves with incredible ease just for the sake of entertainment, and with even greater pleasure they mock the prisoners.

Ethan's constantly sore wounds, fresh blood, dirt, infection, poisonous bites from giant insects; Resident Evil 7: Biohazard ready to test your nerves for strength. Drama in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard has matured noticeably. Even at the very beginning of the game, some circumstances force me to think thoroughly: am I doing the right thing now?

The bakers are far from simple cannibal maniacs living on the outskirts of civilization, and their farm is not an ordinary cell for displacing stray tourists. It is behind these two aspects that the classic formula is hidden Resident evil... Bloodthirsty mutants roam the entire territory of the farm - the creatures of an infection called "mold", developed by unknown corporations as a new type of biological weapon. And the owners of the farm, who had a hand in the population of these monsters, can be much more dangerous than their fanged pets made of black slime.

Key difference Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is a new first-person perspective view. Of course, this concept raised many questions at first, but the end result exceeded all expectations. When cinematic graphics merge with sound design, a compelling atmosphere is created.

Must survive

The main challenge for the developers was to harmoniously integrate survival horror mechanics into the game. Typically in classic games Resident evil she worked due to a noticeable shortage of ammunition, ammunition, first-aid kits and limited inventory space. And in this sense Resident Evil 7: Biohazard retained all the fundamental elements of the genre. At the same time, the scrupulousness of the developers is pleasantly surprising, who did not just take one game from the classic series, disassemble it into cogs and transfer it to another. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard incorporates the best components from the entire classic line.

Lack of ammunition or medicinal herbs it is worth taking the genre for granted - it motivates the player to take a measured approach to the waste of invaluable supplies and try to avoid clashes with mutants. Closed spaces play into the hands of this mechanic, in which it is not so easy for Ethan to slip to a safe place and often the player has a choice: to lower the last clip into the monster or to break through, risking serious injuries, for the treatment of which it will be necessary to use the last first-aid kit. But this is the meaning of survival horror, and the more ruthless the conditions of survival, the cooler the game becomes.

When the cartridges were running out, a red veil filled the eyes, and Jack Baker hung on his tail with an ax in his hands - you get a dose of convincing primitive drive. After all, you never know what awaits you at the next door. Maybe there will be a first-aid kit or a clip of reinforced cartridges, and, perhaps, another mutant cannibal.

V Resident Evil 7: Biohazard the combination system, already forgotten by many, has also migrated. With the help of epoxy liquid, the player can create cartridges of various calibers from gunpowder, and first-aid kits from medicinal herbs. The advantages of first-aid kits are that they can be used right on the go, without looking into the inventory, which is not a pause in the game, as it was before. It is very convenient when there is no time to think. The health indicator is projected on a special bracelet that measures the pulse - the developers salute the original in almost everything. Even closed boxes can only be opened with master keys.

Although the game has an autosave system, as a sign of respect for the canon, the developers returned full-fledged save rooms. In them, the exhausted player is waiting for a good old box for storing items, a recorder for recording a separate game (it used to be a vintage typewriter), several items useful for survival and, of course, a soothing melancholic soundtrack. Of all this nostalgia set, though, the most useful is the storage box. The inventory is always strictly limited, and absolutely any items can be stored in the box for the future. Therefore, having spotted somewhere a room filled with medicinal herbs, it is better not to be too lazy to collect them and transfer them to a storage box. Anyway, in order to survive in the world of Resident Evil, you always need to rummage around in the corners and bedside tables in search of an extra cartridge.

All these laws of the survival horror genre are combined with organic precision with a unique combat system RE7... It is realistic and requires tactics, which is very unusual in a first person game. You will hardly be able to defeat even two mutants with a knife in your hands. Of course, it all depends on the player's agility and the number of first-aid kits, but monsters do not forgive mistakes. Pistols, machine guns, shotguns, flamethrowers, grenade launchers and even bombs - an assortment of weapons Resident Evil 7: Biohazard quite impressive. But by law story games, each weapon has its own time. Although it is possible to get a rather powerful pistol a little earlier with the help of the exchange system for found coins, with which a separate story is connected. The player can exchange the found old coins for items for survival. But, to be honest, I never used them during the passage, but simply saved up in the hope that after completing the game for the jackpot you can buy something special (oldfag delusion syndrome). But no, the developers have not foreseen anything like this, alas.

Trapped

The Baker farm is full of mysteries. Firstly, doors were returned to the game, for which you need labeled keys: the scorpion key, the snake key, the raven key. Secondly, the developers brought in a series of simple puzzles. Therefore, backtracking cannot be avoided and you will have to explore the Baker farm and its surroundings inside and out. But this is not as boring as it might seem: it is very difficult to predict when one of the family members with a knife will be waiting for you around the corner. But the main thing in this story is the following: Bakers cannot be killed, and if they meet on the way, a game of cats and mice will begin, in which an invulnerable humanoid monster plays the role of a cat. If you remember how Jason Voorhees slowly but surely overtakes his victim, then, roughly, you can imagine the scene as Jack Baker will chase Ethan.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard very interesting mimicry with famous slashers (we are talking about cinema, not Devil may cry). Among other things, here you and "The Blair Witch", and "V / H / S", and "Saw", there was even a place for David Fincher's "Game". And the atmosphere only benefits from this. But even cooler when the movie scenery evaporates, revealing the real Resident evil... Members of the Baker family are changing beyond recognition; there are no less fanged mutants in the area than the zombies in Spencer's mansion; wife ready to slit throat loving husband; and what the hell is pharmaceutical corporation involved in this hell this time ?!

Of course, fans now have the right to ask a question. Capcom, whether she is going to stick to the new concept. But, alas, this will become clear only after a detailed analysis of the audience's feedback. In the meantime, we will have a few more story DLCs for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, which will complement the story already begun.

***

Despite returning to the roots as much as possible, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard still largely experimental. But it's still a great and expensive survival horror, combining several of the main methods of the genre at once: survival, anxiety, unpredictability, generation of plausible extreme situations, confined space and a desperate combat system. Most likely, Capcom again managed to set a new standard for games of this genre, and those developers who make first-person horror games without a combat system should now get together for a brainstorming session and think carefully about their further plan of action.

It was intended to breathe new life into the legendary zombie horror series. The developers from Capcom promised to radically rework the usual game mechanics and make the franchise extremely popular again. In their "laboratories" these guys managed to come up with a great new formula, which is extremely elegantly rethinking even the very concept of the game, which was released more than twenty years ago.

Resident Evil is without a doubt one of the most important horror series in the gaming industry. The first part of the series largely determined the development of the genre for many years to come. The only problem is that over time, the series began to change too much. "Horror" was gradually replaced by action scenes, moreover, questionable. After all, the real Resident Evil up to this point could only be seen in HD re-releases of the first parts. But at the last E3, Capcom representatives announced Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, which looked different and was not at all what the players saw in the last parts of the series.

Plot

Anyone who can still remember the storyline of Silent Hill 2 will have a subtle sense of déjà vu as they launch a brand new Capcom project. Ethan Winters is racing along the endless highway in Louisiana, squeezing everything that is possible from the powerful engine of his almost rare "Dodge". Three years ago, his beloved wife Mia disappeared without a trace. However, more recently, he unexpectedly received a letter from her with a proposal to rush to a certain farm of the Baker family and pick her up from there.

And here is the missing Mia.

Bakers are generally a separate topic for conversation. The entire family disappeared at the same time as the protagonist's wife. Since then, the vast, vast estate is literally shrouded in strange stories about the monsters and ghosts that inhabit this place. However, this does not bother the protagonist, although Ethan, like any other American, should understand what illegal entry into private property entails.

However, he fully meets the player only when the main character finally lives up to a dinner party at the creepy Baker family. The local mistress of the house, Margarita, is trying with all her might to feed poor Ethan with human remains. The guy naturally turns his nose up at such a "tasty treat." Then the head of the family, Jack, enrages, stabbing the guy with a knife in the throat. I am leading this to the fact that such rigidity in the seventh part is a common thing.

Jack Baker is incredibly insane, sarcastic and almost immortal - meeting with him is a real horror and sometimes he seems to be the scariest character in the game. Until you meet his wife ...

Family members will constantly try to tear pieces of flesh from the protagonist (and sometimes they do it very successfully), and to solve the lion's share of puzzles (riddles), Ethan will have to do something from which untrained players will simply feel sick. In this regard, even Silent Hill 2 seems childish.

In general, the story is built quite consistently and in general it is not too complicated, although this becomes clear only after the finale of the game. Until this moment, the Japanese have perfectly kept a balance between intrigue, small tips and brief mysterious hints. However, only an attentive player can appreciate all this.

Atmosphere

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard immediately captivates with its atmosphere. Inappropriate, stupid firefights and chaotic running around levels / locations are in the distant past. The "stage" now presents a "sticky" atmosphere of the most real horror.

The faded Louisiana sun and the fetid swamp smell are quickly replaced by an ominous "abandoned" house, which makes any invited and uninvited guest flinch from every creak and even rustle. Moreover, the constantly escalating horror more than compensates for some imperfect graphic details. However, if you play a game through PlayStation VR, then you can generally do it long before meeting your first enemy.

And the first meeting will not be long in coming, convincingly demonstrating the main advantages over the same Outlast, where players are generally defenseless in front of their offenders. Immediately, it is much more subtle - it seems that you can chop enemies with an ax and shoot at them with a pistol, but the problem is that this is far from always effective. So quite often you have to run in a panic in a circle, dodge hard and manic blows.

Video recordings provide an opportunity to see other events that took place in the house, from the perspective of other characters. This helps to understand the whole point of the plot much better.

And as a couple on the way, the hero comes across old cassettes, photographs, various inscriptions with names and many other equally depressing details. At some point, the couple passes control to other guests of the Baker House. As a rule, any other story ends with a terrible cry and a complete "meat grinder". But the most important thing is that all these parts are correctly inserted and only build up tension.

In general, for the first time in quite a long time, the series can finally catch its atmosphere again. Therefore, I can say with confidence that fans of the first three parts, who did not like the "taste" of the series too much since Resident Evil 4, will simply be indescribably delighted with the chamber version of the seventh part.

The Bakers have their own special and at the same time ambiguous taste in terms of garden decor.

Almost all the action will take place in a relatively small area, but almost every square meter of this catchy place is created with incredible manic attention to detail, which is not inferior in quality to trailers, teasers, or even the content that was presented as a trial demo. version. This is what sets it apart from many other horror games. At some points in the game, it seems that even Outlast is losing ground in front of the "seven".

The first few hours in the mansion and outside it pass as much as possible and naturally unpleasant: everywhere there is strange dirt, slops, leftovers, parts of the bodies of animals and people. Tons of garbage and all sorts of trash. A little later, this bleak landscape ceases to amaze and make one wince, however, the spirit drooping from such a picture still remains in complete desolation and pursues until the very end.

And here is an example of the extreme level of rigidity in the game.

Immersion is also achieved due to good dynamics, which is accompanied by the research process. The game world is not frozen in one place - it is constantly changing. Those once inaccessible passages can suddenly open, and previously safe places cease to be. After all, the Bakers are constantly roaming around somewhere. They can slam doors, make sounds that are difficult to digest, can make noise and do many other things that will not just tickle your nerves and put Ethan's life into question.

Game process

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard brings a first-person perspective with it. The debate about whether this decision was the right one has not subsided since the publication of the very first trailer for the game. The bottom line is that many believed that this was a too radical change of perspectives - a departure from the canon and, in general, some kind of "flirting" with fans of new wave horror - Alien: Isolation, Outlast, SOMA and even P.T ..

And while the fan audience bitterly recalled the cult original, lamenting how commerce had killed a good series of games, the developers from Capcom once again outwitted everyone, retaining almost all the key popular game mechanics in the new part. This makes it more like the first part than the last - the controversial sixth.

The Baker family will turn into a real nightmare for Ethan.

The game perfectly senses when the player needs to give a break for puzzles, and when to make them hide, sneak around, or shoot accurately, confronting the player with a difficult situation.

Everything is just wonderful in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and with riddles: they will make you play with your brains, but they do not require any special knowledge. And all the details of the riddles are included in the story succinctly. Take, for example, even the videotapes, which were talked about quite a lot before the release and which I mentioned earlier. So, having found such a cassette, you should not hesitate, rather look at it - they quite often contain not only interesting and shocking stories, but also solutions to the main plot mysteries.

Enemies, weapons and combat system

In the course of the passage, you will have to explore the Baker's mansion along and across, occasionally encountering both members of the cannibal family and more strange creatures. At the same time, you will often have to use weapons. But, as I argued above, it is far from always able to solve problems: only "ordinary" enemies can be killed right away, but you will have to tinker with more significant hostile characters more than once.

Moreover, the fights are incredibly luxuriously animated - opponents scoff at the main character, as if plush toy... They can safely knock him down. Cut off the limbs in one fell swoop. Calmly and completely unpredictable to stab the hero in the stomach. But what can I say, if, without exaggeration, the first encounter with obsession is worthy of the game analogue of the Oscar. And what is it worth meeting with the head of a bloodthirsty family? He laughingly accepts all two clips from the Glock, and then simply grumbles in response to Ethan's attempts to kill him.

The "crowd" of monsters scares first of all by the fact that they can appear at any moment and almost out of thin air. However, this is much more interesting than the usual zombies.

So, the murder of each member of the family of mutant cannibals is a kind of analogue of the fight with the Bosses. Moreover, this is done several times and in strictly designated places for this subject. Otherwise, you often have to either run away, or just hide and run away. However, this also gives the game what charm - when Ethan accidentally slams the doors, then winds circles along the gloomy corridors, and at this time an old two-legged corpse rushes and bawls behind him, his heart sometimes literally stops. In addition, the hero dies from several blows, and saving in the form of classic voice recorders is far from being as common as we would like.

And yet this is not the biggest problem. Much more trouble is caused by those enemies who, on the contrary, need to be killed. Ethan will regularly suffer from unexpectedly attacking nasty mold monsters, giant swamp mosquitoes and the Baker family eventually. To get rid of some, you need to shoot in the head, and fight with others with flamethrowers, and they are all incredibly tenacious at the same time.

Molds are pretty dangerous creatures, mind you.

Ethan's arsenal will be small, but extremely effective. Weapons should always be selected based on the type of enemies. Someone needs to plant a charge of shot in the forehead, and someone needs to set fire to the fifth point with a burner. It would seem that in such games there should be a lot of melee weapons, but there are practically none of them here: more or less efficient is an ax. Sometimes there is also a chainsaw, but the first and second can still be used only in fights with Bosses.

However, all this is far from being as easy as it sounds. will regularly remind that Ethan is not the elite special forces officer Chris Redfield, or the secret service agent Leon Kennedy. That is why the hero will quite often plant bullets that are already in short supply in the wrong place. He will aim for a deadly long time, and in case of injury, he will generally move at the speed of some kind of turtle. It seems like hardcore, but on the other hand - a lot of nerves and psychos from the curvature of the protagonist.

Survival and inventory

Despite the fact that the seventh part in the series was developed with a bias in modern "horror films", it still has not lost its one more business card - deep mechanics for the genre.

The game has a full-fledged inventory system, which is a little simpler than what was in Resident Evil 4 and a little more complicated than what was in Resident Evil 5. So, in order to survive, the main character will need to examine absolutely all boxes and corners in search of some weapon , ammunition for it, medicinal herbs and other very important details... So the ingredients have not gone anywhere: by correctly mixing them, Ethan can get different types of first aid kits.

The trade, which many liked in the fourth part, is absent in the new part, but now there is crafting: with the help of a unique epoxy gel (mysterious colored liquid) it will be possible to create a variety of items, from cans of healing liquid to cartridges that will differ in high lethality. Moreover, the player needs to decide for himself what exactly he needs at a particular moment in the game. And sometimes such a choice will be hard to affect in the further passage.

Do not be lazy to search for improvements: they will greatly help increase the hero's chances of survival.

It will be possible to pump Ethan himself: increase the health scale with the help of special steroids, speed up the reload time of weapons, and much more. Such improvements are carefully hidden, so you will have to carefully examine every trash, garbage, bush, search for strange photos and collect ancient coins - it is for them that you can pump + open powerful weapons.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard has a pretty tough economy. There will almost always be something missing in the beginning. And it can be cartridges, first aid kits and much more. The levels are built in such a way that you won't be able to explore everything in one "run". You will constantly need to return to special safe rooms in order to change, for example, a set of equipment, create new items and save, in the end.

Now the ax from the demo comes in handy!

And since the classic inventory has migrated in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, the player willy-nilly will have to combine items and regularly get rid of unnecessary junk by placing it in the box next to the save, because the inventory in the game is not rubber, therefore it has capacity restrictions.

Thus, all those new elements that were introduced in did not interfere with the mechanics that are characteristic of the series. And this, frankly, is the most important achievement for developers.

Technical side, graphics and sound

With the new engine, the game has really seriously changed into better side... In addition, the first-person view perfectly demonstrates all the charms and technical capabilities of the "RE Engine". Detailed drawing of faces, hair, excellent facial animation, competent dynamic lighting - everything is done really on high level, do not doubt. Moreover, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard consistently produces the required / promised 60 frames per second, so it's quite difficult to find fault in this regard.

Of course, as a rule, new engines at the start like to give "surprises" in the form of flaws and bugs, but I repeat once again - the technical side of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is quite satisfactory. The game works fine on the given configurations and meets the stated system requirements.

While searching for useful items, one is involuntarily amazed at the local decorations.

The sound design of the levels really surprised me. In terms of working with sound, it is almost in no way inferior to the same Silent Hill and the first part of Dead Space. Throughout the game, you will regularly listen to floorboards creaking, constant rustling, screaming, groaning, stamping of feet and silence - which is even worse than a heartbreaking scream. All this makes it clear that the game has a high sound level and a physically perceptible atmosphere. In Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, you expect enemies even where there are none.

In the end, Capcom finally paid attention to the graphics and this time gave it a lot of attention. Modern special effects and miracles of post-processing are doing their job, so any player, even in this regard, will understand why he gave his money. Although I will not hide the fact that if you examine every detail, and inspect carefully, then in some places you can find blurry models and other simplifications. But the bottom line is that in general, in its single composition, the new engine and the game as a whole are simply mesmerizing - very realistic lighting and environment are presented.

A virtual reality

All of the above related to the gameplay without using PlayStation VR, but with it on your head, the game turns, without any exaggeration, into the most terrible and bloody horror of our time. The PlayStation VR Resident Evil 7: Biohazard walkthrough is some kind of work of art.

Moreover, for Sony, the new creation from the Capcom studio is the first large-scale project in virtual reality, so the game developers did their best to show that the players would not be in vain to spend their 30 thousand rubles on this device. Playing in virtual reality glasses is somewhat reminiscent of the movie "Avatar" by James Cameron, where special effects constantly flying in the face served as the best argument for unjustifiably high ticket prices.

With the VR version, the surrounding scenery looks completely different - ultra-realistic. Absolutely the same applies to worms digging in corpses, rotting human stops and all the "goodies" that lie in the refrigerator of the Baker mansion.

Believe me, playing this game in VR will give you an unforgettable experience.

In virtual reality glasses, you immediately notice that even hand-to-hand fights were specially sharpened for PlayStation VR. Enemies cheerfully poke all sorts of sharp stabbing and chopping objects into the main character. Swarms of giant mosquitoes are forced to feel their hands in order to check for huge purulent blisters. And when you hit your hand in a toilet filled with filth, you take off your helmet and immediately go to wash your hands.

But even these scenes do not compare with the scene in which the head of the Baker family makes Ethan, tied to a chair, gobble up (this is exactly) a festive dinner that consists of human entrails. At the same time, he also unclenched his jaw with a huge knife, pushing the pieces straight into the throat. After such disgusting scenes, one involuntarily thinks that the creation by developers of candles with the scent of blood is not a branded multi-step.

Cons and problems

In fact, this minus is questionable, but first I will bring you up to date. All of the above applies to the first half of the game, when you have to survive in the Baker's house and in the surrounding territories. However, as soon as you move away from the swamps, the game begins to change before our eyes. At this point, you can forget about the intrigue that you built during the passage of the first half of the game. Moreover, it may seem to some that in the final part, the creators managed to merge the oppressive atmosphere to a complete zero, although this is not at all the case.

It may seem to some that the second half of the game is filled with boring and monotonous locations in which you have to wander with a gun at the ready. The excess ammo is strictly dependent on how you shoot. Enemies, too, will not die like flies from a few shots. Although, again, "skill" players will think completely differently: their enemies are dying like flies, and ammunition is in abundance. Another thing is that there will be no riddles or Bosses in the second half, so in some sense the game turns into an action game with the shooting of mutants.

Oh, this omnipresent granny is not so simple as it might seem at first.

Closer to the final, there will indeed be fewer puzzles, and the number of enemies will increase several times. Many can now say that this is a departure from the canons of the genre. But that's a mistake, Capcom in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard doesn't try to turn the gameplay into a standard rail shooter. After several hours of helpless running around and a feverish search for ammunition, shooting monsters climbing towards you is a sheer pleasure.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard's storyline may also be disappointing for some. The Resident Evil series has never shone with realism and originality in terms of history. And let's not lie to ourselves, because the plot of the series has always been absurd, but even in the most unfortunate parts, the authors did not stoop to such a level. The final is sewn with literally white threads.

The connection with the general universe is rather weak and far-fetched. In the end, you can only see a reference to the first two parts, a helicopter of the Umbrella corporation and a hero with a familiar name, but with a completely different look and voice. Nevertheless, the formula of the game works great and it is quite possible that we will see the next part soon. And if this is really the case, then the storyline does not look so weak either.

Eventually

This is a great addition to the series and is clearly one of the best games this year. The Capcom studio has shown that they have professionals who can breathe life into an already seemingly fading and pale series. The new part is filled with an atmosphere that consists of primal horror. And the point is not only in the plot intrigue and the amazing family of the year. Capcom just approached this project extremely carefully and responsibly. The game is practically devoid of drawbacks, although even those that it has are extremely controversial. The bottom line is that the perfect balance was found in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. After all, the game is varied and doesn't let the player get bored. Resident Evil 7 is a great fusion of old and new. And, perhaps, the first serious argument in buying virtual reality glasses, because the sensations are simply unforgettable.

Reviewer verdict max.korg.vin

Detailed evaluation

Playability

Single player campaign

Control

It looks like u Capcom there is a tradition: after three numbered games in the Resident Evil series, to change the concept of future games. Remember this shocking transition from part three to part four, and this one from part six to part seven. Somehow it turned out that over the period of the release of three games, Resident Evil from the declared survival horror turned into a banal action movie. The sixth part already understood where she was heading, tried to improve, but for some reason the fans did not appreciate it. And once again the series decided to change dramatically.

From a large-scale action movie where the life of all mankind and the survival of an entire species are at stake, Resident Evil has turned into a real family drama. On the one hand, we have a hero named Ethan, who three years ago lost touch with Mia, his dear wife. On the other hand, we have a family of four who lives a reclusive life in the swamps of Louisiana and has recently acquired a passion for cannibalism and increased vitality. The worlds of these two families collide in order to eventually give answers to the questions hanging in the air: where did Mia go, what happened to the Baker family, what does this game have to do with the Resident Evil series? The last question is already more interesting to players and readers, and not to the heroes of the game.

So Ethan is probably the most unprepared to face the devilry hero from the Resident Evil games since the second part, where Claire Redfield was in about the same situation. And if the girl studied the city overflowing with zombies, then Ethan is trying to survive in the house where a damn tenacious family and incomprehensible mud-like monsters live. In addition, at the very beginning, our hero experiences certain ... ahem ... "hardships" and is captured. They try to break Ethan's psyche and will, but he finds the strength to resist.

Resident Evil 7 biohazard positions itself as a survival horror game. In all the cutscenes, we see how practically unarmed Ethan collides with someone from the Baker family and is forced to run away at breakneck speed after that. In fact, the gameplay here is not based solely on hide and seek. Throughout the game, Resident Evil 7 skillfully juggles genres, turning in some places into a recognizable game in the series.

But it all starts with something like Outlast... Here we come to the Baker's house, they try to scare us a little bit, they crush us with the atmosphere and feed the plot plot in huge portions. Gradually, the game turns into hide and seek with Jack, the head of the Baker family, then they begin to introduce recognizable elements of the series, and at the end we rush armed to the teeth through the crowds of enemies, not afraid to spend the once precious cartridges and the last first-aid kit. And all these transitions are inscribed organically and appropriately, for which I would only like to praise the developers.

The first part of the game is built around the survival horror formula. There are few cartridges, you have to spend them wisely, spending time on aiming, at the risk of missing a hit, sometimes you just need to run away than engage in battle. Ethan does survive by trying to follow the advice of a sudden ally: the Baker's youngest daughter, Zoe. Her motives are incomprehensible to you, but you simply have no other ally. With her suggestion, you will explore the Baker's house in order to finally get out of it.

As soon as Ethan goes outside, survival begins to slowly shift towards the action movie. You cannot run away, now it is important to complete the task for which you came here initially. Now you consciously decide to go through the horrors of the Baker House. The atmosphere of emptiness will continue to put pressure on you, in which you listen to every rustle and wait for the enemy's visit from around the next corner. In Resident Evil 7, it's really scary to explore new corners of the map, since you don't know what awaits you there. And also this Aunt Rodney, an elderly woman in a wheelchair, showing up here and there, pretending she doesn't care about you. How the hell does she move?

So gradually the thriller seizes dominance, leaving only a small percentage of the time for the horror. By the end of the game, you will explore the rooms of the next map with decent weapons at the ready, you will no longer be afraid of enemies and learn to give them a full-fledged rebuff. Your brain will build analogies with the previous parts by itself and, I am sure, this will fill the hearts of fans with the necessary dose of endorphins. By the way, the game will not do without some epic character.

What connects this game in the series to the rest of the Resident Evil universe? Only tiny hints, analogies and a powerful touch at the very end, leaving a lot of questions. Your health is not shown as a health bar as in recent games, but in the form of a pulsating cardiogram, according to which it is very difficult to assess how close you are to death (remember the first parts?). Green grass is responsible for the treatment, but there will be no red, blue and yellow grass in Ethan's diet. As before, the items picked up take up slots in the hero's inventory, sometimes overflow the backpack, forcing you to run to a special box. Yes, the bottomless box for things, connected by invisible channels with analogs, is back, but the typewriter was replaced by an answering machine. Now you can save with it.

In this frame, we can see the character's health scale, the crafting system, the ingredients for the recipe, as well as the trophy I took.

Curiously, the developers have implemented a system for creating useful items. The key element will be some kind of epoxy that can turn gunpowder into cartridges, and grass into a first aid kit. Epoxy is found in almost all recipes, and a strong epoxy can create an improved version of the standard recipe. Another interesting innovation: the emergence of psychostimulants. These pills help you see hidden objects as well as replenish your inventory. The awakened instinct reveals the most heavily hidden objects, which, I am sure, appear only after taking the pills. You don't have to upgrade your skills, but you can improve your ability to survive by finding broken weapons and a repair kit for it, as well as finding hidden coins. There are about two dozen of them, and you can buy only three items on them: a magnum, steroids to increase health and a pistol bolt.

There are few bosses in the game, but what they are! The first ones have real charisma, they feel their superiority over you and try not just to kill you, but to do it playfully. When opponents realize that jokes with you are bad, they begin to give their best, presenting themselves in their most nightmarish forms. Fights always come out tense, and in some places also spectacular!

It is somewhat upsetting that there are not enough types of opponents in the game. In fact, there are only four of them, and this is for the entire passage, which took me 11 hours (on easy difficulty, this number can easily be reduced to 9). But there are plenty of weapons to destroy them, including both completely new and classic ones or trying to seem so.

Puzzles in Resident Evil have already become a rarity, and the seventh part only supports this trend. There are few tasks, they are easy to solve, but there is a rather interesting escape room here that will make you turn on your brain and surprise you with its uniqueness and change in the gameplay. These changes are a real feature of the game, they do not leave room for boredom.

Videotapes are another interesting mechanic in Resident Evil 7. They help you relive some of the events that took place at the Baker House. All of them tell about creepy, but important details from the game world.

As for the picture in the game, it deserves only praise. It is photorealistic and makes you believe that you are inside a secluded mansion full of nightmares. The picture brings you closer to the hero, making you afraid of dangers and harder to experience "deprivation". Supports the degree of horror and sound component. Musical compositions there are few here, but they are very relevant, and every audible sound makes you wary and think: is the danger approaching? In general, eyes and ears are yours best helper on the path of survival in the Baker house.

Resident Evil 7 was a brilliant relaunch of the long-running series. The game could have been left without a number at all in the title, but the creators decided to go the other way, in a rather unexpected way connecting the events taking place with the world of Resident Evil. The seventh part has a mysterious plot, it throws you into a stormy stream of questions from the doorway. The game gives out the saving rope of answers very slowly, but in the end it is very stylish. In addition, the project does not hesitate to gradually change the gameplay, remaining within the framework of survival horror. The game will make you fight for your life, and then terrify the local nightmares. In the end, the whole game is a risky experiment that turned out to be very successful. For the first time in a long time, something truly impressive has come out under the Resident Evil brand.

The review is based on a digital copy of the PS4 game provided by the publisher. Screenshots are taken directly from the specified system.