I wanted to bring up some of my personal favorite titles out of the series and give the recognition to some of the best experiences I feel innovated on the online console gaming scene and was ahead of its time.
When online play was still in its early days on the console scene with the 6th generation, Capcom decided to make use of the PS2 online play and develop two titles with Resident Evil Outbreak. This game brought online play in the survival horror genre and brought one of the most tense and atmospheric online experiences that I feel is such a shame that not many people had got the opportunity to witness during its time.
Both titles had different scenarios where you and a few other friends selected a character to play (each with unique abilities that helped compliment each other) and then you all decided upon scenario, difficulty level, and a character. The difficulty level is tied to what enemies and items the player encounters as they progress through the scenario. The game has five scenarios, each of which has an event checklist consisting of special actions that the player must perform to reach 100% completion. You was also infected and had to try and achieve under a certain time before the infection reaches 100% or by character death. The crazy side is when you died you would come back as a Zombie and had the option to try and kill your team mates. Although generally in amusing matches you had your friend protecting you as an undead blocking the zombies and other BOWs coming along or just hanging
There was so much stuff added into the game with multiple endings and pathways on certain scenarios that really added to the tensity and experience of each scenario. One such example was the forest scenario where after an X period of time a wooden bridge would collapse when a player walks over and separating from his three other friends. Here the three others would travel through the whole forest scenario (with an entirely different story and experiences) and the other isolated friend would traverse into a abandoned infected small hospital that lurks a deadly humanoid villain wielding an axe trying to kill you at any opportune moment in Nemesis fashion. This such scenario was only given online because of how certain triggers worked based upon actions of the player.
To top that off for replay value there was so much extra content added for the player; numerous skins, weapons, unique rules such as ammo and HP, infection rate and much more it really helped extend the life of the online scene.
And dear god was this game hard on places with the whole works with white knuckles and screaming in panic and anguish on the higher difficulties. You really felt the desperation between you and your comrades when trying to work and communicate with scarce voice commands and having everything turning against you as such vulnerable civilians in this world.
I really hope Capcom will bring these onto the modern online scene and allow people the opportunity to experience what these titles were like back in the day before the 7th gen come along and how online become so much simple and accessible than how it was prior.
Special Note to the music in particular for having some incredible tracks that still rank near the top of this amazing and diverse series! Respect here goes to, Akihiko Matsumoto, the well known and beloved, Tetsuya Shibata, and Etsuko Yoneda
<3
