First Impressions: Resident Evil 7 Teaser: Beginning Hour (PC)

While playing Resident Evil 5 and Resident Evil: Revelations, I was eagerly waiting to see what Reseident Evil 7 (or Resident Evil VII if Roman numerals are more your thing) had in store for this franchise.  I have actually been lacking a lot of information about this game, which is fine by me.  So when the demo was released on Steam during this last week (the week of December 19th, 2016), I was very happy to give it a try, if anything to see if my computer would even be able to handle something as potentially graphically heavy as the games in this series have become since Resident Evil 4.

So 3.2 GB later, I dove in.

Once I got over the initial shock of this game being in first person (although I am not 100% sure if the actual game will also be in first person, but it makes sense that it might), I was very impressed with how damn good this game looks.  Then I was happily surprised at how well my computer was able to handle the game overall.  I had the graphical settings at "Medium" across the board since I felt that anything more would run the risk of melting my computer, and even then I was frequently hovering between 20 and 24 FPS.  For me personally, I considered this to be good, but most other PC players will tell you that the game would be unplayable.  I would very much disagree with them.

What this demo very much reminded me of was a point-and-click game, think Shadowgate or The Uninvited but in a 3D setting with various items that you are able to interact with.  Being in a first person view, it very much reminded me of Amnesia: The Dark Descent and A Machine for Pigs, although here, there was a lot less of the environment that you are able to do.  You cannot move chairs or the blinds around, which kind of makes sense since there were "events" that happened that would not have made sense had I been able to open all of the doors or flip the kitchen table over.  If you think of what Capcom has created here as a Resident Evil game with a first person perspective then that is how the game operates.

And since we are talking about Resident Evil as a game and an experience, I will say that what the demo has to offer, reminds me so much more of the first game from 1996 rather than what the series became with RE4 through RE6.  The demo seemed a lot more about setting the atmosphere for the world, being one about tension, uneasiness, and full of questions.  It is unclear how this particular Resident Evil game will fit into the already established world (which only creates more questions for me not having played RE6 or RE:Revelations 2 yet.  What I have concluded, at least after only about 44 minutes of this demo, is that RE7 is going to be a great game because of the emphasis on establishing an atmosphere of fear and confusion.

Before I leave, I want to briefly mention a mechanic that never came into play for me during my first playthrough.

Apparently, you have the "ability" to raise your hands in front of your face either as a blocking maneuver or possibly to hide whatever horror is racing towards you.  I never came across a time to use this but I am very eager to see how this mechanic is used in the main game.  And, if anything in this demo promises to be a massive departure from the last three numbered games in the series, having your hands raised to block out a significant portion of the screen, this will be it.  This alone, at least to me, is making a promise that I am hoping the game will be able to fulfill.



~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Instrumental


P.S.
Holy damn!  As anticipated after my first 44 minutes, this demo has some pretty good replay value, even more so considering the fact that it is free.  I have reached two different endings and I know that there is plenty that I know should be accessible, but have yet to figure out how to get to particular areas or use items that were in my inventory.  On its own, this demo has more content than some some of the cheaper to play games on Steam.  Capcom has definitely made me a future customer for Resident Evil 7.