Well gang, we’re setting a new record here on EpicBattleAxe.com today…the record for the LONGEST MEMBER BATTLECRY to date! That’s right, as I sit in a Las Vegas hotel room I bring you the latest MBC pertaining to this week’s topic, YOUR FAVORITE CAPCOM FRANCHISES. Now, today’s MBC deals with the beloved Resident Evil franchise and delivers an in-depth recollection of the experience one young Axe Head had with the now classic first installment in the series.

I won’t take up much of your time here, but if you recall YOUR experience with the original Resident Evil, you might just wanna read on after the jump!

muffin_of_unimagineable_proportions says:

Hello my pundits of punishment, my experts of entendre… whats up dawgs?

So, for my member battle cry, I’d like to rewind the clock. It was a time of change. Funcoland was a warm and welcome name and Gamestop was an approaching enigma. Back in the long fabled days of 2002, I, then a nine year old muffin of slightly more imaginable proportions, started to hear whisperings of a franchise that I had never heard of before. At the time, my ears were so clouded by the thoughts of Mario and Sonic that the words resident evil meant nothing to me. I missed the first three entries in the series, oblivious to the blooding craving murderers of raccoon city and the ever so flavorful Jill sandwich.

My life was flipped on its head with a visit to my cousin’s house. As my dad and my aunt conversed about boring adult stuff in the next room, my cousin opened his cabinet of wonders and told me to pick any game to play. I defaulted to the gamecube as it was the system most familiar to me, however I shared no games in common with my cousin and couldn’t narrow down one to play. The game he picked randomly off of the shelf was the remake of the first resident evil for the gamecube. I spent the rest of the night hiding behind the couch as my cousin laid waste to zombies who had me scared too stiff to pick up the controller.

I would’ve let the game go then, never to be heard from again, but after a comment from my cousin showcased my fear, I just had to prove him otherwise. I was a stubborn little guy, and I was determined to beat the game no matter what the psychological repercussions might be. Nobody calls me scared. There were a few problems though. Beating the game required a copy, and my parents had a hard time watching me play super smash brothers let alone something as gory violent as resident evil. Also, I had never actually beaten a game, and I was extremely lacking in teh skillzorz department.

I was in luck however. My birthday came on the day of a buy two get one free day at the newly opened gamestop. All I had to do was place the copy of resident evil on the bottom of the three game pile and my parents, who assumed I would never dare play such a game, wouldn’t check the cases. I walked out of the store lovingly clutching my ornament of fixation as well as two star wars games, which kind of seemed cool to me. I was already on my way to my revenge, which must have seemed microscopic in the eyes of my older cousin. The disc was sent spinning in the gamecube’s drive as soon as I got home.

I picked Chris, as anything relating to or resembling a girl who isn’t your mom is a massive weakness for an elementary school boy. What I didn’t know though, was that Chris’ campaign was really fucking hard. The controls were more than a bit hard to get over at first, but they did a suitable job at getting me to the first zombie. As my slowly shuffling opponent inched towards me, I frantically searched for the jump button, but when it crossed my mind that the “jump on the zombie’s head like a goomba” strategy might not work, I quickly formed a new strategy which I named, “run like hell”.

Running like hell brought me back to the main room. Where I quickly opted to go through a different door, and then through another that lead down a narrow hallway to a knife. The knife seemed like it would be helpful to me, and I would need it soon, as another zombie was blocking my way back through the hallway. More frantic button mashing ensued, resulting in Chris stabbing the zombie in the face, and it falling down to the floor. It seemed dead, however I elected to shoot it a couple of times to make sure. After looking in the manual, learning how to aim and fire my gun and shooting twice into the zombie, II had discovered that this was a terrible idea. It angered my friend who then woke up to pursue me with a new, flesh-biting passion. The narrow hallway negated the “run like hell strategy” and forced me to a startling gameover screen. I went to bed confused, frustrated and scared out of my ten year-old mind.

Over the next few weeks, I came straight of the bus from school eager to replay the first two zombie encounters over and over again until I figured out the proper zombie avoidance technique. I got perfect at dodging just these two, and after I had finally perfected it, I decided to figure out something new. You see, there was another reason I kept replaying the first two zombies over and over. Beyond my habbit to die early and die often, I hadn’t been able to learn how to save. I could’ve read the manual again, but reading is for suckers. On I went ignoring the seemingly useless ink ribbons until one day I figured out by way of accidental, spastic and frustrated button presses that the ink ribbons are used in conjunction with the type-writer to save.

Progress felt so good. After a month of futile trial and error I had found a way to not only make progress, but save it aswell. Feeling a high of accomplishment, I decided to venture outside the doors of the Spencer estate by way of the main entrance. This proved to be yet another bad idea, for it led to a dog entering the room whilst trying and succeeding in biting my face off. As Chris died yet again at the grip of my controls I made a vow:

“I shall lead you to safety yet Chris Redfield! There shall come a time when you no longer fall to the ground as a lifeless pile of flesh as a zombie kneels down for seconds!”

I continued making little progress with the trial and error method for two more months. My patient wait for summer, a time when I could devote full days to gaming, lead to the following discoveries.

1. Don’t pull the shotgun off of the wall, unless you wish to reenact the trash compacter scene from Star Wars in such a way that causes the main characters to die.

2. Zombies stand by windows staring in through the glass until you walk by at which point they hurl themselves through in the hopes of giving you a murderous hug.

3. In another nod to Star Wars, zombies which you kill come back more powerful than you could’ve ever imagined.

4. Taking on two zombie’s with nothing more than a knife and half of your health is retarded.

5. Jill is a lot fucking easier.

6. Burning a black piece of wood will yield an inflammable piece of sheet music paper.

7. The previous less evil residents of the estate felt it a novel idea to hide ammo under shelves and in bird cages. This was a particularly genius idea! Zombies would never think to check there!

Half-way through the summer, my mission was accomplished. Although I had wanted to save Chris from the shuffling dead, the person who ended up at the helicopter at game’s end was Jill. Chris sat captive deep beneath the grounds of the Spencer mansion, however Jill must have thought I best to let him die in an explosion than to give him a ride to safety in the ultra-convenient helicopter.

By this time, I had completely forgotten about my evil cousin. I was so caught up in my exploits that I had put all feelings of revenge past me. I had a new appreciation for the ammo saving and tension building that was Resident Evil, as well as an appreciation for Jill Valentine’s assets.

I know that this battle cry was supposed to be focused on a franchise as a whole, but I wanted to write about the gamecube remake specifically. You guys talk a lot on the show about 2d games that fill you with a warm feelings of nostalgia. Even though I do enjoy the occasional 8-bit game of my own, my personal nostalgia fillers come from the last generation (PS2, Xbox and Gamecube). My top three favorite games ever are the Resident Evil remake, Halo 2 and Final Fantasy X. The tank controls and pre-rendered environments of old will always have a place in my heart.

I remember many Saturdays in middle school that I spent on a 4 hour play through, many times beating it twice in a day. While there are at least two games I loved as much as this one, there really aren’t any I love more. It is not only my favorite Capcom title, but one of my favorite games of all-time.

Well, that’s it for this battle cry. I’m sorry it turned out so fucking long, but I hope someone had fun reading it, or at the very least took the time to read it. There is so much more I could say about the game, but I’m pushing three pages in a Microsoft word document, so I should probably rap things up.

Congratz on reaching the big 73rd episode. I hope you guys continue on toward 100, but I’m not sure whether or not I could take enough of DK money shizzles puns or you other two’s bitching to make it to 101.

Har har, that last part was a joke. You guys are awesome. Keep up the good work…

But no seriously get rid of Daniel.

END

Get rid of me? Really? I founded EpicBattleAxe to give young muffins like you a voice!!! To let the gamers of the world unite and speak their minds! To collaborate on all that is great while spreading gaming love and downing fanboy hate! That’s alright though…I won’t take it personally;)

Now, as for today’s MBC, I found it rather entertaining! After all, somewhere in each of us lie stories such as these…Fond memories of not only the games, but the EXPERIENCES surrounding them. There’s no doubting that Resident Evil sparked similar experiences in the lives of many gamers and while I certainly don’t condone young gamers sneaking behind their parent’s backs to play games they otherwise wouldn’t allow, I felt that Muffin’s tale was one that we all can relate to on some level.

Anyway, I’m sure there are A LOT of other Resident Evil-themes stories to share…If you’d like to chat up your fondness for the freaky franchise, feel free to do so in the comments section below. If you have a DIFFERENT CAPCOM GAME you wanna sound off on though, please do that over on this week’s Topic Start post where you can:

SUBMIT A NEW MEMBER BATTLECRY IN THE COMMENTS SECTION

Alright, that’s all from me for now. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to read this far and be sure to check back soon for other Member BattleCries right here on EpicBattleAxe.com!

Cheers,
DK