Optus Mobile Review ALDI Mobile Review Amaysim Mobile Review Belong Mobile Review Circles.Life Review Vodafone Mobile Review Woolworths Mobile Review Felix Mobile Review Best iPhone Plans Best Family Mobile Plans Best Budget Smartphones Best Prepaid Plans Best SIM-Only Plans Best Plans For Kids And Teens Best Cheap Mobile Plans Telstra vs Optus Mobile Optus NBN Review Belong NBN Review Vodafone NBN Review Superloop NBN Review Aussie BB NBN Review iiNet NBN Review MyRepublic NBN Review TPG NBN Review Best NBN Satellite Plans Best NBN Alternatives Best NBN Providers Best Home Wireless Plans What is a Good NBN Speed? Test NBN Speed How to speed up your internet Optus vs Telstra Broadband ExpressVPN Review CyberGhost VPN Review NordVPN Review PureVPN Review Norton Secure VPN Review IPVanish VPN Review Windscribe VPN Review Hotspot Shield VPN Review Best cheap VPN services Best VPN for streaming Best VPNs for gaming What is a VPN? VPNs for ad-blocking Now, I’m no Resident Evil fan, which is to say I was very late to the franchise (Resident Evil V was my not-so-flash first entry), but I did love Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. Well, the first half. Except for the legitimately incredible ‘happy birthday’ sequence, the second half of Resident Evil 7 was a stark declining quality contrast to the skin-crawling tension of what came before. While the first 50% of Resident Evil Village is stronger than the latter, it’s a far shallower decline in quality than the preceding game, dipping from intensely addictive to compelling but not as attention-grabbing as the beginning. Once again, you play as Ethan Winters and after a ‘these kids clearly aren’t alright’ opening, Winters’ comfy home life is turned cold when he comes to in a snowy village that’s light on humans and heavy on critters that want to bump you off in the night. Ultimately, this lack of damage adds to the creeping tension and genuine horror that make for some of the Resident Evil Village’s most memorable moments. And by memorable I mean expect to see these terrors in your nightmare. I can’t give away specifics, but the second main section of the game expertly transmutes unnerving tension to full-blown horror with scream-out-loud effectiveness. The resident Resident Evil Village vampire lady that the internet is going crazy over comprises the bulk of the first main part of the game, which amounts to a distillation and improvement of the better parts of the preceding game: tension, looting, puzzling and occasional fighting. Granted, most of those initial threats aren’t particularly threatening, but the Metroidvania approach to level design and unlocking more of the meta village map are highlights amid a good range of puzzles. The giant looming con, though, is the boss fights, which are akin to the dissonance between compelling core gameplay with optional battles to the full-blown bullet-sponge fights of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Like that comparison, they’re not enough to make you hate the game and they rarely outlive their stay to leave too much of a bad taste, but a couple towards the end feel as though they’re in the wrong game entirely. Despite this, I still played through Resident Evil Village in a few hours-long blocks because I kept wanting more. Fans of the franchise will appreciate call-back inclusions like gems and birdcages that can be shot for loot, plus the big and small narrative moments that confirm popular theories and connect the universe in bigger ways. For newer fans like me, Resident Evil Village is still a great action-horror game that’s left me eager to see how Capcom can continue to build on the gameplay in the future.
