JBoc924
Yesterday we took a look at how the fixed camera angles of past Resident evil games all served to enhance the overall game-play mechanics. Today, we’ll be looking at how said camera angles make for a true survival-horror experience that may have not been possible if Capcom decided to go on about developing the original Resident Evil titles with a different camera perspective.
What’s around the next corner? Pt.2
Don’t get me wrong, if gone about in a different way, Capcom would’ve still found a way to make the original Resident Evil (and it’s sequels) scary. What I’m trying to point out is the importance of the direction Capcom decided to go with: the fixed camera perspective. You hear it all the time among Resident Evil fans and moreso among people who aren’t truly fans of the franchise, they all state the series’ classic camera angles as being too unappealing and maybe even restrictive.
As mentioned yesterday, the fact that the camera angles restricts a full view of your environment does a lot to increase the overall effectiveness of the game’s tone and fear factor. There’s many different ways for a developer to make a game a true survival-horror experience, but Capcom’s decision to use fixed angles in their early Resident Evil titles gave the early franchise a recognizeable, and maybe even a notorious, trait (for those “haters”)
Now only that, but the camera angle also lend each respective title (that used them) a very true horror movie like feel. As you know, in the hands of a talented director, a horror film can be truly effective by just the way the film is shot, instead of having to rely on pure buckets of gore and cheap scares. Sometime not knowing what’s ahead is scarier than being bombarded by a string of scripted cheap scares. This is made even more true when you take into consideration the lack of ammunition one is faced with. Something we’ll be covering tomorrow.
Make sure to leave comments below and once again as a reminder, you can email me at jbocanegra@relyonhorror.com and tell me what your most cherished memories of the franchise are. You’ll have a chance to be featured in a future article that will tie into our celebration of Resident Evil’s 15th anniversary.
