Chickens Can Finally Play Resident Evil!

Resident Evil Requiem (, Xbox, Switch, PC, £59.99)

Verdict: Two great games for the price of one

Rating:

I am a chicken. Even though I am professionally obligated to experience – and admire – the Resident Evil games, I do so through my fingers. They’re just too darn scary; particularly the more recent ones.

But now the ninth mainline game, Requiem, has come along – and it may well be the most straightforwardly enjoyable I’ve ever played.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still scary. Very scary. But it also offers respite for the cowardly likes of me.

The trick is its alternating structure. You play as Grace Ashcroft, a young FBI agent who may or may not have something special about her, and who’s kidnapped early in the game by one of the series’s slimiest-ever baddies.

Her sequences – which you’re encouraged to experience from a first-person perspective – are full-on horror. Dark corridors. Skittering things. Frantic escapes.

But you also play as Resident Evil legend Leon S. Kennedy, a square-jawed supercop with an attitude and an almighty arsenal. His sequences – which you’re encouraged to experience in third-person – are full-on action. Propulsive music. Free-flowing moves. Flying limbs.

It’s all paced to perfection. Just when your nerves are at shattering point, here comes some muscular combat to build you back up again. Just when you’ve cut through a hundred zombies, here comes another dose of terror to stop you getting all high and mighty.

As Requiem approaches its conclusion – and returns to where the series all began, Raccoon City – it leans more towards the Leon end of its particular spectrum. Some players, the less frightened among us, will surely regret this.

But me? I’m just happy that I was able to enjoy one of the best-ever Resident Evil games all the way to the end. This chicken has finally earned his wings.

Crisol: Theater of Idols (PlayStation, Xbox, PC, £14.99)

Verdict: An idea worth exploring

Rating:

Speaking of Resident Evil, here is a game that owes that series a huge debt. From its demented, knife-wielding statuary to its zombie-lady-construct-thing that appears sporadically to chase you around, there is so much in Crisol that was born in Raccoon City.

Not that it is derivative. Not quite. Crisol simply luxuriates in its influences. Another is the original BioShock from 2007. Just like that game, you’re dropped into a mysterious, water-bound location where something very terrible has happened – and effectively left to figure out what’s going on.

Besides, Crisol also has its own ideas, many of which are delightfully barmy. You’re in this place as an emissary of the sun god, who communicates his directives through occasional visions. It adds to the already richly gothic texture of this medieval-Spanish-seeming world.

But Crisol’s best idea is related to its combat. You carry a gun in this first-person shooter, but not any normal gun. It is a gift – or should that be a curse? – from the sun god himself. It reloads itself with your blood; which is to say, your health. With each bullet that’s added to its chamber, another segment is taken from your health bar.

This leads to some glorious trade-offs. What do you want: ammunition or durability? Different situations call for different answers.

The problem is that that there aren’t many different situations. For all the promise in its atmosphere and gun mechanics, Crisol becomes way too samey, way too quickly. Its enemies aren’t varied enough. Its gameplay starts to feel rote. Which is a great shame.

Perhaps Crisol 2 – if a sequel ever happens – will emulate Resident Evil Requiem, and do more to diversify itself.