Resident Evil is a multimillion-dollar production, from video games, to movies, this take on the modern-day plague, opened the door to many branches off undead productions. Resident Evil is noted to be one of the best video games of all time. It is a product of Capcom and first debuted in 1996. It is an American version of the Japanese game Biohazard. The video game follows members of an elite task force finding secrets of a mansion and trying to escape alive. As the player uncovers various documents that provide exposition about the game’s narrative, as well as clues that help them solve various puzzles within the mansion (residentevil.com, 2018). Soon after the video game came the first resident evil movie in 2002. It took a different spin on the video games story line by adding a main character. It follows a young heroin named Alice as she discovers and foils the plans of the Umbrella corporation. The Umbrella Corporation is responsible for the outbreak of the T Virus from an underground facility (The Hive) which turns humans into the walking dead. The Hive is located in a mansion in which she wakes up in. She is determined to find out about the experiments going on beneath her feet and the mystery within herself.
Are Movies more Sophisticated? Movies require a lot of patience and talent to create. Not all productions are box office gold needless to say. Resident Evil movies rely on the storyline, they rely on the actors to make the right facial expressions and convey the feeling though the silver screen. Most importantly the director’s vision must be one that will captivate an audience. The movies must have good visuals and captivating camera angles to catch the audience’s attention. When making the movie they required actors, Camera people, Editors, Producers, screen writers, backstage crew, audio technicians and other supporting staff (What makes a good movie good? 2016, Sep 17). The Resident Evil movies have a total of 6 movies. Each movie took between 12- 48 months to complete and was grueling process. It cost between 100-250 million dollars to make each movie. Much more than the 20- 50 million it takes to make a video game. This is why there are a total of 30 resident evil games in existence on various consoles.
Cinema is used to reach a broad variety of people, young and old, regardless of race or creed. Movies are used to tell a story which can resonate with many. The good thing about the movies were you didn’t need to play the game to experience of gore and mystery with a hint of death. The bad side of the movies were they did not have anything to do with the games story line instead it took on an identity of its own.
The Resident Evil movies and the Resident Evil videogames have a lot of the same aspects as far as production. For instance, the process of creating both medias are similar. Video Games require a team of developers, writers, and code game designers and supporting staff much like in Cinema production. They also require a lot of talent from voice actors to adequately relay the characters passion and emotion. In visual aspects the two differ. Video games were not always graphically pleasing to the eye. Being that Resident Evil was released in 1996 the graphics are very poor. The video game was pixelated, lacked depth visually and graphically, but still was able to captivate the audience. They often left it up to the player to use their imagination to put a face to the character. The movie relied on the visual aspects of entertainment compared to the hands-on aspect of entertainment like video games. Resident evil video games give the audience a chance to choose what road they take and incorporated hand eye coordination. The player must beat various challenges and use their mind to solve puzzles created by the developer. Characters and plot must conform to “game sense”; if they confuse or challenge too much, they simply won’t be readable enough to fulfill their role causing the player to lose interest. (Resident Evil.com, 2018)
Movies are simply there to watch, the require no effort from the viewers and can be enjoyed at any time. This is why the Resident Evil movies are simply to tell a story loosely based on the video game that started it all. Are video games more sophisticated than movies? I think that they both require an immense amount of effort to create and neither better than the other. In the case of Resident Evil, both the movie franchise and the video game franchise offer something thing valuable to the consumer community.
