Where to begin...
The year was 2006 and I was looking for something to play on my recently gifted PS2 Slim. To my surprise the famous Resident Evil franchise had a new installment sitting on store shelves. As soon as the disc booted the foreboding image of a decaying rural village greeted me on the menu. Starting a new game, cinematics unlike anything I had seen prior in gaming informed me that I was playing the role of the new and improved agent Leon S. Kennedy on a search and rescue mission of the President's daughter in some backwater, mountainous rural area of Spain. The locals were unfriendly to say the least, but nothing had prepared me for the menace of Dr. Salvador. A chainsaw-wielding psycho wearing a flour bag with eyeholes cut out for a face. He scared the shit out of me. A live grenade and a fully loaded shotgun unloaded at center mass couldn't put this monster down. Naturally, I died a gruesome death that would normally be reserved for the supporting cast of
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Again and again I tried to overcome him but to no avail.
Having mustered up the courage to face him weeks later while retreading my steps to the village from the first typewriter I caught onto the fact that the villagers would be stunned when I slashed the knife at their face. With that revelation, I managed to best him with nothing more than a series of headshots and the old trusty grenade. A church bell rang in the distance and the rest of the villagers scurried off as if I was never there. Hope was alive and well again. Luck was on my side and soon I ran into a friendly local hogtied inside a closed dresser before the "Big Cheese" rang my bell. Leon woke up shackled to this stranger inside an abandoned mountainside home before an overburdened axeman unintentionally set them free with a misdirected downward swing. Leon's subsequent guiding kick threw the axeman against the wall and broke his neck. The humorous stranger named Luis, who had an uncanny resemblance to Antonio Banderas in
Desperado, informed Leon that the President's daughter was being kept inside the Church by the center of town. Stepping outside the home, Leon met a mysterious figure looking to peddle his arsenal. He was more than happy to buy the discarded trinkets picked up along the journey thus far, to upgrade my weaponry, or to sell Leon a rifle/TMP for the local currency but strangely refused to sell any of the abundant ammo he carried unless I performed a capacity upgrade on the weapons. Even so, with this investment I felt more confident than ever.
While retracing my way back to the village, I ran into the "Big Cheese" inside a well furnished home but fortunately some mysterious shooter diverted his attention leaving me to my own devices after he gave a foreboding message about Leon having received some gift and having the same blood as them. Soon after, the twin brother of Dr. Salvador confronted Leon outside the home but I managed to dispatch him and his two friends without much effort. A fancy door at the center of the village hid a cavernous path to a small church. It had the strangest gate barricading the door with an indentation of something that would probably be right at home in an
Indiana Jones movie. Nearby mountainous scaffolding lead the way to a booby trapped walking trail to the local lake. A quick survey of the area revealed a man-eating lake monster but having no alternative route to take I was forced to confront the monstrosity. Commandeering the docked decrepit motorboat I managed to get halfway across the lake before it attacked. I had never given much thought to whaling before but my harpoon-filled battle with the creature had revealed a side of myself that would make Ishmael jealous. The feeling of victory was short-lived as upon reaching the other shore Leon started coughing up blood and passed out.
Leon woke up in the middle of the night to a mysterious letter about aid given to him during his much needed rest. It, however, did not prepare him for what came next... a headless villager with a convulsing Lovecraftian squid coming out of its neck. That thing could take as much lead as several villagers and had no weaknesses as far as I could tell.
Things only got worse from there as a giant straight out of folklore and a mutated wolf pack greeted me on the way back to the church. Fortunately, the dog I helped out of a bear trap earlier distracted the giant.
Finally... Leon made it to the church and found the President's nasally teenage daughter but as luck would have it the demonic televangelist behind the kidnapping plot showed up with his congregation.
With some skilled maneuvering I managed to get Ashley out of there unharmed and in my hubris landed in a
Night of the Living Dead situation with my favorite local.
I barely made it. Hoarding ammo and healing items up to this point payed off but afterward I was running low on both. Having heeded the note at gate switch that informed me that I could choose between two crazy sisters or another giant to go through, I chose the latter and opened the gate on the right. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. Not taking any chances with the wellbeing of the President's daughter I bought a Rocket Launcher from the merchant and took out the giant in a single shot. I had now made it all the way to the gate leading out of the village, but some strange mechanism on the gate would not unlock until an eye was placed inside. A note in a nearby storage hut informed me that the village chief had the eye needed to get out of this village and was holed up in a barn. After a surprisingly smooth ride on the cable cars I entered the barn alone feeling naked without the rocket launcher I could now seldom afford. In the blink of an eye the chief appeared behind Leon and manhandled him like The Undertaker. After dodging a haymaker, Leon rolled a fuel barrel in the chief's general direction and lit it up with a well placed shot at its spilled contents. Only what appeared to be a checkmate turned into a game of fatal tag with something straight out of the Necronomicon.
Having retrieved the village chief's eyeball from his corpse inside the burning barn Leon managed to escort Ashley past the village gates and into the castle where they thought it was safe...
. This game is bittersweet to me, imo this is when they ruined the RE franchise but as a game alone and not looking at it as an RE game it was pretty good.
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