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Resident Evil 2002 cover

Resident Evil is a survival horror video game developed by Capcom Production Studio 4 and published by Capcom. Released for the GameCube video game console in 2002, it is a remake of the 1996 PlayStation game Resident Evil, the first installment in the Resident Evil video game series. The story takes place in 1998 near the fictional Midwestern town of Raccoon City where a series of bizarre murders have taken place. The player takes on the role of either Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine, S.T.A.R.S. agents sent in by the city to investigate the murders.

Resident Evil was developed over the course of one year and two months as part of an exclusivity deal between Capcom and Nintendo. It was directed by Shinji Mikami, who also designed and directed the original Resident Evil. Mikami decided to produce a remake because he felt that the original had not aged well enough and that the GameCube's capabilities could bring it closer to his original vision. The game retains the same graphical presentation, with 3D models superimposed over pre-rendered backgrounds. However, the quality of the graphics was vastly improved. The remake also features new gameplay mechanics, revised puzzles, additional explorable areas, a revised script, and new story details including an entire subplot cut from the original game.

Upon release, Resident Evil received acclaim from video game journalists, who praised its graphics and improved gameplay over the original game. It is often described as one of the best, scariest, and most visually impressive entries in the Resident Evil series. However, the game sold worse than expected, leading Capcom to change the direction of the series to a more action-oriented approach. In 2008, the game was ported to the Wii, featuring a new control system. In 2015, a high-definition remastered version was released for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Windows, Xbox 360, and Xbox One to critical and commercial success.

Plot[]

On July 24, 1998, a series of bizarre murders occur on the outskirts of the Midwestern town of Raccoon City. The Raccoon City Police Department's Special Tactics And Rescue Service (STARS) are assigned to investigate. After contact with Bravo Team is lost, Alpha Team is sent to investigate their disappearance. Alpha Team locates Bravo Team's crashed helicopter and land at the site, where they are attacked by a pack of monstrous dogs, killing one of the team. After Alpha Team's helicopter pilot, Brad Vickers, panics and takes off alone, the remaining members (Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Albert Wesker and Barry Burton) seek refuge in an abandoned mansion, where they split up.

The player character (Chris or Jill) finds several members of Bravo Team, including Kenneth J. Sullivan being eaten by a zombie; Richard Aiken, who is either killed by a giant venomous snake or eaten by a shark; Forest Speyer, who is found dead and revived as a zombie; and Bravo Team leader Enrico Marini, who reveals that one of Alpha Team's members is a traitor before being killed by an unseen shooter. Bravo Team survivor Rebecca Chambers joins Chris. The player character learns that a series of illegal experiments were undertaken by a clandestine research team under the authority of a biomedical company Umbrella Corporation. The creatures roaming the mansion and its surrounding areas are the results of these experiments, which have exposed the mansion's personnel and animals to a highly contagious and mutagenic biological agent known as the T-virus.

The player character discovers a secret underground laboratory containing Umbrella's experiments. There, they find Jill or Chris in a cell and encounter Wesker programming a Tyrant, a humanoid bioweapon. Wesker reveals that he is a double agent working for Umbrella, and plans to use the Tyrant to kill the STARS members. In the ensuing confrontation, Wesker is apparently killed and the player character defeats the Tyrant. After activating the lab's self-destruct system, the player character reaches the heliport and contacts Brad for extraction. The ending changes depending on the player's actions at key points: in the best ending, the surviving team members escape by helicopter after defeating the Tyrant again; in the worst ending, the mansion remains intact and the player character is the sole survivor.

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