Resident Evil: Scariest Game of our Time

The title of this piece may surprise you, and that's no surprise to me. In recent decades, zombie related books, games, films, have all been rejected from the horror genre and have been classified as either action or comedy, usually the latter of the two or a combination of both. I will prove to you that zombie games are much scarier than you think.

Let's look at Resident Evil. You play the game as a human trapped in a zombie-infested environment with an assortment of powerful weapons. They limp towards you and you "kill" the undead by showering them with lead. You laugh at their weakness and you shoot them for pure entertainment. There is no fear towards these lifeless forms. You mock them because they're pitiful, and you despise them because they don't belong in society, even though they dominate mansions and cities in most zombie games. You feel powerful destroying these fragile creatures; their demise brings you satisfaction.

"But wait, how is that scary?" Shut up and read on, ladies and gentlemen. To understand the horror of zombies one must analyze them. Let's list some typical traits of the undead. Slow on their feet but quick with hands and mouth, forever hungry, dirty, lifeless. Sound familiar? That's right. Metaphorically, they represent the gamers in our society. Gamers are voluntarily paralyzed except for their hands for the keyboard or game console. Their mouths are also used for taunting online, as well as commands such as "Ma! Meatloaf!" and "Ma! Pee bucket!" Constant consumption of junk food helps energize gamers to complete games within 10 hours after purchase or illegal download. Personal hygiene is forgotten like a belt knife when surrounded by zombies, and like their enemies, players are lice-ridden and yes, they reek of death. Only a few die from playing computer games, but they all have no lives.

"That's still not very scary, Jerry." Oh yes it is. It's a fear aroused by horror rather than terror, because it isn't very noticeable unless you open your eyes and look carefully. Think of it this way: Zombies thrusting their arms out suddenly through broken windows scares you for that moment, but the dread of a possibly hidden predator is much more frightening. The ideas I am and will be presenting lie at the back of your minds, but they are too scary to accept, let alone confront. When you put your Resident Evil disk into your PS1 and moments later start busting caps into zombie heads, you are turning into one of them. You kill them because you're better than them, but you fail to realize that the longer you fight, the more it consumes you.

So you see? Resident Evil is not scary because of what happens in the game. It's the issues it brings up that's horrifying. The fear does not lie in the zombies themselves; the fear is that you'll become a nerdy gamer.