Resident Evil 7 demo walk through impressions

*SPOILERS DUH*

One of the reveals during E3 was the new Resident Evil, titled Resident EVII.  I love the way Roman numerals work with titles.  It was almost like they changed Biohazard to Resident Evil just because someone saw how well this title would work should the franchise move to its seventh installment.  Also announced was a playable demo that was available yesterday, but the catch is that it's only available for PS+ members, of which I don't belong.  I was so intrigued by what I saw of EVII that I simply had to try it, so I activated a 14 day trial.  For whatever reason, it wasn't available on the US PS store last night, so I had to wait for today for it to pop up.  I downloaded it, went to dinner, and then immediately started playing when I got home.

I had been hearing that the entire game's in first person, which is already starting to polarize some RE fans.  Personally, I am not bothered by it, because it absolutely worked for P.T.  Even though Capcom said they weren't inspired by the ill fated Silent Hills demo, I'd have to call bullshit on that.  Anyway, so far, the first person is working for me.  The visuals are pretty damned creepy.  Everything is decrepit and dirty and slimy and disgusting.  I decided to put on some stereo headphones because the game's audio is so subtle, it's being masked by the PS4's fans.  With the headphones on, I'm finding myself looking around every time I hear something bumped or falling over.  So far, the atmosphere is spot on for a survival horror game.  

The demo starts off with my wrists being bound, and a guy with a knife cuts me free and then the screen freezes up and brings out the title of the game demo.  Once I start, I see myself looking at the floor and then I'm slowly getting up.  I've been instructed by the game to get out of the house.  As I'm walking around taking in the scenery, I come across the kitchen.  Because of my curious nature, I'm opening everything.  The refrigerator spills all sorts of liquids.  A dead bird surprises me when I open the microwave.  A pot on the table is a dinner gone horribly bad.  Even the cockroaches want nothing to do with it and flee via my arm as I lifted the lid off.  What the hell has gone on in this house?

I open drawers, one empty, one locked.  

As I leave the kitchen and enter a hallway, I come across a cabinet that's chained shut.  I take a second and notice how the state of this hallway is in complete disrepair.  Drywall has fallen off revealing wooden innards, and neigh a painting is evenly hung.  My flashlight flickers for a second as it illuminates a massive network of spider webs.  I approach the door and open it slowly.

If only video games had olfactory feedback accessories, I would have been bombarded with a horrible stench.  I see some kind of remains of a monstrosity, but in pieces.  Flies buzz in my ears as if they were actually in my ears.  I hear floorboards creaking, daring me to enter this room.  I find a pair a bolt cutters, and just as I press X to confirm, I'm met with my first surprise as a naked moldy baby doll falls to the floor in front of me, mocking me with a squeak as I utter "Jesus Christ" under my breath.  A door at the end of this room is locked, telling me I need to locate a key.  I know what to do with the bolt cutters, so I go back to the chained cabinet.  

The game prompts me with the inventory screen and I select the bolt cutters and proceed to free the doors from their bondage.  Expecting something to jump out and scare me, I open the doors.  To both disappointment and relief, I find nothing more than a VHS tape.  I take it and add it to my inventory and head back to a TV I saw in the room I started.  As I'm walking back, I'm met with some startling noise of someone or something rattling windows and shutters.  It makes me uneasy.  I'm tensing up in anticipation of the next big scare. 

Still heading back, I notice a flight of stairs that I somehow overlooked so I halt and consider going up.  I decide to ascend and notice a blinking light on a column, an alarm perhaps?  The button is marked "STAIRS", so I'm figuring it raises the stairs.  I don't push it and decide to explore the room further.  I come across the lady mannequins that some idiot in the audience during the reveal felt it was appropriate to whistle, and then a desk and a chair, a drawer some trash bags and an empty rack.  I return to the button and press it. I go to investigate the stairs and nothing happens.  I return to the button and proceed to freak myself out as I somehow keep knocking over this damn mannequin thinking I have someone else in the attic with me.  When I get a grip, I return to the button and press it again.  It says it's not responding, so I head back downstairs.  

I freeze in my tracks as I hear what sounds like a dog growling.  I'm trying to get a location on where it's coming from and just when I think I have it, it stops, so I move on.  I open the door to the starting room and am immediately blasted by white noise, which has me turn the volume down a bit. The TV's on, screen full of static.  I put the tape in the player and it begins play.

It shows a video with two guys in some kind of house talking about making a movie, sounds like it's a documentary called Sewer Gators.  The two guys are arguing over something.  I then realize I have control of the person who was watching the two guys.   I move forward.  My footsteps tell me I'm stepping in something wet; there's puddles of water all over.  The graphics also have taken on a filter to make it readily known that is a VHS movie you're watching.  

I'm approaching the patio of a house and I meet up with the two guys apparently waiting for me to arrive so we can enter the house.  I also notice the windows are barred with chain link fence and barbed wire.  To keep something out or in? Ah, durr... I'm the camera man in this story.  They struggle to open the door, and then one kicks it in.  We enter and the two talk among themselves and I hear one of them wondering what they're doing in this house, because he used to be an anchor.  The other's giving him crap about it.  I recognize the hallway we're walking down.  It was the hallway that contained the locked cabinet. 

The two talk about the owners of the house, Jack and Margarite Baker.  While they speak, I explore.  The pot of dinner is still there, but the cockroaches aren't.  The Bakers have a son, Lucas (fuck, it would HAVE to be Lucas) and there's some pretty bad rumors surrounding him.  I open the microwave and the bird is there. The refrigerator spills nothing when I open it.  I overhear one of the guys cursing as he steps in something, ruining his shoes. I hear one of them call the other Andre, and after calling for Andre a few times, we release he's no longer with us.  He calls me Clancy, and the he I now remember was called Pete by Andre.  We start looking for Andre now. 

We go down the hallway where the stairs were heading into the starting room.  We hear a commotion on the other side of the door, startling us both.  He opens the door and we very slowly enter, calling out his name, shining our flashlight all around and finding nothing.  A sound is heard from the fireplace, so he inspects it and finds a switch.  After hitting it, a secret panel in the wall next to us opens, I press R3 to crouch and we slip in. We come across a ladder, and he urges me to go in first.  

I go down the ladder and then enter what looks to be some of cellar.  I hear water dripping from above and then I just so happen to catch Andre out of the corner of my eye.  He's facing the wall and then I immediately put the controller down and look away.  I know what's coming.  Ever seen the Blair Witch Project?  I pick the controller back up and walk up to Andre where I grab him by the shoulder and turn him around.  He's been impaled on the face on a broken water pipe!  I as Clancy scream, the weight of Andre, now freed from the pipe, falls on me and takes me down and then I see shuffling feet walking towards me, me still screaming but now swearing and I hear crunching sounds, some groans of pain and the tape ends.  

I'm back in front of the TV with an object next to it, a piece of paper.  It looks like it says "YOU" written in blood. I pick it up and read it.  It says, "I SHALL DASH YOU AGAINST THE STONES".  The "YOU" was written over "THEM"  I turn around and it looks like some kind of fuse box opened so I go to investigate.  Of course, one is missing, so that's my next mission.  Find that missing fuse. 

As I leave the room, I hear a door open and close in the background.  Thinking for a second, I think that was just the door I left from, but then I hear footsteps from somewhere.  They sound like they're above me.  I hear a clock ticking.  I'm pretty sure I didn't hear it ticking the first time I went through this house.  I decide to go back up to the attic.  

The mannequin I kept tripping over was no longer there.  I push the stairs button again, still not responding.  I head back down and then through the kitchen, back into the room where the decomposing meat was.  Upon closer examination, it looks like a cow that has been perfectly separated from front to back.  Not sure where to go, I remember the video of Pete who found the switch hidden in the fireplace.  I run back to it, find the switch and pull it.  I slip through the secret panel and go through the hidden room.  The ladder's gone, but a back door key is in its place, so I pick it up.  

Heading back out and into the room, I hear footsteps from the hallway, and I think I looked away as just the wrong time to miss the figure crossing past the door that I saw in the E3 footage.  The music is now playing to set the tone.  It's that kind of music that lets you know something's going to happen.  I go through the door, take a right and try the door just ahead of me.  Nope, locked, so this is not the door that uses this key.  

I head back down the hallway and then hear a noise that sounds like someone's dragging a metal pipe along a concrete floor.  More commotion happening as I pass the stairs, and I decide to go up them again to take a look. Nothing, so I head back down and through the kitchen to the other hallway.  SCARED BY ANOTHER GOD DAMN MANNEQUIN!  WHAT THE HELL! 

So the door at the end of the room with the bisected cow must be the back door.  It is.  I'm prompted by the inventory screen and I select the key. Just as I open the door and see the outside, I hear laughter and the I'm grabbed by a guy, jerked around where I see a man covered in blood, then he says, "Welcome to the family, son!" and punches me in the face knocking me out.

When I come to, it's the movie again of me being bound, which I know now to be Clancy, and the guy, who I now identify as Pete cutting me free.  Then he's stabbed in the back by a hideous creature.  After he done killing Pete, he jumps on me where the tape freezes on a freakish looking face.  The demo ends with a line saying, 'Join the family early 2017!'

Ok, so as good as the demo was, this wasn't Resident Evil.  There wasn't anything aside from a creepy house that connects this demo to the Resident Evil franchise.  Of course, this is just a teaser and it may not be indicative of the actual game akin to what P.T. might have been to Silent Hills.  Who knows what the rest of the game will be like?  All we know is that it'll all be in first person.  

So long as Resident EVII has some classic RE monsters, puzzling solving and combat/item mechanics, I'm good with the game being in first person.  If all we're going to get is a game about a crazy family (which is what the line at the end of the demo suggests) where all you do is stumble around in old houses, then no thanks as it clearly would not be Resident Evil.  We'll just have to see.