Resident Evil

There are a few curiosities around the Resident Evil series. First, the original (Japanese) name of the series is Biohazard. It had to be changed in the US and Europe for trademark reasons: there already is a metal band named Biohazard. Now, we can't have a band and game with the same name, that would cause no end of confusion, wouldn't it?

The Residents of Evil Creek

Judge Steven Limbaugh's infamous April 2004 decision that games do not convey ideas and therefore are not protected by the first amendment of the US constitution was based on four games:

• Mortal Kombat,
• Fear Effect,
• Doom, and
• The Residents of Evil Creek.

Now nobody ever heard of a game called The Residents of Evil Creek, but it is generally assumed that Judge Limbaugh was actually talking about Resident Evil.

The German Index

The policy of the board towards the games of the Resident Evil series has not been all too consistent. As far as I could find out, the situation is like this:

• Resident Evil: Not on the index.
• Resident Evil 2: Indexed.
• Resident Evil 3: US and Japanese versions, but not the German version, on the index.
• Resident Evil – Code: Veronica: Both the Dreamcast and the later PS2 version on the index.

Glide

The 1997 Windows port of Resident Evil was, along with titles like Quake and Hexen II, among the first major games to support 3dfx' Glide standard, which helped the Voodoo cards dominate the market in the second half of the 90s.

Links

• Project Umbrella is a Resident Evil compendium.
• Biohazard series lineup: From Biohazard 2 on, all the original official websites are still accessible.
• Resident Evil Mega Site, (since 1997) is not as big as it looks, since most menu items aren't linked, but it's a good resource on the first game.
• Resident Evil Fan site, one of the few surviving from the Web 1.0 days. Has some fan art.