Resident Evil 7 Banned Footage Vol 1

Is Resident Evil vii's first DLC whatsoever skilful?

If yous bought Resident Evil seven off the back of our potent review, then by now you've probably survived the horrors of the Bakery homestead and are wondering what's next. The reply is the game's first DLC drop, the evocatively titled Banned Footage Vol. 1, only unfortunately, due to Sony exclusivity shenanigans, we take to wait until February 21st to play it. Undeterred, I fired up a PS4 Pro to let yous know what nosotros can expect from the pack.

In that location are iii new nuggets of content, each of which offers varying amounts of replayability. Let'south starting time with the one I recall is best…

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Nightmare

This is a tight little wave-based mode. Every bit cameraman Clancy Jarvis, you wake up back in the Bakers' shitheap domicile and have to survive five waves of molestation from the game'due south goop monsters and two encounters with Jack, the Baker patriarch whose insistence on fighting stripped to the waist and wearing sex offender glasses remains the most terrifying affair in Resi 7. The claw here is resources direction under astringent pressure. The mode uses a sectioned off area of the firm that amounts to a handful of rooms and interconnecting corridors. Dotted around these are a couple of machines which pump out "flake", the style'southward currency which is used to buy weapons, ammo, and other upgrades similar speed reload and wellness boosts. The obvious plan is to make loops betwixt the machines, setting semi-deadly traps (which also cost flake) along the fashion, while enhancing your gear and dealing with the enemies as cost-effectively as possible.

Sounds elementary enough, but Capcom has added a couple of beautiful strategic touches. Firstly, as y'all buy a particular type of ammo, and then its price increases. This encourages you to mix up your loadout. Become too reliant on the high utility shotgun and shells will somewhen become prohibitively expensive. There are also additional fleck machines subconscious behind locked doors which demand to be opened with corrosive fluid, the first use of which costs a absurd i,500 scrap. So yous have to determine whether to starve yourself of ammo early in social club to become the auto online, which helps immensely during the concluding couple of waves. Adding to the moreishness of the mode, high scores unlock more than exotic weapons like the round saw and juicy Albert-01R handgun, which I only now realise must be named after Wesker. Huh. Nightmare owes a little of its Deoxyribonucleic acid to the acclaimed Mercenaries minigame, and although it'south non quite as rich or compelling, information technology's a fun, claustrophobic diversion that you lot'll want to play a dozen or so times.

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Bedroom

Changing pace completely, Bedchamber is a puzzle-centric take on those "Escape Rooms" that accept become pop with monied hipsters (not surprising, seeing that an official Resi 7 escape room is making the rounds already). This fourth dimension Clancy wakes upwardly handcuffed in bed, with mad former Marguerite in the role of his Misery-style nursemaid. (Pro tip: Don't consume her soup.) Whenever she leaves the room, you need to break out of bed and commencement looking for a longer term style out. In classic Resi style, that means combining objects, swapping painting positions, and faffing effectually with clock hands in order to acquire new items to do also with. Here's the kicker though: completing sure puzzles volition make a racket that alerts Marguerite. At which point you have 30 seconds to scramble back to bed, but first you'll need to replace anything she might notice has been moved.

The tension equally she busts the door open and begins scanning the room for inconsistencies is real. A single fault volition lead to her coughing upwards some of her assail bees or, worse, airsickness a giant centipede straight into your mouth. Dr Quinn Medicine Woman she is not. If you make multiple errors, she'll go hog wild with a knife in your guts. For those of y'all who've played the main game, it works a lot like the videotape in which you accept to put a candle on a birthday cake. Y'all're probably looking at well-nigh 45 minutes of play hither, and it's not something you'll render to once done, only played with friends it'southward a lot of fun. If The Witness had been l of these puzzles I'd probably accept liked it a lot more than. Escape rooms are a cool idea that I expect to encounter the rebooted Resi explore further in the hereafter.

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Ethan Must Dice

Want more than Resident Evil 7?

Hoo boy, I didn't like this one at all. Ethan Must Die is aimed squarely at the self-flagellating Dark Souls oversupply. But where the Souls games earn their punishing difficulty with great blueprint and pacing, this is just hard for hard'due south sake. You know information technology'due south meant to be hard because the sky above the Bakery house has turned blood red, and considering the game warns you multiple times that yous're going to die as it's loading up. Initially armed only with a knife, Ethan must crack open randomised item boxes—some of which explode and instakill him—in order to larn the weapons and items necessary to fend off the heavy enemy presence.

To be off-white, y'all tin examine the boxes to see if they're suspicious (ticking, for case) before smashing them, merely that'south a luxury you won't be afforded when you're existence double-teamed by broth guys. Other interesting tweaks included less lighting in the house, and no map, which makes combat even more fraught. There's also a Souls-esque arrangement that means subsequently dying yous tin repossess an particular from wherever your corpse barbarous. Merely honestly, the experience just doesn't feel fun, and I had no desire to git anything like gud at it, though peradventure information technology will find an audition amongst more masochistic of Twitch streamers.

Overall, in that location's plenty in Banned Footage Vol. 1 to warrant your interest if you enjoyed Resi 7 and desire to spend more time in it's globe. However, it does feel pretty rum that this stuff came out (on PlayStation, at least) a week after the principal game released. I'g non i to bang on nigh cutting content, just given that the main game doesn't have any multiplayer or other modes, these minigames would have been a welcome improver to the package, and arguably shouldn't require any boosted spend. Simply that'southward gaming in 2017 I estimate, and given that Resi 7 has supposedly sold substantially less than its predecessor, perhaps you can run across why Capcom feels information technology has to eke any extra it can from the project.

In that location's too a second book of Banned Footage in the works, which will include some other ii tapes, titled '21' and 'Daughters', plus the addition of 'Jack'due south 55th Altogether' mode. Now there's a political party I'd gladly skip. The season pass for the Banned Footage packs costs $29.99/£24.99 on Steam, but if you're don't want to drop any more money on the game, y'all can at least expect forrad to the 'Not a Hero' freebie in jump, which is new story content separate from the Ethan Stuff and therefore sounds similar the most interesting of the lot.

With over 2 decades roofing videogames, Tim has been there from the get-go. In his instance, that meant playing Elite in 'co-op' on a BBC Micro (one histrion uses the move keys, the other shoots) until his parents finally caved and bought an Amstrad CPC 6128. These days, when not steering the proficient ship PC Gamer, Tim spends his fourth dimension complaining that all Priest mains in Hearthstone are degenerates and raiding in Destiny 2. He's almost certainly doing one of these right now.