Once Sophie called me 'Resident Emo' as an insult. It was very cruel. She is never forgiven.
Solid game series, though - when I can even make it through without scaring myself to death. And playing alone makes it a tad harder still, since watching between the gaps in my fingers becomes pretty difficult when those fingers must also press the buttons...
Resident Evil 7 is one of my favourites just because of how gnarly and gross it is. This one fight scene in a garage makes you shoot a half-zombie dude in the face five times before running him over repeatedly - then, just when you think he's dead as the car sets on fire, his flaming corpse comes running at you for part two.
I mostly play games alone now, since they're usually single player. It's a weird feeling playing games by myself now. I never did as a kid.
Back when I was younger, I'd only ever play games if my older brother or my dad was playing, and I'd ask so many annoying prying questions about the game mechanics they'd usually ask me to leave them alone. (Not Nintendo games though - those I played alone or together, 24/7. Animal Crossing was my whole lockdown.) So I'm not exactly a professional on gaming. But I'm not half bad, either.
The problem with Resident Evil though is that you have to get through the anxiety to even start making progress. Seeing that one cop get de-torsoed at the start of the RE2 remake was enough to make me close the tab, so my gameplay often plateaus at a solid 3 hours before I can work up the nerve to keep going.
I'm not even that anxious of a person. The things I do socially are pretty much equivalent to the classic sitcom cringe feeling where you have to repeat to yourself "it's just a show, they're just acting..."
But horror games are enough to make me cower in a corner! It would be far more convenient in my every day life if I got scared and cringed away at failed social interactions instead of at fictional spooky zombie outbreaks.
Sophie talks about how, when she's tramping in the bush, she remembers that the 'flight or fight' reaction is only installed for life or death scenarios, and how ridiculous it is she feels it at a mistimed joke or message left on seen.
But I don't go outside enough to relate to that. So instead, I will end by commenting on how ridiculous it is I scream at pixels on a screen, but not as I drive a 1000kg metal box down the road at 60km/h.
Now go play Resident Evil 4! :p
