We love the Resident Evil, and with the release of Resident Evil 7 it brings the main series to 11 entries, and what better way to celebrate than create a list that will cause people to get salty over differing opinions?

This list will be the best MAINLINE games, that means no Survivor and no WII/Portable efforts and no REmakes. So only OG Resident Evil and original version of Code: Veronica.

Also, as Resident Evill VII is not yet 2 years old we will not be including it in this list.

Make sense?

Go!

10. Resident Evil 6

Easily the worse game we are including; generic, by the numbers, at parts poor gameplay, terrible story, and soulless. I honestly don’t think this entry could have had more plot holes if they tried.

Leon’s campaign is by far the best and even that is fairly inconsistent.

(Review)

9. Resident Evil 5

Basically Resident Evil 5 was a copy and paste job of 4 with a reskin. It skirted a dangerous line with potential racism which led to them shoehorning Sheva in, and then missed the mark with spear chucking tribalists. It didnt help that Sheva’s AI was thicker than a bowl of oatmeal.

The series didn’t just jump the shark, it crashed a plane into a volcano and punched the boulder…

5 is still fun to play, but you really need to find somebody to play local or online with, as the AI is truly terrible especially on the Wesker rocket dodging bit.

(Review)

8. Resident Evil

OG Resident Evil has its charms, but it has simply not aged well. While you can still have fun playing the game, there are much better Resident Evil games out there. Don’t get me wrong I do still love the game, and the difficulty is perfect but as a novice playing this you’ll be annoyed by some moments of retrospectively poor game design.

(Review)

7. Resident Evil: Revelations 2

A venerable mixed bag, it tries to combine the idiocy of Resident Evil 6 and the Survival Horror of Revelations. It does not succeed.

The story falls up it’s own arse, and becomes 6 levels of incohenrency and has significant plot holes as a result of the story structure.

You do finally get to play as Barry, which is apparently important to some people.

(Review)

6. Resident Evil: Code Veronica

For this to be so low in our list shows how much we get rate the games above it. This is where the series starts to go more action-ey and less Survival Horror, but the 3d gameplay and a semi-fixed camera angle were a massive step up from the PS1 era games.

A few frusrations can occur when the story swaps between characters, which means playing for the first time can lead to bad equipment loads outs which mean you only have a knife for final boss fight. But the Alfred and Alexa story is easily the best written part of the series, and there are moments where you actually care about characters. Even Steve, the skeevy little bitchnozzle.

(Review)

5. Resident Evil Zero

Zero is an odd one, this is where the story starts to retcon itself, and the storylines become conveluted. I mean seriously, is there a plausible way for this game to finish and OG to start? Rebecca could and should have cleared the mansion before Chris and Jill arrive, and said “Chris, Wesker is the bad guy, let’s get out of here i’ll tell you more at the station.”

The character swapping added a nice element to puzzles, but the lack of item box could get annoying as you could easily leave a tonne of ammo/weapons in an area and bork your game.

Still has some of the best water effects in a game.

(Review)

4. Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil 4 reignited a series that was struggling to find it’s feet after many misteps on the spinoff front. 4 managed to retain the Survival Horror aspects for the most part, and added in great action set-pieces. But the last 3rd of the game is a quick time heavy clusterfuck that goes slightly off the boil.

The story also gets a little stupid, and it speaks volumes for the series that a midget Napoleon isn’t one of the worst aspects of it.

Ashley might be a chore, but 4 was what the series needed.

(Review)

3. Resident Evil: Revelations

Bet you’re surprised we rated this one so highly? To be honest we were just as surprised at how Capcom knocked this one out of the park. This was a sort of spin-off that rips off Dead Aim, and is set between RE4 and RE5.

Yet somehow the story makes the most sense of the modern ones, the characters are not cartoonish, and the gameplay manages to tred the Action/Survival Horror tightrope perfectly.

Added in the Raid mode which adds a purpose to the standard “Mercenary Mode”, means there was a fair amount of replayability.

(Review)

2. Resident Evil 2

Infinitely replayable, 4 different scenarios that present the story from slightly differing perspectives, and a well balanced difficulty.

There isn’t an ounce of fat on the game either. Every room is memorable, and exploration is encouraged. Basically, you get the same sense of wonder and exploration as you do in a good Zelda game.

With lots of unlockables and a certain Soy based character unlocked for skill means there is always another challenge.

The introduction of a stalking Tyrant in the second Scenario is pant spoilingly terrifying and is a precursor to the best game in the seires!

(Review)

1. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis

Alright, you might have guessed this is our number one by process of elimination, but it was blumming close. Having the titular Nemesis pursue you throughout the game is genuinely terrifying and never gets old.

The live choices also manage to offer differences to your run through, and being brave or good and taking on the Nemesis will reward you hansomely. Getting to be Jill and kicking arse is pretty fucking cool too!

Nemesis also introduced the Mercenary Mode, and while it was a little primitive it added new reasons to play once you’re done with the main game.

(Review)