Part 11: Episode X: Another One Bites the Dust

Episode X: Another One Bites the Dust

When last we left our heroine...


You know, I don't want to know what any woman could possibly doing in the bathroom for five or so updates. With that said, let's continue...

Jill returns to the hallway where she was rescued by Barry and follows it to the end.


It, of course, leads to...another corridor. I think there is an acre of fucking hallway space in this mansion. Jill decides to check out the area first.


The first door is open, but as we saw with Chris, the door will break if someone takes a return visit to this hallway and for the love of god, we do not need more unneeded backtracking. Next to it...


Since old Spencer apparently has a history as old as Raccoon City and his fucking family seal is common knowledge. Yet...nobody has ever seen the guy... Right, this key goes on the "half a game later" long term goals. Let's try the other door.


Oh boy. Our first real illogically placed puzzle that doesn't involve inventory mix and match! This puzzle has been completely changed from its original game incarnation. And not for the better. The original game had a series of paints running down the passage with portraits of various stages of life. With infant at the beginning and wormfood at the end. The Remake turns it into...


There are a series of stain glassed windows with switches beneath them.


These switches control the lights shining on them. The hallway winds around to the other side with the same switch to colored light set-up. So basically, it's trial and error of getting the correct colors for these things by running back and forth down the hall.


Oh yeah, there's crows. Crows are utterly harmless in this game, as the only time they'll ever attack you actively is if you run past them or if you fuck this puzzle up. Walk right by them and they'll just squawk and stare off into space.


And here we have the colors we're shooting for on this 'Lisa' character. I'm sure this isn't any sort of foreshadowing to a subplot or anything.

Jill solves the dopey ass puzzle.


This reveals, what else but a sliding wall secret passage.


Which, in turn, provides access to the cemetery in the back yard. Granted, you could probably just walk around to the cemetery in the time you could get the trial and error puzzle here done. But, details... More importantly...


Jill snags the Death Mask. This being the one lacking a mouth. And since she is a stone throw away from the crypt that wants these, might as well take a quick jog over there.

Jill power walks to the spooky crypt.


I wonder how many millions have gone into Umbrella's technology to make stone motifs detect anything from emblems to jewels to medals to plaster busts of dead guys. It probably evens out with the funding saved from axing the psychological evaluation department and most of the maintenance crews.


Placing the mask causes one of the hooks latched onto it to violently pull away and cause blood to pour from the new hole in the coffin. Why are we doing this again?!

Jill, puzzled by why she's doing this herself, returns to the earlier hallway.


One more door at the end. I'm guessing this one leads outside.


The architect of this mansion actually has a couple of files in this game. Which explain all the traps and puzzles and silly shit like that. It does not, however, enlighten the reasoning behind having a 10:1 hall to room ratio.


At the end of this passage, we find another locked door and our ultimate objective of the Mansion portion of the game...opening that sinister ass coffin and grabbing whatever is inside it. Well, at least the whole casket raiding quest at least makes some sense. Too bad they present the tomb and its death masks objective about a half hour before the actual reason behind it is revealed. But, that's Capcom scenario planning at work for ya.

Officer Valentine returns to the previous hall and goes through the first door she skipped.


Glorious head explosions. Will you ever get old? There is a room beneath the staircase. Hold your breath. Will it be a save room?


It is!


And, what is that? Oh boy, oh boy. A file cometh!

Special instructions when disposing dead bodies.

They're not talking about zombies here. Well, they are. But, they're talking about an enemy unique to this game using T-Virus rules which never pop-up before or after this point in the series.


Gentlemen, we're following pseudo-Romero zombie rules this time around.


"Make sure those other methods stay in the loop."



If you'll notice in this room, there's a small canteen on the floor and a jug of gasoline by the door. Jill might be able to shove an entire 20 lb bag of fertilizer in her back pocket (where'd that go, anyway?) but the gas jug is a bit too much.

As a result, our heroes must use the canteen and fill it up at the kerosene canisters (which allows for two uses of gas.) Then use the lighter (which is Jill's big draw back, as that means two slots are used for zombie burning) to torch the ghouls. A good old headshot will work as well, but they're not guaranteed in this title, as they would be in the rest with, say, and upward shotgun blast.

You may be wondering the need to do all of this. Zombies coming back up again? What's the big deal?


Motherfucking Crimson Heads is why. You don't play by pseudo-Romero zombie rules and zombies will come back as clawed, growling, 28 Day Later/Dawn of the Dead remake style fast zombies that will wreck your shit.



Moving right along. The upstairs offers a door at each end of the path as well as one on each side just before the end. All are open, aside from the one directly in front of Jill here. As its doorknob is broken. Let's check out the one at the right end.


Another hallway. Another random piece of trash to pilfer.



Today's prize is a big ass blank scrap book. And there was must rejoicing.

Jill takes the back side route through the door with the broken knob.


This room has an unusually cold draft in it.


But, at least this ought to warm it up a bit. With the heavenly aroma of charred week old flesh...


Well, since the door at the other end of the room ended our heroine back in the earlier strip, let's see what's at the opposite end.


Why, it's a map of the 2nd floor of the mansion. I guess Jill could hunt down a pen and draw a crude rendering of it to help her along in her investigation. She could, but you forget that this is Resident Evil and we're only doing things the retarded way.


Like lighting the fire beneath the relief to heat it up.


Then pressing the blank wooden scrap book against it to burn a copy of the map onto it. Since, a poster sized burnt wooden book is a much more convenient way to display...


Oh, FOR FUCK SAKE!

Jill. Hallway. Hallway. Jill.


So there's this door. What is in this door? Is it another fucking hallway? I'm killing a puppy if it's another fucking hallway.


Right here. Dead. Do you hear me, Capcom?! DO YOU?!


Alright, you win this round you rogues. Another idiotic puzzle is up to bat. This one involves pushing armor over vents which release nerve gas, should the button on the pedestal in the center be pressed beforehand. No, I'm not making that up.


It even has an ominous warning to go along with its shiny red button.


However, pressing the button after the correct statues have been pushed in.(they go in the order of the knights above here which correspond with what the armor holding the same item) unlocks a cage for...a box?


Does this mean I can just shove all my emblems, gems, and medals into this thing and save inventory space? That would be great, Capcom.
"No, fuck you. You get another puzzle."
Pricks.


This one is simple. There are switches on all of the sides of the box.


The ones on the front and back look like a sun and a moon, respectively. The one on the top opens the box after those are pressed. I don't know what's on the other two, but who gives a crap? It's solved.


The prize is the Noseless, Eyeless, Mouthless Death Mask. This guy had a rough night.


There was one more door down that hallway, but Jill heard some bad voice acting coming from behind it and decided it was best to leave it alone. In the meantime, she returned to the main hall and discovered the side door was now unlocked. How did she know that? She's the master of unlocking. She knows her shit.


I mean, look how high that is. How the hell did that dog leap all the way up here on the balcony on the other side of the mansion?


Resident Evil cutscenes seem to suffer from the characters having the same field of vision as the player. As such...


Jill completely misses the burly Irishman in the bright red fishing jacket with the huge magnum a few yards ahead of her.


"What were you doing with that corpse."
"Ergh... Investigating!"


"I was standing in the light with my back turned. You had to walk twenty feet in a straight line to get to me... I don't see how this is comparable..."



"We're talking Gary Busey ugly here."


Wikipedia once more comes to the rescue with unnecessary and unpresented backstory for the redshirt filled Bravo Team.



"Here's lookin' at you, kid."


And thus the S.T.A.R.S. Team death total is up to five. Keep on truckin'.


It's never mentioned in the remake as to what was the cause of his death. But, the original game makes it fairly clear it was crows. Yes... Crows... The same ones that only attack if you run by them and do about as much damage as a five year old kicking you in the shin. So the man of the team respected for his professionalism (yet still rocked a mullet) basically 'tard ran through a murder of crows, spazzed out, and was pecked to death...


Alternatively, since he's sitting down, he decided this would be a good place to take a nap. Laid back and awoke to a gathering of birds of a Hitchcock caliber, then the spaz out fest and pecking to death came into fruition . Either way... Fucking crows... Really?


"By the way there's this scary coffin in the cemetery in the back yard and we need to find some plaster death masks to put onto these statues to unleash whatever horror is kept in there and get into the area behind the house. Might want to help with that..."
<shakes head> "He was our old partner, ya know."


Yep. Tits are no good to the undead.


...The team's marksman took a fucking grenade launcher for a search mission? And was still killed by crows... That is... Is...


The best news I've heard all day...


"Son of a bitch still owes me twenty bucks..."

Tune in next time for musical hijinks, time killing, and maybe more third grade level puzzles!

Bonus Content:

Finding Forest Cutscene:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufLjQb5YftY