Resident Evil: The Adventures of Carnby's Slightly Weaker Brother

Now to play as Chris.

Difficulty in this game is weird. While later entries and even this game's later versions have proper difficulties, by default the only change is that Jill is easy and Chris is hard. There are many little differences, but the ones I'm aware of are that Jill gets a very powerful weapon in the grenade launcher, can get the shotgun much earlier and has a lockpick. Chris, meanwhile, needs to find another key and only gets more ammo for his regular weapons as compensation for the loss of a special one. The biggest of all is that Chris has two less inventory slots, which is very bad when you now need to carry around more keys.

Starting as Chris causes Barry to be the one to not make it into the mansion. I'm sure he's fine though, but Wesker doesn't seem to think so. We hear a gunshot and Chris offers to go investigate. There's no blood in the dining hall, so it's straight off to the first zombie.

So, at the very least I should get acquainted with knifing single zombies like this one. There's a trick to this, you have greater range than the zombie and you have a faster backwards speed than he has forward speed. Just barely. I suspect Jill has an easier time of this, since she's faster. Which is amusing to note, since Chris is supposed to be the CQC expert. On the second attempt I succeed in only getting grabbed once. This is gonna be fun.

Returning to the lobby, I find no Jill and no Wesker. Wherever could they have gone? But, there's a pistol here, small comfort that is. With the two magazines I got off Kenneth, that's 45 rounds. Let's see what Forest is carrying now that I'm not going to get a grenade launcher out of it.

With the ink ribbon in the lobby and this key, I'm already full up.

In the hallway leading there, I find something next to a window, this small key. I don't know what this is supposed to unlock, but at the moment it's not that helpful. I imagine I'll find something this unlocks sooner rather than later. Forest, meanwhile now has a magazine of pistol ammo. Helpful, in fact, this isn't going quite as bad as I thought. I can go either way upstairs now, but I think it's probably in my best interests to go east on the ground floor for now.

Because I wanted this map. I need to get to a save room. Further east has the dogs, which I can kill, but then we have two more zombies in the hallway just before you go outside and outside the eastern save room. Possibly more, since Chris probably isn't just harder because of his equipment and what not. But, on the western side, there are only two rooms, and while one has two zombies, I should be able to easily knife them. I succeed, but I gotta learn to stop chasing a hit if I miss just as one is approaching. Jewel has been dropped to the ground, and now to clear out the next hallway.

Three zombies, huh? That's a significant amount of ammo to have to use. Maybe I can just take out two then knife the third. It's not really possible to run past three of these guys. Unlike the hunters or the zombie dogs, regular zombies don't have a specific attack you can avoid, if you're within a certain angle of his front side you're getting attacked. You can dodge single zombies thanks to their inability to go in a straight line, but it's not entirely reliable. I actually get hit again, but only this time because the third zombie spits acid on you. Finally a save room and...

Chris gets pepper sprayed by Rebecca Chambers, the medic from Bravo Team. Man, this really isn't how I remember this, shows how far I got as Chris. Rebecca lets out a cute little scream before apologizing. Her voice actress is weird, she actually sounds decent, though she sounds a bit underage to be in the police force. Then again, that is Rebecca Chambers. Chris isn't so bad either, but not exactly great. He introduces himself to her, and asks where the rest of her team is, she doesn't know because she just ran into this house. Her team had a crash landing in their chopper, which she finds strange because she just serviced it recently. (As hilarious as this is, it's a mistranslation, it was serviced recently by someone else)

Right, well, there's a key here, probably the sword key, the one that unlocks door Jill could pick open. But for now, I need to save. There are two magazines in the chest, which I needed. Zombies here are proving to be more annoying than the zombies Jill had. I think I'm going to try to take out the zombies in this hallway this time, with the ever so lovely method of relying on the knife. See if I can't knife them one at a time without alerting the others. I prepare to set out to do this, only for Rebecca to ask to follow me as I walk out. Aw, hell, I can't have her follow me, and I get the distinct feeling that not allowing her to follow me is going to put her in danger later. Well, we'll check my strategy first.

And it works. You know, it's funny how I've gone from using the knife as a desperation weapon to ignoring it in favor of just shooting things to actually using it on enemies. Young Morpheus would be in awe of how I'm handling this game. Sure, zombies are still grabbing me about once per room, but I've knifed 5 zombies before having to use a health item. 6 in total. But now that I've had to use a health item, this now brings up the trouble of where to get health. Everything is on the eastern side or is obtained by getting an item from the eastern side.

The hallway back to the dining hall is much the same as it was last time, two zombies, one in the corner opposite the northwest hallway, and one just outside the tiger statue room. Can't use the knife trick here, one of these guys has to be shot. So I swing around to the Keeper's Room, to get those shotgun shells and the magazine. I get hit here, which is amusing since I was using the pistol for once. I swing back around to the save room, where Rebecca tells me she can now give me a full heal three times.

I can't forget some important story stuff, where Rebecca and Chris become more comfortable with each other after the initial pepper spraying. Jill's side of the game might be more fun gameplay-wise, but Chris's story is more satisfying. Right, zombie clearing. I don't know what the hell the deal is with the aforementioned hallway, but if you enter it from the south you hear a zombie shambling even if you didn't do anything to alert the zombie. Wait, is there another zombie here? Eating someone? No, there are just two zombies on the north side. One of which is automatically moving from the eastern part of the hall to the northwest. This does me in, because I end up in caution from caution in dealing with the second zombie, and in going after the final one I end up chasing failing to run past him and then chasing a shot. Back to the hallway outside the save room.

This is the start of my problems. Every time I die or lose too much health, I reload, which means I get really used to having to knife these zombies. More ammo for the pistol or not, I need to save that ammo for the east side of the map and the guardhouse. I'll just take out the one guarding the tiger statue for now and deal with the other two when I reach the chemicals. Since I smashed the statue, this means I now have one of the four crests now.

Eastern hallway. One thing I ever so conveniently forgot about was that I needed a key to open the hallway where the dog jumpscare happens. I remember that in the remake, but not this one. (This turns out to be the last location I need the key, as I already unlocked the Keeper's room and the bar earlier) It turns out this hallway isn't tricky at all when you take it slowly. I'm not knifing the dogs, because the few times they are showing up, why not use the pistol?

Right, windy north-eastern hallway. Got a herb, good, can't get the shotgun yet but I can empty the dirty bathtub...which has another desk key. Oh, fun fact, despite being functionally identical, desk keys don't stack. That feels real insult to injury here, Chris has to carry around more keys than Jill does, while also having less space. No zombies here, I guess here the game isn't stacking more on...yet. The areas next to the save room proceed as usual. That leaves the eastern upstairs hallways, and there's no way around that one. Knifing time.

Usually we don't get to see these mugs this close up.

The reverse C-shaped hallway now has two zombies. It's of middling difficulty, you get plenty of space to run around them, but it's hard to judge distances in some spots, a bit too dark. The northern zombie here is always awake, which is a problem since I'm entering from the south. This doesn't give me that much space to knife and my health suffers for it. One of Rebecca's heals down, two to go. Time for the north-eastern hall and oh, great, there are three now. That means I just don't have the ability to knife them. And this is the hallway where if I don't kill them all now, one follows me into the side room here. At least they're acid spitting, because this one turns out to be just as troublesome.

That leaves the 1st floor hallway connecting to the tiger statue room. I kind of need to do that now since I'm running out of rooms I don't need a key for. And this is hard to just knife, so I end up using the pistol anyway. To think I saved for this. Right, that's the sword key, so now I've unlocked most doors in the general area, including a few of the rooms with crests. I went through all of these in order to unlock them, but first we're starting with the shotgun.

Conveniently, I took no screenshots of the broken shotgun.

Ah, to finally solve this puzzle the right way. Sure, I'm not really going to be using this weapon until the guardhouse, but it's good to get it out of the way. Next, the herbs, same as before, go in, shoot the first dog, grab all the herbs. (I use one, as Chris can't kill something and take 6 items) Next, the upstairs room where the zombie sneaks in after you, only in Chris's scenario that probably doesn't happen because there's ALREADY a zombie in here. Thanks. You can dodge him pretty easily though. This time around there's a red herb, a lighter, shotgun shells (in the wall safe you have to move stuff around to get) and an ink ribbon. Bringing my total number of saves left to 4. Now, Richard.

Oh, crap, he's already dead. I guess either he's on a timer from when you start the game or when you unlock the door and I did just do a few other things after unlocking it. (as before, there are two green herbs here as well as the magazine Richard's corpse is obscuring) Well, I might as well see what's in that one secret room now. Shotgun shells, can't have too many shotgun shells. (assuming you actually use them) I need another key for the snake door though. Guess that was what was in the secret room the piano opens.

Why is this a choice?

Unfortunately, Chris can't read music. What's the logic behind Jill being able to read music and Chris not? Neither exactly strikes me as the kind of person who took music as a child, being more inclined to play outside, but I guess the logic is, good with machines, good with a piano. Rebecca walks in, saying in the creepiest possible way "It's me, Chris." like she's about to blow him away with a magnum. 

The only explanation for how she got here is that he's so terrible at piano music she heard him two rooms away and immediately knew how badly he was screwing it up. Chris, being stupid, asks if it's Rebecca, and she just walks over to the piano like this conversation hasn't been bizarre. She plays, badly, something even Chris notices. The game then has the audacity to ask me if I want her to practice.

I take this opportunity to grab the other two free crests, the on in the armor room you have to push the statues over the vents in, and the birth to death painting puzzle. I also take out the dog guarding the hallway and put in the three I have now. Finally, I grab the magazine, ink ribbon and green herbs from the locked room off the 1st floor main hall, the one where the zombie is somehow hiding behind a divider you can see through.

Now that Rebecca has had time to practice, I return. Somehow in this time she's not already opened the door, it happens when she plays it for Chris though. And after closing the door and opening it again, all she has to say is to ask if Chris is all right. Cracks are forming in Rebecca's implementation here. Quick jaunt to the save room, and then off to Yawn again. The shotgun shells I picked up the second time around the mansion are actually here the first time, you're just unlikely to notice them running away from him. Even with that, I survive the fight quite nicely.

Rebecca carries me to the western save room this time. Impressive, considering she probably weighs under 100 lbs. Didn't I tell her to stay put? It doesn't matter now, obviously, there are no zombies on the second floor that she can reach. Not really sure what's going to happen with her right now, will she automatically come to the guardhouse or did my eons earlier decision to not have her move around also apply to something now? I'll find out soon, since that's where I'm going now. Incidentally, there's another desk key in a barrel on the outside path.

Outside is all quite usual, rush past the first set of dogs, after taking the green and red herbs. Drain the water, dash past the small snakes. Down the elevator, where there are now three dogs, still easy to dodge, but who knows what's going to happen on the way back. (Trying to save ammo here might just prove pointless) The final stretch, also three dogs now, but at least I know there won't be any on the way back. I get hit here, but not enough to cause a change in status.

The guardhouse save room has a magazine for Chris instead of explosive rounds, a fair and reasonable exchange. At this point, it's safe to say I'm not going to be needing to worry about pistol ammo. Business as usual, take out some zombies, find another desk key in a cup. (turns out searching again as Chris is worth it!) In general, this is more or less unchanged from Jill to Chris, with just different ammo and desk keys. The sharks pop up without the cutscene, but eh. I reach Plant 42 with 124 pistol bullets and 63 shotgun shells, not counting that both are fully loaded. I think I've used, maybe one green herb the entire game. I can afford to start taking this one casually.

A cutscene happens. Plant 42 picks me up, then drops me. The battle begins. This guy's tricky, as was the case last time. Because you're not really sure where his hitbox is. The answer is what I tried the last time, just aim up. It actually works when you aren't doing that with a grenade launcher. There are two phases to it, only distinguished by the first one being a fake out death. Right, well, back to the mansion. Wesker's dialog this time sounds more depressing, possibly him trying to act like things are much worse than they are. He talks about running out of ammo, which I guess would be true if I didn't knife a bunch of zombies earlier.

My plan for just running past the zombie dogs is starting to break down, because I get hit in both rooms on the way back. Oh, and the one right outside the mansion has three dogs too now. Whatever, I'll get those guys on the way back, I can afford to be generous with pistol rounds. The radio, since I didn't get it off Richard, is now in the hallway on the way back, you even get a cutscene for it. Right, hunters.

If only I had to option to change my mind later!

I dash away from the first hunter. I just want to make sure I have a clear path to healing items...and a cutscene happens. Chris remembers that Rebecca is still here, so clearly now I have a new objective, reach Rebecca before the hunters do. Since this means I can't slowly take out the hunters like I usually do, this means I have to get there ASAP, so I'm taking a path I wouldn't normally take. East on the ground floor. There are at least three hunters upstairs, while downstairs there should be only one. Then, west on the ground floor. Because the enemies on this part of the area I can easily get past, upstairs I'm not so lucky.

Assuming you can just not get hit, the hunters are simple enough to take out with a shotgun. Some even just seem to stand there until you make the first move. Rebecca is just cowering in the corner of the save room. Chris is glad she's all right. The objective now is clear, find the rest of STARS and get out. Next time, the second half as Chris.

This Session: 4 hours 30 minutes

Total Time: 18 hours 30 minutes