Fenxy

I rarely play games, but I recently bought myself a game for the Nintendo Wii, called Resident Eeevil, and so far it's been awesome! The game is horror-oriented and takes place in Europe, where a village of Scientologists have kidnapped and are keeping a young girl locked up. Your mission is to rescue her.

Now, the game can get very scary at times because Scientologists refuse to take psychiatric drugs — and all of the villagers suffer from various kinds of mental illnesses! Throughout the game their refusal of treatment leaves them continuously trying to saw you to pieces, throw hatches and other horrifying objects at you!

The game starts when you get sent on a mission to rescue the girl, who was a member of the Church of Scientology but disappeared. Upon arrival, you're immediately confronted by a villager that gets really angry over your presence — mumbling all sorts of gibberish — and in his psychosis refuses to back off, forcing you to shoot him. But that's only the spooky beginning! You soon discover there are also some juicy alien Scientology beliefs in the mix, which really give the game a "horror" feel.

I don't really know why most of the aliens "explode" out of the bodies of animals and humans, but it might have something to do with the "alien spirits" in Scientology:

[After the aliens were brought to Earth in spaceships that looked like DC8 airplanes, were blown up and forced to watch brainwashing cincema] the spirits of these aliens have attached themselves to our bodies
[From Scientology Beliefs]

So my working hypothesis is that these spirits are somehow taking physical forms and are really angry over beeing cooped up in a tiny cranium for so long.

Gameplay is great. Scavenging the village, nearby castles and Churches you discover different items to sell in order to purchase weapon upgrades. Most of them are jewels, but every now and then you come across moneybag donations to the Church that someone absentminded left behind.

Of course, since there are no prescription drugs around, after taking on the hordes of Scientologists you're forced to using various herbs to fill your health.

There's not a lot of documents laying around to explain what's going on or who's in charge, I guess there's a Operation Show White theme they got going there. But every now and then you find some documents and gradually puzzle together the story.

I was surprised that John Travolta's character got "offed" so soon, within the first two hours of gameplay. He was the same height as he was in Battlefield Earth with a similar beard, but had gone bald — and later turned into a huge alien monster that tried to eat my head. Here's a comparison of Travolta's outfit in Battlefield Earth, and the one in the game:

There's also the same mining-operation-theme as they had in Battlefield Earth; the villagers are working on an excavation beneath one of the castles, presumably for gold — as I found a few gold bars down there. But even with many similarities to BF:Earth, the Scientology logo was changed a bit for the game — adding some curvier lines and a cool gem in the middle. I think it's an improvement.

The current "head honcho" villain I'm battling is a dwarf, who's constantly contacting me via radio to make fun of me, mess with my head and freak me out. So far, I've always outsmarted him. I haven't seen Tom Cruise anywhere yet, but I suspect that he'll make his debut soon (I have my money on a military type villain that I hear appears later on in the game).

In summary, Resident Eeevil is excellent, and I recommend it to anyone who owns a Nintendo Wii. The dark "strange village" setting provides really horrific atmosphere — but amidst it, I can't help but think that it's kind of nice the Scientologists have their own little village. That way they don't need to leave their families. Nonetheless, I don't understand how on Earth they got Travolta to accept playing a role. Scientology is portrayed really darkly in the game — with all the violence and all! My guess would be that the Church of Scientology is infuriated. But, then again ... it's just a game.