6 Worst Resident Evil Knockoff Games

When Resident Evil launched in 1996, it became an instant success for developer Capcom and set the bar for what players should expect out of the survival horror genre. Given all of Capcom’s success, it’s no surprise that plenty of other developers lined up to try to emulate the fan-favorite gameplay. A few of those games became hits in their own right, but more than most failed to live up to Resident Evil. Some of them had neat ideas that didn’t quite pan out, while others just became stinkers that are best forgotten.

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Here are six of the worst Resident Evil knockoffs.

6) Martian Gothic: Unification

Martian Gothic had a few neat ideas working in its favor. It takes place on Mars, and you control three different crew members on the base. You can swap between them at will, adding some clever puzzle-solving to the mix. However, that’s pretty much where the positives end.

See, Martian Gothic was a late-stage PlayStation game that publisher Take-Two created on a budget. The story is all over the place, as is the gameplay. That leads to Martian Gothic feeling like a Frankensteinian corpse of good ideas that never quite come together. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some fun to be had with its odd concepts, but it just can’t coalesce into anything resembling a good video game.

5) Countdown Vampires

Countdown Vampires is often described as “so bad it’s good.” That’s the perfect way to put this weird RE clone from Bandai, so I’ll stick with it. Technically, you’re fighting vampires, but it’s just a different skin for RE‘s zombies. However, you do have the option to use a dart gun to stop them and then sprinkle holy water on them to restore their humanity. Not exactly ground-breaking stuff.

That said, Vampires had a fun idea or two. There’s a secret mode that lets you play as a vampire if you type in a specific code. If you beat the story mode in under eight hours, you’ll unlock an alternate version, filled with new characters. Still, it’s a slapdash effort that never tries to get out from RE‘s shadow.

4) Men in Black: The Game

Men in Black is an all-time great ’90s movie. The video game? Not so much. The publishers at SouthPeak tried to rush out a survival horror game in the MIB universe, and you can instantly tell this was a Hail Mary attempt to cash in on the popularity of the genre. Not only is it surprisingly short, but everything is done poorly

While the film is hilarious, the developers were unable to match that humor. The jokes are strained, and the voice acting leaves much to be desired. MIB: The Game feels horrible, the AI is dumb as bricks, and the menus are borderline painful to look at. It’s a classic adaptation game that doesn’t care about quality. It just wanted to trick enough players into spending their money.

3) Evil Dead: Hail to the King

Hail to the King should’ve been a success. Ash’s story seems perfect for a Resident Evil-style romp, and THQ brought in the legendary Tommy Tallarico to help compose the score. It was also meant to be a sequel to 1992’s Army of Darkness. What could go wrong?

A lot, it turns out. Hail to the King is a visual mess, especially on consoles. The Dreamcast version looks particularly bad, but nobody would call any version of Hail to the King fun to look at. Plus, the scares are laughable, and combat is mediocre at best. The only good thing you can say about Hail to the King is that the story is fun for fans. Sadly, it’s probably not worth slogging through the gameplay to see it.

2) The Ring: Terror’s Realm

Interestingly, The Ring: Terror’s Realm is not based on the film version of The Ring. Instead, this is loosely based on the original Japanese novels, so don’t expect a play-by-play remake of the hit movie. Instead, this game puts players in the shoes of a CDC researcher who is trying to figure out why her coworkers are mysteriously dying.

Unfortunately, the Dreamcast-only version is a technical mess. It’s a crude attempt to replicate the Resident Evil formula, complete with clumsy controls and average visuals. Granted, there’s some fun to be had with its wacky storyline, though fans of Koji Suzuki’s work should remember that this is a loose adaptation.

1) Stray Souls

Every other game on this list is trying to replicate the original Resident Evil formula. That means tank controls, limited ammo, and pre-rendered backgrounds, among other survival horror staples. Stray Souls instead tries to replicate the more modern successes of Resident Evil and fails miserably.

That’s a shame because the developers did bring in Akira Yamaoka from the Silent Hill series to help work on the music. Unfortunately, this project from ex-Bloober Team members is filled with issues. Stray Souls is a poorly optimized mess with bad puzzles, repetitive combat, and laughable writing. Thankfully, there are plenty of great modern RE knockoffs, so you can safely steer clear of this one.

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