Chris is undoubtedly my favourite character from the Resident Evil series. He's actually one of my favourite characters full stop. But why? How can someone love a character from a video game so much? Here, I shall attempt to explain why.

I first came upon Chris when Resident Evil was first released on the Playstation many years ago. While my memories of the game itself are kind of vague, I'll never forget the opening movie (now a classic for all the wrong reasons ;)). Yes, back then, it was scary. I was intrigued like never before but daren't play the game. Watching would work just as well. At this point in time Chris was just a generic game hero to me. Fun to occasionally play as, but nothing in particular really stood out and made me want to go crazy for him.

Fast forward nearly ten years; long out of the Resident Evil fandom due to me being out of the video games in general, I find myself drawn back in. Wow, look at all these Resident Evil games I've missed! Hello, I vaguely remember you Mr Redfield, and I certainly remember you Ms Valentine (aka, most frequently used character in this household at the time). Lost and uncertain how to throw myself back into the fandom, I decided I'd go right back to the start again... sort of. Yes, I found myself holding in my grubby little hands Resident Evil Remake.

And it began.

Building upon everything that made the first game so great all those years ago, I instantly fell in love with it. Especially with the hottie that Chris Redfield turned out to be. No longer just a big block of pixels but looking like an actual man! No sucky voice actor who you couldn't help but laugh at, but some serious stuff and even some personality. Chris had certainly improved from what I'd last saw of him. And I liked it, very, very much. I think I had fallen in love ;)

I soon caught myself up with the rest of the series, and being the big chicken I am decided I'd play through the older games first. Remake was beautiful yes, but also terrifying. I needed to desensitise myself somewhat before being able to throw myself through that. So I played Classic again. What can you say really? It's a great game, but horribly dated. I thought Chris was okay in it, but he still felt too generic.

Then came Code Veronica, which sealed the deal. I must have struggled through about 7-8 hours of that game before finally getting to Chris' part, and it felt like coming home. Chris is The Man, and seeing him scaling that cliff face to find his sister confirmed it. This was what Resident Evil was about for me. This man. His story.

As I played through CV my love for Chris only grew. He was everything that I loved in a character. Badass yet sweet, loving, noble, courageous and deadly. Wasting zombies like no tomorrow, taking little damage, not even feigning surprise when the supposedly dead Wesker showed up and started to beat on him. Just taking it in his stride and continuing with the task at hand. And still looking awfully good while doing it ;)

My utter devotion confirmed, Remake was just the tasty icing on the cake. More beautiful than ever before, and more badass than ever before (who doesn't love Beretta headshots?). Add to that his relationship with Jill (and even Wesker) in the game and you have one very happy fan. He had become more than just some random guy in a video game. He'd become a real character, someone with personality, history, background, relationships, a future. All wrapped up in one very gorgeous skin.

So why do I love the man then? Because to me he is Resident Evil. His storyline has always been the most interesting one to me, he has intriguing and highly interesting relationships with many of the RE characters, I love to play as him, I love to look at him, I just plain love him.