First Impressions: The crap train is ready to leave the station, but is this shooter ready to board?
It has been said many times. Anyone who has played any game from the Resident Evil series has probably walked away unable to go into a dark room alone for a few days. These are the games that leave your mind scarred for weeks, unable to shake the images of flesh-hungry zombies ready to munch on your fat and muscle. Of course, there is the small fraction that make you believe the world is ending, just like the others, but for different reasons. Case in point? Resident Evil: Survivor. This game managed to destroy the series’ long running reputation for some (I was a member of this camp for quite some time). Japan received two more atrocities, Gun Survivor 2 which was never released in the US and GS3, which was released under the title Dino Stalker stateside. Neither was worthy of much more than a look. Now Capcom is back with Dead Aim, which is seeking to achieve what its brethren have failed to.
In typical Resident Evil style, gamers get to control members of Anti-Umbrella forces who must attempt to solve the mysteries and corruption of the Umbrella Corporation. The first character goes by the name Bruce McGivern. A special-op sent to infiltrate an Umbrella cruise ship, Bruce has no idea just how amazingly gruesome this trip could really be.
One of the biggest complaints about the original Survivor game was that it completely lacked light gun support. For a game that was clearly trying to mimic the House of the Dead series, this was simply unexplainable and more than anything, stupid. If you want to follow in the paths of a successful example, fine, but you need to do it right. Dead Aim is looking to do it right this time by taking the positive aspects from HotD and adding a few special touches of its own.
Both the GunCon2 and Dual Shock control pads will be supported by DA, which should come as a relief for people with and without GunCon’s alike (more on that in a moment). This is a big step up for the series, which in the past only supported the standard issue controller, which can lead to clunky controls, as it did with Survivor. What really sets this game apart, however, is that you explore via a third person camera mode much more reminiscent of the classic Resident Evils. This will require gamers to switch between views on the fly, but the system that has been set up to do so appears to be very simple and painless. It is possible to play with either the Guncon or Dual Shock, or the entire game can be played using both at once, using the gun to shoot and the controller to navigate. This sounds like it could be more trouble than it is worth but only time will tell.
Survival Horror games are like never ending brain-benders. The puzzles generally range from stupefying-ly easy to “holy crap is this even possible?” hard. Resident Evil is well known for some of its difficult and sometimes downright silly puzzles (really, who uses multiplication problems to turn off their train engine?) but they are always right in the middle of the action. DA brings that legend over to its home for some satisfaction for all those smart and clever enough to tackle them. Capcom is promising some really great experiences on that front. Here is to hoping they’re telling the truth.
To be scary one must be realistic. One must be believable and not gimmicky in the B-Movie sense. Unrealistic, unbelievable and gimmicky are all words that could be used to describe RE: Survivor. However, they aren‘t words that can be used to describe its sequel. The graphics are truly Resident Evil quality despite being real-time (instead of being pre-rendered). Enemy and character designs are each top-notch as should be expected from a series of this caliber. If Capcom is putting as much work into the gameplay as they clearly have put into the visuals, DA is in good shape.
