The last two Resident Evil games have left a sour taste in the mouths of long-serving fans of the series for a number of reasons. Resident Evil 5, the last outing on home consoles, although being generally well received by critics with a mid-80 score on Metacritic across both consoles, didn’t really feel like a Resident Evil game. Considering this is a series which is proudly defined as the birth of survival horror, Resi 5 felt much more like an action game with much less scares. With the new focus on co-op play, the very thing that made these games scary was gone – the feeling of being totally alone in a world where everything wants to eat you.

Even when playing in single player, Sheva (your sidekick) was a far too overwhelming presence. When your back was against the wall, you never worried because she would always be there to save your arse. Resi 4 became the defining game of not only the series but of a console generation and because of this Capcom seemed pressured to stick too close to its formula.

Resident Evil: Mercenaries was a personal low point of the entire series, and should be regarded as a mistake that people don’t like talking about the morning after. This jumbled mess of maps from Resi 4 and 5 in an arcade style hi-score chase truly showed that the game was no longer a survival horror, but just part of the overpopulated field of mediocre action games.

Now it seems Capcom have finally started to listen. At a recent preview event, one of the developers working on Resident Evil: Revelations discussed in detail how this game will be a journey back to the series’ roots, with a true emphasis on the horror that made these games so great. We will be creeping through eerie corridors where everything creaks and you wonder if those footsteps you hear are indeed your own. Getting a chance to play the game, I finally feel like I’m playing classic Resident Evil, letting out squeals of fear as I pump the last bullet I have into an enemy that refuses to go down, turn to run for safety, only to be met by more terrifying creatures.

The sound of this game, or more accurately, the absence of it, makes the game even spookier. What this game nails where the previous entries have failed is the unnerving sense of anticipation, the fear of what’s around the next corner. Where Resi 5 and Mercenaries failed to freak you out was because of the constant barrage of enemies and overwhelming supply of ammo to deal with it. Revelations truly has you on edge because you’re slowly walking around a narrow hall, with only one bullet left, just waiting for your face to be chewed.

Even though Revelations uses an AI partner like Resident Evil 5, the AI seems to take a back-seat approach, leaving you one again feeling isolated which adds to the sense of fear. I can’t wait to play more of this game so you can expect to read my review very soon. Back in November I previewed the new Raid mode for GameSpot – this two-player co-op mode had some flaws but is definitely worth a look.

Yesterday Capcom released a trailer for Resident Evil 6 and my overall reaction is somewhat mixed. Capcom’s viral “No Hope Left” campaign has culminated in the worldwide release of the debut trailer, which confirms Leon S. Kennedy and Chris Redfield as playable characters, as well as a new, unnamed mercenary. Sources close to the developers claim that this game seeks to find the middle ground between Resi 4 and 5, as leaked in a report by VentureBeat, attempting to find a balance between action and horror.

Looking at the trailer, it seems that this will be achieved with Chris’ campaign being more action based and Leon’s more akin to his time in Raccoon City, but it still looks more like an action game. Certain scenes involving Leon invoke memories of the very beginning of Resident Evil 2, while Chris’ moments are very Resi 5, with Chris part of an elite SWAT team based in China. While the game does look stellar, I fear we will once again be venturing more towards fast-paced Michael Bay-esque action than the intense scares of old. That said, I couldn’t help but be impressed with the trailer, which showed characters finally being given the ability to sprint, dive for cover and fire from the hip, all of which are blessings in a zombie apocalypse.

There are some very interesting story peaks given in the trailer, which I won’t spoil for you here, but the game seems to take place on a much larger scale this time around. Rather than being set in a single city or town, each character will be dealing with the outbreak in a different city. Leon is dealing with the 70,000 infected citizens of tall Oaks while Chris and his team are in China, and the mercenary is taking on the Nemesis-like brute in a rural town. He is also partnered with Ashley, the President’s daughter who Leon rescued in 4.

Check out the trailer yourself and let me know what you think in the comments. Will this be the sequel 4 truly deserves? Or a continuation of the series’ fall from grace?

Compare the sites:

http://sarifindustries.com/en/
http://www.umbrellasciences.com/

However, if you wait a little longer on the RE site, you get redirected to another. Now there’s far more on this site than DE:HR has, starting with a mysterious video from someone trying to expose what Umbrella really is. Then there’s a set of cryptic clues which should lead to further evidence, and this is then backed up with a twitter account as well. Now we all know Umbrella is evil, but I’m curious to learn more about the back story. Personally I like the story more than the games.

The website clearly will lead to information (eventually) about the new Resident Evil, but it makes it learning about the new game fun and interactive. This sure beats just reading a press release, or watching a teaser trailer. It’s also quite cunning on their part, since clues are released weekly, it will keep people coming back for more. The twitter account helps with this as well, since it’s updated quite often and in multiple languages. I’ll not spoil it by giving out the twitter account, although it only takes a few seconds to find it.

This blending of real world and video games is slowly becoming more and more common. The catch, it’s tied into Facebook. The Secret World video game also tried this and caused a bit of a backlash from people who do not want to give up all their details to a company. Anyway, go check the site out and good luck solving the clues!

Resident Evil: The Umbrella Corporation’s R&D website has been hacked. A terrorist group called themselves “Inserted Evil” have taken over the site and are redirecting visitors to a propaganda website. Spurious claims about the biotechnology company are being made in a video. We can only hope that the scientific geniuses at Umbrella can stop the hackers and restore normal service soon.

Fallout: The Fallout Monopoly game has finally arrived. Given that resources are scarce since the war, it comes in a limited edition of one. Beautiful game – I envy all who get to play it.

Deus Ex: Adam Jensen of Sarif Industries has been dancing his way around the world. We’re not sure what David Sarif thinks about his Head of Security cutting a rug on the dance floor but presumably as long as the job gets done, he can do it however he likes.

Biggest story of the day was obviously the Call of Duty: Elite announcement that you’ve doubtless already seen here on The Average Gamer ;) What you may have missed was the Wall Street Journal publishing it a full 14 hours before the internal online and print embargo that the rest of us were given. Cue this cathartic rant by MCV’s Ben Parfitt:

Of course, if the press really wanted rid of this practice we’d refuse to cover any games or information protected by an NDAs. Perhaps if Activision had told us all that WSJ was getting special treatment a few of us might have torn up the agreement and left the Elite event right there and then.
But who’s going to do that? Gotta get dem clickety-clicks, innit.
– Ben Parfitt, OPINION: Who’s the more foolish?

And because I’m a shameless self-promoter, I shall point out that this is just another ugly side to the gaming press’s dependency on PRs for content that I talked about in my personal blog last week.

That’s the elephant in the room, isn’t it? …Who advertises on games websites? Games companies. Who provides the content? Games companies. Everybody knows this.
– Debbie Timmins, Am I Destroying Games Journalism?

In other news:

The Official PlayStation blog announced that the PlayStation Network will be fully functional again by the end of the week. It’s not quite the previously-reported May 31st but it’ll do.

This beautifully strange live-action Portal video has been making the rounds:

RockStar and/or Xbox announced an L.A. Noire Rockstar Pass which gives you all forthcoming LA Noire downloadable content but at half the individual price.

GTA.net have released an amazing map of Liberty City made in Google Streetview.

And finally, Falmouth-based café Loading has created a fabulous Resident-Evil-inspired cocktail.

[hat tips to Joe Barron and Sinan Kubba]

…experience a retelling of classic moments from past titles Resident Evil™ 2 and Resident Evil™ 3 and watch the events unfolding from the menacing perspective of the Umbrella Security Service, giving fans the chance to rewrite the history of the Raccoon City outbreak.

I really, really hope Capcom finally fix the crappy, sluggish and generally rubbish character controls that infects every Resident Evil game. I mean, seriously, make the characters more responsive and allow them to run and shoot at the same time. These changes would make the Resi games bloody brilliant.

Rehashing “classic bits” from the older Resi games smacks of laziness on the part of the developers. Couldn’t they have come up with something new? It’s not exactly hard now is it. Take a remote city/town somewhere. Concoct some tragic/accidental/deliberate T-virus outbreak sub-plot, add in a bit of Wesker and voilà, zombies a plenty!

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City will be out sometime during winter 2011 on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

I’m pretty sure you can guess the storyline, but if not, here goes. You are a survivor of a virus that turns the population into zombies. As with any good zombie flick, you are miraculously immune to the virus. Oh, and you also know how to use lots of weapons. The story comes at you via stylish comic book graphics between levels, maybe a bit cliché but it suits the game perfectly.

There are only 10 levels of gameplay; most seem to be around 15 to 20 minutes long. While this might seem short, do remember this is a PSN game and there are the different difficulty levels. I’m still fighting along in normal mode, however even on this level I still die often enough. Since people seem to be going after Platinum trophies right now, it will come as good news that Dead Nation features one. You will need to complete the whole game a couple of times on different difficulty levels, as well as commit zombie genocide!

Isometric 3D did seem a strange choice in this day and age, a bit Diabloish. Once you start playing however, you’ll see it works very well. The environment is very well rendered and there is actually strategy that you can use. See, zombies love to go beat up anything making noise, so shoot a car with an alarm and watch them run to beat it up. Keep shooting it, and boom! there go the zombies.

The game itself is very easy to pick up and play. The controls are simple, left thumb stick to target, right to move. Weapons are selected with the left D-pad; the issue I find is that when in a tight corner being mauled to death I have a habit of selecting the wrong weapon. For some reason it always seems to be the launcher and I end up blowing myself to hell and back.

With regards to the weapons, there’s quite a selection from the stock rifle, to blade throwers and electroshock cannons. Also you can collect distraction items, like flares, grenades, mines and so on. These are very handy for clearing large areas of zombies. Personally, I tend to just use the rifle, SMG (for mass slaughter of weak zombies), grenades and occasionally the launcher.

I would strongly suggest buying all the improvements to the normal rifle first. How do you do that? Well while killing zombies you gain money and there are hidden boxes scattered around the levels. You can also open the trunks of cars to find more goodies.

This brings us nicely to armour. It’s important to look around for the hidden boxes, as this is where you’ll get the different types of armour from. Trust me; you will definitely need it to survive being overrun by zombies. I’ve been mainly trying to keep the Endurance, Strength and Agility attributes balanced, but your preferences may vary.

So where does that leave us? With a game that I keep coming back to, swearing at, and trying again. I’ve yet to try the co-op, or online but I can see how these would only enhance the game further. At $14.99 in the US and £9.99 in the UK, it’s definitely worth buying. Throw in the latest additions of voice chat and check point saving – what are you waiting for? Go get Dead Nation right now.

Screenshots

Does it work?

Debbie: So, that 3DS, eh? 3D effects without wearing silly glasses? Yup, we can confirm that it does indeed work… provided you don’t move the thing more than an inch in any direction or tilt the screen at all. Now I don’t know about you but when I use a handheld console, I’m usually on the train. At the very least, I’m slouched on a sofa reaching out for a drink or munching on some biltong. Quite apart from the fact that I can physically feel the eye strain from the second I switch the thing on, the glasses-free feature just isn’t as flexible as it needs to be. Offering the analogue slider to adjust for different focal lengths is a very nice touch but in practice, it just meant I was twiddling with it every few minutes as I shifted position.

No, I don’t like the 3DS experience at all.

Nick saves his friends from invisible flying helmet heads

Nick: I was quite excited to be finally getting my hands on a Nintendo 3DS, having heard so many good things about it. After being distracted by the Street Fighter and Resident Evil cosplayers (I totally got grabbed by a zombie!) I finally got hold of a 3DS. It felt a lot sturdier than I expected with a much better build quality than my DS. The 3D to 2D slider is very clever, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I probably spent more time playing with the slider than I did playing the actual games themselves.

I was surprised how well the 3D effect works. You pick up the 3DS, look into the top screen and it’s all in beautiful 3D. However, if you move your head out line with the 3DS, or tilt the 3DS itself then you immediately lose the 3D effect and it goes all blurry. On this evidence, I have reservations over how well the 3D effect is going to work whilst you’re travelling.

For another viewpoint, check out Simon Barker’s experience at the Manchester Nintendo 3DS preview.

After a bit of a talk about Spot Pass and Street Pass and whatnot (I wasn’t really paying attention), we fiiiiiinally got to spend a few (i.e. 5-ish) minutes on each of these game demos:

Lego Star Wars 3D

Debbie: It’s Lego Star Wars, yo. ‘Nuff said.

Oh, okay. It’s Lego Star Wars on a smaller screen with a bit of 3D effect thrown in for good measure. It’s still basically a side-scroller. Just as fun as the home console versions with the same gameplay and controls.

Kid Icarus

Debbie: This game was designed for 3-armed mutants. You’re expected to fly using the analogue nub, aim using the stylus and touch-screen and shoot using the X button all at the same time. Ridiculous. You can sort of get away with plopping the aiming reticle in a strategic place on the screen and running around to aim but since I was on easy mode it was probably very forgiving. Seemed all right as far as third-person kill-everything-that-moves games go. Nice landscapes.

Nick: After the initial “oooh, isn’t it pretty” thoughts have worn off, you realise that you don’t have enough arms to play the game. I ended up alternating between moving and aiming using my left hand plus stylus and my right hand hovering over the buttons. It was a case of vaguely aiming in the right direction with the stylus and then moving to hit the enemies using the analogue nub. It felt very awkward.

Resident Evil: Mercenaries

Chris isn't looking so good. I think the zombies won this round

Face Raiders

Nick: I really liked playing Face Raiders once I’d got over the shock of seeing my face shooting back at me. It was quite fun blasting lots of my hovering faces into pieces. You also got to shoot other peoples faces who had previously been photographed by my 3DS. The “real-life” destructible background to the game was a clever feature and meant that you had to be careful where you were shooting. However, I can’t see myself playing this game on more than one or two occasions. There is no real depth to the gameplay. Fun, but without more variation to the gameplay, it will be short-lived enjoyment.

Debbie: This game is stupid. Or maybe I’m stupid and couldn’t figure out what to do with the level 3 face-rotating boss and its stupid face-spinning cronies.

The game is touted as an augmented reality shooter. Take a photo of a friend’s face (or your own) and it gets transformed into flying enemy heads. The 3DS uses the console’s camera to treat your actual surrounding as the game’s background. You have to turn around to follow the flying heads and physically tilt the machine up and down to aim and shoot. There’s a bit of gimmicky scenery destruction which is nice in the technical sense and gets old quickly when it comes to entertainment value. Kids will probably love the game.

Ryu. His punches have the strength of kicks.

Street Fighter IV 3D Edition

Nick: This was perhaps the most impressive of all the games on show. Street Fighter IV looks absolutely gorgeous in 3D. Ok, I picked Cammy as my character, so I got some very impressive 3D buttocks ;-) They have made the game more accessible too, as you can now execute special moves simply by tipping the bottom screen. I did have a slight Kid Icarus control problem at one point. I was trying to move my charter using the analogue nub, activate a special move on the bottom of the screen and then try to kick the opponent using the X button. It meant that my hands were moving all over the 3DS. I’d be really concerned that I’d drop the damn thing if I was playing standing up on any form of moving vehicle!

Legend Of Zelda – Ocarina of Time

Nick: Unfortunately, I only got to play Zelda for about 3 minutes before we were ushered off into another room at the event. But, I can say that Zelda on the 3DS looks fantastic and is really easy to control, unlike Kid Icarus. However, I really didn’t like the “move the 3DS console to aim” feature which you can use to aim the catapult. I just kept losing the 3D effect as I moved the console around in the air, making it even harder to aim. A silly and unnecessary feature.

Overall I was really impressed with the 3D technology and with Street Fighter IV and Zelda. Old games with new, fancy visuals!

Want to try the 3DS for yourself? Nintendo will be holding preview events in Bristol and Glasgow on the 12th and 13th Februrary 2011.

They will also have 20 3DS machines available to try at the Midlands MCM Expo in Telford, 19th February 2011 with Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, Super Street Fighter IV 3D and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D as well as other unconfirmed titles. Best get your tickets quickly.

The game is essentially an extension of the mercenaries mode from Resident Evil 4 – get as many kills within the time limit as possible and don’t die. There are also 4 different characters at your disposal (Claire Redfield, Chris Redfield, Krauser and Hunk).

The question is: Will this game have enough to keep players interested and coming back for more given the fairly limited gameplay options?

Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D is due for release on the 25th March 2011 on Nintendo 3DS.

14 clues were sent out last night, with instructions to search for body parts from 9am and get them to Westminster Bridge by 11am:

1. Hidden near a pub? Elementary, my dear Watson…
2. More drinks, this time with digging sailors
3. A Standard location on Villiers Street – and it’s a laughing matter…
4. A Proudly photographic display
5. Samuel Pepys dwelled here, his street a palatial namesake
6. Rubbish? Find out, where Chandos and Bedfordbury cross
7. 8 Bedford Court
8. Rubbish? Find out, where Bedfordbury and New Row cross
9. Make a call on St Martin’s Lane
10. London’s narrowest street
11. Sir Isaac dwelled here, with a view of the National Portrait Gallery
12. Captain Scott’s memory is keeping this safe
13. Take a seat between (IC)Art and the Arch
14. Seek out the pub with no name on Warwick House Street

Some serious Googling got us this map and route.

View Larger Map

Despite getting to Embankment at 8:50am, we didn’t find any body parts on Villier’s Street, nor the Sherlock Holmes pub. In fact, we cleared all 14 sites by 9:38 and didn’t find a single head, torso or limb that wasn’t firmly clutched in the paws of fellow socially-conscious individuals… The first ones we saw were in the hands of a couple of guys at 4 minutes past 9 who had found at least 3 (THREE!) parts already. Hmm… :|

No matter, it was a great way to spend the morning. Much more fun than a normal Thursday. Plus, everyone who turned up on Westminster Bridge got a free RE5 bag, copies of the game and photo ops with the body parts ;)

Met a friendly couple on Northumberland Avenue – Ricky Smith and Katherine Halls:

Ricky, risking himself to keep London safe:

Evidence, but no joy:

The winners:

The losers:

The Infected:

Resident Evil 5 is out in the UK on Friday the 13th (Ooooo!) March 2009.

Most amusingly, Gamezine reports that a bunch of the body parts were taken by people who didn’t then bring them to the drop-point on Westminster Bridge. What would you do if you found a bloody fake torso stinking of raw chicken liver?

• single-player with AI support
• two-player split-screen on a single Xbox 360
• two-player across Xbox LIVE (with voice chat)

Finally, Capcom has added 2 player support to Resident Evil. This is something I feel that should have been added a few games ago, but at least it is there now. And the game tinkering doesn’t even there. Now you get the choice of the “classic” Resident Evil controls (which were ok), or “action” controls inspired by Halo 3 (rubbish game) and Gears of War 2 (great game). Mmm.

For those of you who want even more of a Resi Evil fix you will also be able to watch the HD trailer for the game from the 16th Jan 09. The trailer was previously shown at the Tokyo Game Show, so don’t get to excited as you’ve probably seen it already.

Update 19th Jan 08: Playstation 3 owners will get to play the demo from the 2nd Feb 09.

Resident Evil 5 is due to be released on the 13th March 09 for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.