Resident Evil Preview

When Capcom announced that they were to move the popular Resident Evil (Biohazard in Japan) franchise over to GameCube, a number of eyebrows were raised, but when footage of the new update was shown across the Internet everyone was positively amazed. Is a five-year-old game with drastically improved visuals worth playing for a second time? Read on to find out.

Since the news that Shinji Mikami was to become the creative director of the project (the first time since the original game in 1996) everyone has been truly glued to the development of the GameCube version. Early video code has shown scenes of sheer gore with spectacular rendered environments that react accordingly to lighting, fluid character animation and backdrops that animate which were never seen before in the original Resident Evil game these techniques will be used to make the environments appear to be âaliveâ.



The plan to move the franchise to GameCube has created a number of question, are Capcom unhappy with the PlayStation? However it seams that the plan is to bring the franchise all to one machine, so the story can flow throughout. A recent interview with the team behind the original game stated that they were unhappy with the way the story unfolded throughout the series; maybe the move to GameCube will help make the series more fluid. Resident Evil is due for a release in March 2002, with Resident Evil 0 (an original title) due for release before the end of 2002. Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3, Resident Evil: Code Veronica X and another original title Resident Evil 4, will all follow until 2005.

In a recent interview with Mikami-San he cited the controller and general Nintendo outlook as a determining factor in his decision. âI am planning to give players maximum fun. To do, the GameCube was the only feasible platform. A game must be played for fun through the pad. It is not only a question of the visuals.â Mikami-San has also emphasised that there will be new features to the game, rather than just straight ports. From the videos we have already seen you can see there is a whole new Forest scene, which wasnât in the original game. Players can also âStabâ Zombies right through the head, which wasnât an option before. These features are still âundisclosedâ however we hope to learn about them very soon. 



The most impressive aspect has to be the attention to detail, not only are the textures amazingly detailed far superior to anything seen so far on the PlayStation 2, but the developers want to make you feel like you are actually in the eyes of Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine. They want to employ techniques, which can portray effects such as humidity, mist, clamminess and claustrophobia.

The character models are second to none, Capcom have released a number of images showing of the detail not only on the face but the whole body. The Zombies are also well designed looking like something out of a modern horror film, complete with horrific sounds and noises. One of the scenes shows Chris backing into a corner with over 5 zombies on screen at once chasing him, of which I must add are all different models. From what we have seen so far there are different âskinsâ for every Zombie which would be a nice change to the game.



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