Sony America’s announcement of a PSP iteration in the Resident Evil series at this year’s E3 was met with a unanimous sigh of relief among RE aficionados. After all, rumors of a handheld entry in the long-running survival horror franchise have been floating around the web for the last couple of years, with the project regarded as something of an inevitability by PSP owners and RE fanatics alike.
With the Capcom code house having yet to divulge any specific details on the project (other than mentioning that the title has been developed with “the PSP Go in mind”), PSU decided this was the optimum time to reveal our own ambitions for the title and list our top five most wanted features for the portable horror romp.
Join us now as we count down our Resident Evil: Portable Wish List. As always, we encourage our readers to chip in, so feel free to let us know what you want to see from the game in the comments section below. Perhaps you even disagree with some of our entries? If that’s the case, again, feel free to post a comment below (but please keep it clean, boys and girls – remember, it’s only our opinion).
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Return of the Living Dead
If there’s one element we’re itching (the kind that doesn’t subsequently involve a lump of rotten flesh dropping to the floor, we might add) to see make a triumphant return to this venerable franchise, it’s the zombies. After all, the shambling undead have become virtually as synonymous with the franchise as the cheesy dialogue and incongruous puzzles.
Don’t get us wrong, while the Ganado/Majini of Resident Evil 4 & 5 were an interesting – and some would argue, necessary – deviation of the traditional RE foe, they were not, in our humble opinion, fundamentally scary enough. Sure, these creatures possessed more intelligence than your average lumbering corpse, but the fact they reacted to gunshots and retained a modicum of speech ultimately gave this group of savages a distinct human-like quality, rendering them substantially less disturbing than their rotting cousins. Call us old fashioned, but nothing gives us the creeps more than being backed into a corner by an inexorable, decomposing corpse thirsting for our blood. Lumbering, chattering farmers armed with pitchforks and rudimentary cutting tools just don’t cut the mustard.
However, should Capcom find a need to inject a little spice into the proceedings (i.e, ditch the slow moving breed) then they could always look to the modernised ‘running’ zombies featured in movies such as Dawn of the Dead (2004), or, more appropriately, utilize the Crimson Head mutation seen in the remake of the original game. At the end of the day, their absence from the series has been sorely missed. Do us all a favor Capcom and bring them back.
Use Your Head
Aside from our decomposing friends, one of the most crucial ingredients in the franchise to dissipate in recent years has been the puzzles and riddles players must tackle. In particular, the last few games haven’t really strived to offer anything quite as comprehensive as the older titles, relying on menial tasks such as finding the right key and/or object to open a specific door/gate/secret chamber, etc. That’s hardly the stuff of legend. Yes, there have been a few highlights, but overall, the puzzles have remained for the most part insultingly unambiguous. And it’s not just a challenge we’re clamouring for either; you need the chance to put your thinking cap on once in a while to take a break from the endless bouts of slaughter, and puzzles do just that – they punctuate the action at just the right time, avoiding the monotony of combat (just as combat spices things up after a heated bout of head scratching). The older games got the balance just right, latter games not so much.
As such, we’d like Capcom to tone down the action and create more even balance seen in the classic titles, or RE4, which, in our humble opinion, easily surpassed its mammoth selling sequel in this department. Don’t misunderstand; we enjoy redecorating the walls in brain matter grey as much as the next fan, but not to the point where the action becomes virtually indiscernible from that of a regular shooter. It wouldn’t hurt to inject a little more survival horror into the mix next time and recapture some of that old school tension.
Team Work
Resident Evil 5 gave us a taste of a functional online component for the fist time in the series [Outbreak’s was decidedly hit and miss, and didn’t even make it to European territories], and with the PSP Go once more incorporating built-in Wi-Fi capabilities, we can’t see any reason why Capcom wouldn’t want to continue this trend for Resident Evil: Portable.
To what capacity Capcom may go about this is anyone’s guess, though at the very least we’d like to see something along the same lines as Resident Evil 5’s excellent Mercenaries game. Perhaps a collection of dedicated mini modes where you and a partner could team up and tackle the undead hordes? Work together to unlock bonus content? For now, all we can do is speculate, though we’ll be sure to keep our fingers crossed.
Old Friends, New Enemies
Capcom has had something of a penchant for all but abandoning numerous key characters in the franchise over the years without offering any closure on their part in the tale. Take fan favorite Barry Burton for example. The S.T.A.R.S. weapons expert facilitated Jill’s zombie slaying endeavours in the original game, plucked her from the streets of Raccoon City minutes before it was annihilated by a nuclear blast at the climax of RE3: Nemesis, swore revenge on Umbrella in the ensuring epilogue and then promptly disappeared off the face of the earth (and no, Burton’s non-canonical escapades in Resident Evil Gaiden do not count, for obvious reasons). Plus, how could we forget the hilarity that ensues virtually every time our bearded friend opens his mouth by uttering such infamous phrases as ‘The Master of Unlocking’ and ‘You were almost a Jill Sandwich!’
Leaving aside our unmistakable admiration for the Magnum-wielding cop, we think it’s about the company, in all seriousness, that shifts the spotlight away from the likes of Leon, Chris, Ada etc. and divert their attention to some of the folk who have been conveniently brushed under the carpet in recent years. Even if it’s in a support capacity, we’re just itching to see what the likes of old timers including Rebecca Chambers, Billy Coen, Hunk and Carlos Oliveira have been up to for the past decade. Furthermore, with Albert Wesker now apparently out of the picture indefinitely, maybe it’s time to establish a new antagonist? Our pick would be RE3’s unscrupulous mercenary, Nicholai Ginovaef, who remains still at large, or perhaps a brand new face from the recently established TriCell Corporation.
Stranger, stranger – now that’s a weapon!
It’s a fair assumption to say that a significant chunk of RE fans were disappointed by the inexplicable absence of the Merchant in Resident Evil 5. As satisfying as forking out for a triple barrel shotgun is, shifting through legions of monotonous menu screens just wasn’t the same without our favorite hooded arms dealer to soften the blow. Get him back, Capcom.
In addition to the above, we also think it’s time for Capcom to tweak the weapons upgrade system in general. By this, we mean rather than purchasing upgrades (firepower, capacity, etc.) gamers would have to procure them on sight, similar to the upgrades found in RE2, 3 & Code: Veronica. For example, how about kitting out your handgun with a specialised scope to increase its chances of landing that elusive ‘critical hit’? Or, how about stumbling across some tasty shotgun parts to upgrade your standard weapon into an undead destroying behemoth? Again, similar to other points we’ve raised, it injects a little more realism into the proceedings – and would certainly feel more rewarding than simply buying upgrades.
This doesn’t mean to say the Merchant system wouldn’t figure – weapons would still be purchased in the usual manner, with some only available via our mysterious cloaked friend, so you’d still be on the hunt for treasures and other precious items to sell for hard cash. Maybe this time Capcom will see fit to reintroduce the ability to combine various treasures and objects to increase their value, something that the developers decided to abolish from RE5.
Combine all of those five points and you’d have, in our humble opinion, the quintessential Resident Evil experience – or at least, as close as you’re going to get, since some elements (such as the pre-rendered backdrops) are likely to be forever confined to the pages of history.
Resident Evil: Portable is due out next year. Stay tuned for more coverage on the game here at PSU in the coming months.