E3 2011: Resident Evil and the Capcom Round-Up

First off, sorry about the age-gate for an article that has a surprising lack of blood or nudity within. Its a Capcom thing.

Secondly, Capcom had a small but extremely solid line-up this year. While no games at E3 had them lining up around the booth like last year’s Marvel vs Capcom 3 did, they certainly had more than a couple head-turners… also probably a factor that made their booth a bit less crowded, they weren’t giving out T-shirts that ebay for over $100 each.

Regardless, it just wouldn’t be E3 if we didn’t at least touch on Capcom’s library this year, and leading the pack was none other than Resident Evil: Raccoon City.

Resident Evil: Raccoon City

The most amazing thing about Raccoon City is that it took Capcom so long to make it. They took a step in the co-op direction with Resident Evil 5, but Left 4 Dead, which would arguably be the model for this game, got previewed by Valve back in 2008. L4D got a sequel out before this thing finally dropped!

Well, long in coming as it may have been, Resident Evil finally gets its 4-player co-op game, and it does not disappoint. The game jumps back in the timeline to the original Raccoon City break-out of the T-Virus, and takes place just before the events of Resident Evil 2 (the most genuinely scary installment of the series, IMO). You play as a squadron of up to four Umbrella Corporation specialists sent in to erase all evidence of the company’s involvement with the bio-hazard that is currently munching on the city. This task involves not only a number of mission objectives, but also wiping out as many zombies as possible, and much of the surviving populace.

Unfortunately, the US Government has already sent in several squads of Military Special Forces units to retrieve many of the articles you’ve been sent to destroy, leading to a three way battle between gun-toting mercenary groups and hordes of zombies. To top it all off, Umbrella eventually shows their disdain for all groups involved, dropping new and deadlier bio-weapons to wipe-out all the parties involved.

The game featured many of the same fast-and-furious, team-based tactics and combat situations that Left 4 Dead players have enjoyed, but there’s no denying that the technical aspects of the game are far superior. Capcom still has a lot of muscle to flex, and it really showed on the big screen.

Players have the option of choosing from six different character types, each with their own tactical advantages from tech and engineering skills, to healing, to tanking with guns and knives. New mechanics included the ‘bleed’ factor, where zombies can smell blood, much like a shark. Certain wounds cause PCs to bleed, and all the zombies in the area suddenly smell that character and rush in their direction. Characters bit by a zombie and subsequently killed will rise from the ground and join the hordes of undead, attacking their former teammates. At the moment, there is no way for a player to play as the zombie, though. Once they are dead, they’ve lost control of that character indefinitely.

Finally, Resident Evil players get to do what they’ve always wanted: move and shoot at the same time! Add in 3 co-op players, and you’ve got a great new addition to the series.

Resident Evil: Revelations

As much as I dig Resident Evil games, I just can’t get myself excited for anything on the portables. Some of you might *sigh* I guess.

For a portable title, this game looks very good. The characters are very well detailed… in fact, detail seemed to be the name of the game, as all the environments were very rich as well. You can tell the designers were interested with this one. Maybe its the fresh type of environment that got the team all fired up. This RE installment takes place on a ship that’s slowly sinking, with corridors becoming ever tighter, darker, and harder to maneuver. As the water level rises, some areas of the ship become off-limits, and others require you to swim from one zone to another. New aquatic-creatures are introduced, as well as new weapons to combat them.

If it weren’t obvious, this game keeps the focus on survival horror, with an emphasis on the isolation of the sea and the claustrophobia of the ship’s innards. The game will require the two game PCs to work together, though they will often become separated by the environment.

Dragon’s Dogma

Capcom takes another stab at fantasy RPGs with Dragon’s Dogma, a huge hack-and-slash quest game. The player will take control of a squad of fighters, one character at a time (partners led by AI), as you seek out revenge for your own death.

Yes, that’s right, you’re undead… sort of. You play primarily as a warrior who had his heart ripped out during an attack on his home. After coming back to life, you find that you are part of a rare race of people who are extremely powerful and hard to kill… kind of like a Highlander. There are many in the world who would follow such a being, and those followers make up your AI companions. Capcom promises that the game’s AI will be very rich and dynamic, characters trying their best to genuinely help your character based on the situation at hand, and coming into or leaving your party based on your actions.

In the mean-time, you level up, you loot, but Dragon’s Dogma requires you to pay close attention to the lore of the creatures you fight. There are many classical mythological beasts roaming the countryside, and they all have different weakpoints that you must learn and exploit to survive.

Honestly, it looks really good. Can it beat out Skyrim?… well, probably not, honestly. I mean, everybody plays that series. But Dragon’s Dogma could earn a comfortable #2 spot, and start a new franchise.

Street Fighter X Tekken

Huzzah for fighting games. Continuing Capcom’s tradition of crossovers, they move on from having defeated Tatsunoko and Marvel to take on the characters of Tekken.

My one regret is that the other half of this fighter isn’t complete. Originally, plans were to make a Street Fighter X Tekken game with the Street Fighter look and fighting engine, and a Tekken X Street Fighter companion game with the Tekken look and feel. While Namco still swears that this is happening, work on the other half of this project hasn’t even begun yet, outside of a model mock-up of Ryu that was shown off last year.

Either way, this installment looks pretty strong, and the demo rounds I played were tons of fun. The gameplay was ultimately just like Street Fighter 4, and had the added bonus of Tekken characters played in a whole new way. I don’t know if it was revolutionary, but it was a cool mash-up for fans of the two series.

Asura’s Wrath

I wish we’d been able to see more of this at the show. As it is, I really have no idea how the gameplay is going to feel, but I know the look of the game is pretty solid, a huge action game with the design roots of a Street Fighter title, and that there is a really crazy storyline, mixing Chinese and Japanese mythology with elements of sci-fi.

The game focuses on Asura (who looks a lot like Akuma) who once took on the Gods and as a result, got his arms blown off and was subsequently imprisoned. Eventually Asura breaks out of his ethereal prison, looking to headbutt and kick his way through the world, lashing out once more at the Gods who have imprisoned him. The world he’s in looks futuristic, and seems to have been besieged by mythological creatures. Have the Gods descended upon the Earth once more?

As Asura battles, he gets more angry… like the Hulk… only he doesn’t get bigger, he starts sprouting more arms… like Shiva. So eventually your Akuma/Hulk/Shiva hybrid character is doing martial arts, spitting energy, and just generally beating the hell out of all kinds of demons and statue-men with chain guns and things. The designers stated that they specifically wanted every scenario of the game to seem more and more ridiculous as the game went, issuing forth the challenge, “Ha! Get out of that one!”

I’ll admit, I’m interested in seeing more.

Devil May Cry

Our final piece of the puzzle…

Capcom, when you get to the centerpiece of your presentation, please don’t kick everyone out of the room before the trailer is done playing. Kthnx.

Well, I wish we had more information on the title, but so far it looks pretty good, with buildings blowing up all Inception style and more of the same tried-and-true gameplay insanity of the series.

So far, I’ve heard a lot of whining from the community about Dante having a new hair-cut, not wearing a shirt, and being too mean to the monsters he fights… Jesus, gamers, shut the Hell up. This is why we can’t have nice things.

Anyway, all we know about this game is the trailer. Enjoy!