Resident Evil: Deadly Silence (Nintendo DS) Preview

It may all sound like doom and gloom already. Another remake of a ten year old game is coming soon, but perhaps it’s a little too early to damn it already. Resident Evil: Deadly Silence (note the subtitle that incorporates the DS initials - yep, it’s another one) could be different from other RE-workings. For a start, it’s on a handheld, which is bound to give it a different feel right from the off, plus it promises a change in the way the game is actually built, too. Rather than just porting over the original Playstation version, the game will supposedly use RE4 stylings, with everything being in full 3D. However, it still remains to be seen if this will be followed through; don’t be surprised if it becomes full of pre-rendered background when it comes down to it, to help it run better. It could be difficult for the DS to handle a game like Resident Evil in full 3D at this stage in its life cycle, before all the little processing tricks have been learnt.

The game is looking fantastic, with it looking every bit as good as it did all those years ago, and probably better due to the technology boost and the compact screens. Original screenshots made the game look a bit iffy (until common sense kicked in and it was realised they weren’t being displayed at the right resolution...), but things are looking better now. The character models look smoother than anticipated and cut scenes appear to be in tact – a screenshot of one of the first cutscenes has been shown. While it obviously doesn’t look as good as REmake on the Gamecube, it looks damn nice and should be compliment the DS’ screen sizes well. What’s not known at the moment is whether all the speech will be incorporated; it should be possible with the right cartridge size, but it remains to be seen. Hopefully they’ll have decent voice acting that’s closer to REmake than the legendary "not...Chris’...blood" ‘voice acting’ of the PSOne original.

There are some other significant gameplay changes that have appeared as well. Capcom are remaining decidedly tight-lipped so far, but one such detail that has come out is the use of the touch screen. Presumably it can be used to select items, but its more interesting use is that of knife battles. Players appear to be able to switch to a first person view and use the stylus to slash across the screen at oncoming enemies, to save on ammunition. What’s not known is whether this will be a viewpoint that can be switched on at will, or just appears at certain points. It wouldn’t be too unreasonable to assume that it pops up whenever you produce your stabbing implement, but this isn’t confirmed. Blood will also occasionally splatter on the camera, meaning you have to give it a quick wipe off with your stylus so you can see what you’re doing. Not really what you want when a few zombies are slobbering at your jugular. Other touch screen uses include puzzle specific ones, such as tapping a number in on a keypad, or turning keys.

The bottom screen is where the action is at, as you might have guessed from all the uses of it, and the top screen contains a map, your ammo counter and your health - much more helpful than having to go into separate screens for the information. There is no health metre as such, with your life instead being dictated by the colour of the screen. If the top screen has a green background, you’re in good shape, a yellow background and you’re in cautioned territory, and red means ‘get the hell out of there and heal up’.

Here’s a big element that’s not been mentioned up to yet and may cause cheers to resonate around a few rooms: Resident Evil: Deadly Silence will be using the wireless multiplayer functions of the DS. How, it’s unconfirmed (is anybody noticing a pattern?), but it’s thought that it’ll include either a co-operative mode or a battle mode. What is known is that up to four players can be involved in the action at a time. With any luck, this means that online play will be included as well. A late night excursion round the mansion over WiFi with some friends? Please Capcom, make it so...

There’s still one key characteristic of the DS that hasn’t been utilised from what information we know though, the elusive microphone. It is likely that, judging from the subtitle, the mic will be brought into use in some fashion, but as of this moment in time we can only speculate what that use could be. Stay quiet and hide to avoid becoming a zombie buffet? Call out to enemies to distract them from harming an ally? Swear at those bloody dogs? Only Capcom knows for now.