First up the PS2 graphics, whilst maybe not the peak of what the system could offer, do at least still look fairly solid under modern eyes. Moving on a couple of games and Dead Aim marked a massive improvement to the formula mainly because it did something to tackle each of these big three problems. The map was almost entirely linear with no gradual exploration or backtracking and there were no puzzles to speak of. Finally, it just didn’t feel like a Resident Evil game. With my off-brand gun this was near impossible as both buttons were on the same side of the device the whole thing made tank-controls feel like a well-oiled system. The G-Con45 had only two action buttons and the trigger meaning to walk forward you needed to pull the trigger with the gun pointed off-screen with A & B buttons turning the player. Even by PS1 standards the 3D world was ugly and the enemy models were lifted straight from the earlier games meaning the low-poly count that was designed to viewed from a fixed distant camera was now right in the player’s face. I could undoubtedly ramble on about ‘Gun Survivor’ for pages, but the short version is that it turned out to be an unremarkable, and generally badly received, game for three main reasons. By comparison, Gun Survivor allowed the player to navigate the map themselves, free to level the gun and blast away when our T-Virus riddled friends made an appearance. Heck, Capcom even went back to this formula with the generally more successful later ‘Chronicles’ sub-series on the Wii. Generally Light Gun games up until this point were on-rails affairs where the player is driven through the game and enemies pop-out to take a blasting. It was the first first-person Resident Evil game, the first fully 3D Resident Evil Game (edging out Code:Veronica), and as far as I can tell the first (or at least one of a very small number) light gun game to give full movement control to the player. And in its defence ‘Gun Survivor’ had big ideas if nothing else. The concept seemed so perfect put the player in to a first person Resident Evil experience where they get to blast zombies with a light gun. Gun Survivor is a game that I reaaalllyyy wanted to be good from the moment I saw those first grainy screenshots plastered over some games magazine in the late 90’s. A series of games with a fairly bumpy record overall, but I want to just pick on the original ‘Gun Survivor’ for a second*. Yes, Dead Aim is the third Resident Evil game in the ‘Gun Survivor’ sub-series of games, or 4th game if you include Dino Stalker. Unfortunately, as with so many of my retro ramblings, context is really important to understanding why I feel the way I do, so pull up a tall glass of your favourite beverage and take a big gulp of whatever chair you’re currently sitting in and join me as I tell the tale of… … Resident Evil: Gun Survivor. I kind of always have, but hopefully by the time this article is over you’ll at least understand why, even if you don’t agree with me. I used the ‘Zapstrasse!’ to go back and play one of the often forgotten Resident Evil Games Resident Evil: Dead Aim.įull disclosure I have a soft-spot for Dead Aim. No, this is about the next bit, the bit that made me want to do this in the first place, the bit where I got to put it to the test on a game that I haven’t played through since it was a new release. … But I’ve already given the technical rundown of that if you’re interested. I mean there are problems and the current version isn’t super stable, but yeah, the idea worked. Unlike many of my other random ideas, I followed through on this one and built a proof-of-concept prototype to see if the idea worked. A little while ago I had an idea of how you could fool a Playstation G-Con (or G-Con 2 for PS2 in this case) style light gun in to thinking it’s looking at a CRT TV and make it playable on a modern flatscreen. Oh yes, I’m talking about the ‘Zapstrasse!’. But this was really a little bit cool, and if you follow me on Twitter you may already know what I’m going to talk about. Just recently I did something that I thought as pretty cool… and I don’t say that lightly, I rarely find anything I do ‘cool’.
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