08 March 2005

Capcom's seminal horror game
is shambling on to a phone near you

Capcom recently announced the formation of a formal American mobile division and is wasting no time in staking out the space with some of its biggest properties, such as Resident Evil.

The survival-horror franchise is enjoying a massive renaissance, still basking in the critical glow of the successful Resident Evil 4. However, since an epic of such size and technical requirements could not be scaled down to a cell phone with any degree of reasonable success, Capcom set out to create an original game that delivered the elements and essence of the popular console game, but in an experience that makes sense for mobile.

Resident Evil runs on 3D-enabled handsets. It uses pre-rendered backgrounds, but casts polygonal models over them. It looks quite nice on the test LG VX8000 I am playing the game on. The models move smoothly with pretty good animation. The texture work is solid, but not spectacular. Valentine (and the other humans) got the most attention it seems.

Many of the zombies look like a collection of gory-textured polygons hastily pasted into humanoid form. The sound is pretty good. There is some beep-boop sinister music, as well as several sound effects for taking shots or picking up items. Your characters cry when attacked, zombies make appropriate groans, and monsters, well, make monstrous noises.

Resident Evil: The Missions benefits from incredibly smart design choices. Recreating an RE game in a top-down perspective would have been a little dull. Using the familiar fixed camera angles, the pre-rendered backgrounds, and recognizable characters and locations will get the fan base excited.

And the way the game is segmented into easily consumed set pieces is great for mobile gamers, as it allows them to play for a few minutes at a time if the real world is creeping in. The game does move a little slow, even with the use of a run command to speed up movement, but the pacing of RE has always turned some gamers off while others appreciated the "slow boil."

Screens by IGN

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