While the games have generally received a mixed reception, namely due to the first game, Gun Survivor is notable for a variety of reasons. It marks the first time an original Resident Evil game was developed outside of Capcom's offices, the first time an entry didn't use pre-rendered static backgrounds, the first time the franchise would hit arcades, the first "side story" that didn't involve any of the primary RE cast, and events found within some of these games not only remain canon to this very day, but also have some notable impact on the storylines of both Resident Evil AND Dino Crisis! With 2021 marking the 21st Anniversary of Gun Survivor (i.e. it's now legally able to purchase a handgun from a licensed dealer in the United States!), & Resident Evil: Village having come out this same year, I think now's the perfect time to look back at these four games, and see if they might just be the missing link to Resident Evil's current mainline direction.
It all begins with Resident Evil: Survivor, known in Japan as Biohazard: Gun Survivor (because only Japan could really get away with the full "Gun Survivor" name), which came out exclusively for the Sony PlayStation on January 27, 2000 in Japan, followed by a European release on March 31, & then a North American release on August 30; there was then a Windows PC release exclusive to China & Taiwan on September 7, 2002. Originally planned to have the subtitle "Behind the Mask", this was was developed primarily by "ghost developer" Tose, with some assistance from Capcom Production Studio 2, making this the first original game in the series to be developed outside of Capcom (Nextech & Angel Studios had previously handled ports of RE1 & 2, respectively). The game takes place a month after the events of Resident Evil 2 & 3, which both end with Raccoon City's explosive destruction, specifically November 1998. Over on a small piece of land off the coast of Europe called Sheena Island, an outbreak of Umbrella's T-virus happens, with one man in particular trying to escape the island via helicopter, only for said chopper to crash land on the island. The man wakes up with amnesia, but soon comes to the conclusion that he must be a man named "Vincent"... the vile, child-experimenting Umbrella employee responsible for the outbreak. "Vincent" now tries to both find a way off Sheena Island & figure out who he truly is, all while coming across Lott & Lilly Klein, two young siblings who are also trying to a find a way to survive. Much like Resident Evil 2 before this, RE: Survivor's plot was co-written by the late Noboru Sugimura, who would continue writing for the franchise until his death from acute heart failure at age 56 in 2005.
Hopefully you noticed that the North American release for RE: Survivor was a good half-year after the Japanese & European releases, and maybe you're wondering why that's the case. The answer to that is simple: April 20, 1999. That was the day of the Columbine High School massacre, in which two high school students went on a shooting spree, killing 12 of their fellow students & one teacher, before the two committed suicide. While Capcom never directly cited Columbine as the reason, it's likely that the American division felt that it would have been in poor taste to release a game in North America where the player could freely move around in a first-person perspective & shoot at humanoid figures, even if they are zombies & other "bio-organic weapons", with a grey-colored light gun that did look reasonably similar to an actual gun; there's good reason why the GunCon 2 for the PS2 was colored orange outside of Japan. However, Capcom not only (likely) delayed RE: Survivor's North American release, but it also went a step further by removing GunCon support entirely, and I don't simply mean "they blocked access, but you can just use a GameShark code or hack to do it anyway". No, Capcom & Tose literally removed any & all code relating to GunCon support for the North American release, making it 100% incompatible with Namco's light gun in that region, making it a controller-only experience.
However, when you realize how exactly RE: Survivor is "meant" to be played, maybe removing GunCon support was actually a blessing in disguise.
You see, the original GunCon for the PS1 was nothing more than a light-gun, with the only extra buttons on it being the A & B buttons found on each side, near the light sensor/muzzle itself; Start & Select don't even exist on this thing. So how do you move without a d-pad? You pull the trigger when not pointing the GunCon at the screen. Note that I did NOT say "pull & hold", because movement is automatic once started with this control scheme, and if you want to run you pull the trigger a second time while walking. Meanwhile, moving backward is done by pulling the trigger twice in a row, while turning left & right is with A & B, respectively. By pressing A+B together, though, you can quick spin to anything relevant in the room, whether it be items, documents, or even enemies, which is admittedly very helpful, as turning is a bit slow. Meanwhile, you access the status screen & item menu by holding A+B together, and you point & shoot in order to make selections, while A & B switch between tabs (Items, Documents, Maps, etc.). You can also access the options screen by pressing A+B+Trigger all at once. Finally, shooting enemies just requires you to point at the screen & pull the trigger, and there is no manual reloading, you so only reload by emptying a clip. To put it simply, this control scheme sounds like it was devised by a mad man & I can only imagine would drive players insane; movement alone sounds absurd, due to it being automatic once started. I get that the original GunCon was highly limited, but this is definitely a case of "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should," so I think playing with a controller is more than enough for this game. Yes, you now have to control an on-screen cursor to shoot while holding R1, but I'll take that over not having complete control regarding movement. I do want to see a speedrunner try to play this game as "GunCon%", though.
So, onto the game itself... Which isn't as bad as its reputation would make you believe, surprisingly enough. Make no mistake, though, because this is a flawed game, namely due to the limitations put upon it. First off, RE: Survivor isn't a pretty game, by any means. This is a fully 3D RE game on the PS1, so there are warped textures like crazy for the environments, and while I'm sure the enemy models are taken from the first three games, you now get to see them up close & personal, which really removes the allure they once had via fixed camera angles; also, they were likely reduced in quality to allow for rendering the environments. Second, the gameplay is simplified compared to what came before, obviously due to making sure the game can be played with just the GunCon. In order to pick up an item all you need to do is walk into it, and using things like keys & other related items are automatically done just by walking into whatever they're used with; using herbs & weapon switching, however, is still all done via the status screen. When using the controller, the game also gives you a form of aim assist, as shooting an enemy will force you to center in on the foe, allowing for an easier time to get more shots off (though faster foes are still tricky to consistently hit). Also, the basic handgun you start off with has unlimited ammo, and this applies to any stronger handguns you manage to find; other weapons (shotgun, grenade launcher, magnum, etc.) have limited ammo, though. Finally, as speedrunners for this game have shown, most enemies only actually deal damage when they're on screen when attacking, so it's not too difficult to avoid taking damage by just walking against a wall, or simply walking backwards, preventing foes from being on screen. Hunters, however, do have the ability to jump in front of you at any time, & zombies can grab you & force you to look at them, while Mr. Xs are seemingly the only enemy to be able to hit you without being on screen. Also, if you're curious about the PC port, it's apparently really bad, with visuals that are only slightly better & shorter load times, but it's also much buggier, the sound effects are mixed up (Lickers get zombie sounds, for example), & the AI is absolutely stupid.
All that said, however, there is still some fun to be had in playing RE: Survivor, and I definitely see the potential in what Capcom & Tose were going for. First, it's not a long game by any means, with a casual playthrough taking no longer than 1.5-2 hours; there is no mid-game saving, but you are given four continues, which is more than enough. This is made up for by way of replayability via a handful of route choices you're given (two early on, and one before the final area), each of which give you three paths to take, and by doing so you wind up altering the plot ever so slightly, mainly in terms of who "Vincent" comes across early on & becomes a (very minor) recurring rival-of-sorts. Also, certain documents can only be found in specific routes, & each route has its own exclusive handgun variant to find. Any & all weapons you come across in one playthrough can be carried though into another by way of clear save data, too, which makes for a rather generous New Game+. Finally, your health & ammo are shown on screen at all times, the first time it'd be done in the series. I had once played through this game back when it came out over 20 years ago, and I was honestly shocked at how much I didn't hate this game playing it again for this retrospective. Even the music by Shiro Kohmoto is really good & fitting for the franchise, while the English voice work by the cast of "gaijin talent" is appropriately cheesy in all the best ways, as was the style for RE at the time. However, I fully understand why it received the negative reception it currently has, and I can fully understand why someone won't have any fun with it; if it wasn't handicapped by the GunCon, it might have been really good. It's not like the events on Sheena Island aren't canon, either, as the intro to Resident Evil 0 does actually make reference to this game, calling it "The Second Raccoon City". These events aren't really relevant in the long run of Resident Evil, but they did indeed happen; take that, Resident Evil Gaiden for the Game Boy Color!
I seriously think Capcom should remake Resident Evil: Survivor using the gameplay style of RE 7 & Village, while keeping the short length & multiple routes to encourage replayability. This would make for a really cool digital download priced at $20, and would allow the honestly good ideas found within this game to truly shine. Also, I'd argue that remaking this game would make more sense than remaking Resident Evil 4.
So up next we have Gun Survivor 2: Biohazard -Code:Veronica-, which actually first saw release in Japanese arcades on July 5, 2001, followed by a PS2 port seeing release in Japan on November 8 (both on its own & as a bundle with the GunCon 2), and a European release on February 8, 2002, where it was renamed Resident Evil: Survivor 2 -Code:Veronica-; there is no North American release, likely due to the first game's poor reception. This game was a giant collaborative effort between Capcom (Producing), Namco (Visuals & Gameplay), Nextech (Cutscenes), & SIMS (Audio), and was originally announced in early 2001 under the title Biohazard: Fire Zone. Yes, while the first game had arcade-like elements to it, the sequel is literally debuted in arcades first, where it appeared as a dual-screen cabinet (ala Time Crisis 2 & on), and players grab hold of mounted guns that not only shoot at what's ontheir respective screens, but can be moved forward, backward, side-to-side, & even twisted to the left & right to allow for full movement, including strafing! As the title indicates, this isn't an original plot, but rather a reinterpretation of the events of Resident Evil Code:Veronica, which had come out on Sega Dreamcast a month after the original Gun Survivor in Japan & had seen a port to the PS2 not long before this new game. However, this is not a straight adaptation of the actual plot, as Claire Redfield & Steve Burnside can encounter & fight against Nemesis from the third game, who doesn't appear at all in C:V proper. To no surprise, finishing this game results in it all being revealed as nothing more than a wild dream Claire is having after escaping Antarctica with her brother Chris, following the end of C:V itself; I guess Claire spoke to Jill between RE3 & C:V, which would explain how she knew of Nemesis.
In terms of the gameplay itself, this is absolutely an arcade game, as the objective in each of the five stages (Prison, Official Residence, Training Camp, Private Residence, & Airport) is to simply get the key that allows access to the exit, followed by a boss battle to end each stage, except for the last stage, which is mainly just a pair of boss fights against a Tyrant & Nemesis. However, you can't simply take your time & take out any & all B.O.W.s in your path, as you do have a time limit, usually just a few minutes or so. Once that time runs out, Nemesis arrives to chase you down, upon which a second time limit starts, no more than a couple of minutes. Once that runs out, Nemesis has found you & will chase you down until you finally make it to the boss fight for that stage; Stage 4 has Nemesis chase you down immediately. Understandably, a five stage "Arcade Mode" isn't exactly that long, even with a handful of continues given to you, so the game also offers "Dungeon Mode", in which you can take on various missions in three new environments (Clock Tower, Underground, & Inferno), which are much larger than the original five stages & allow you to customize your weapon layouts & such. You can also unlock "Vs. Roach Mode" (which is exactly as it sounds), the ability to play as Chris Redfield & Rodrigo Juan Raval in Dungeon Mode, and there are "Secret Files" to find in each Arcade Mode stage.
Overall, this seems like a good port of a unique arcade game, along with some extra content to help give it some bonus replayability... Until you actually try to play the game with the GunCon 2, that is.
Let me state, first & foremost, that Gun Survivor 2 plays much more smoothly than how the first game likely would play with the GunCon 1, and a big reason for that is due to the new gun having more buttons. Along with the A & B buttons, you now also have a C button on the base of the handle (though it has no real use in this game), as well as proper Start & Select buttons on one side & a d-pad on the back, near the hammer. This allows for the ability to actually move around with full control, and while the d-pad is a little small your thumb can rest on it decently enough to make it possible to move & shoot simultaneously. However, what messes the controls up with the GunCon 2 is that the A & B buttons have been moved back near the trigger, rather than being at the front of the gun, and these are the buttons you use to either turn or strafe left & right (depending on your preference in the Options); you can also press both to do a 180° spin, which is useful. Because of this, you'll be cradling the GunCon 2 with your non-shooting hand right where your other hand is, resulting in a somewhat uncomfortable grip that prevents you from being able to consistently press one of the buttons; since I'm right-handed, I can't press B without stretching my left fingers around. Had A & B been kept at the front this wouldn't be that much of a problem, & would even help with stabilizing your aim, but the new placement effectively makes it hard to do things like circle-strafing around bosses & preventing yourself from getting hurt, which makes getting a high ranking (which requires you to both not get hit & only ever use the infinite-ammo handgun) nigh-impossible. At least with a controller you can map strafing to L1 & R1, but then you're once again losing part of the appeal of the game, which is the ability to shoot at the screen with a light gun, while also having the ability to freely move about, and there's no doubt that using the GunCon 2 with this game is kind of cool, as awkward as it can be to play sometimes.
Graphically, the game looks pretty much almost exactly like Code:Veronica itself, and likely just reuses the same exact assets. As for the sound, while Claire & Steve have a basic "Let's Go" voice clip when you select which one to play as, there's literally no other voice work to be found, outside of a message that plays when you start running out of time, as all cutscenes are done as though they were silent films; I own the Japanese version, so I got the combo of no speech & Japanese subtitles. The music is decent & good for setting mood & urgency, but the only person credited for "Sound" is SIMS' Makoto Iida, who isn't known for music. However, the biggest problem with Gun Survivor 2's home port is that it's a single-player only experience. You can turn on an AI partner, but unless you beat the game you're stuck with a Level 1 AI that's only somewhat useful; one cleared game lets you bump it up to Level 4, while twice allows for up to Level 8. While I likely will never be able to play the original arcade version, I'd hazard a guess that it's the best way to play it, as not only do you get to use that interesting control scheme (which sadly doesn't translate perfectly to the GunCon 2) but you also get the ability to play it with someone else, which I'm sure results in a wild & fun time to be had. As it is on the PS2, Resident Evil: Survivor 2 -Code:Veronica- is a neat concept that's certainly not unplayable, and is worth at least one playthrough with the GunCon 2, but otherwise isn't essential.
So far we've seen two Gun Survivor games, and while neither have been absolutely crap, neither also truly managed to fully deliver on the concept they were made with (at least on console for the second one). But enough of the undead... Let's shoot some dinosaurs!
Third in this sub-series is Gun Survivor 3: Dino Crisis, which was completely renamed outside of Japan under the much simpler title of Dino Stalker, likely in an effort to distance the game from the less-than-stellar reputation Gun Survivor had seemingly found abroad; also, "Dino Crisis: Survivor" does sound a little bland. This game first came out in Japan on June 27, 2002 (both in regular & GunCon 2-bundle flavors), followed by North American release on September 9 & a European release on September 20. This also marks the first exclusively-Capcom game to feature artwork drawn by the legendary Toshiaki "Shinkiro" Mori, who had previously worked with SNK until its bankruptcy; I say "exclusively-Capcom", as Shinkiro did technically swap employers with Capcom vs. SNK 2. This is also the only Gun Survivor game to actually be developed primarily in-house at Capcom, with Flagship helping out with the CG cutscenes & newly-founded studio Neuron-Age assisting with the model work; Tose & Polygon Magic are also included in the credits, but I don't know what they contributed. The plot here is actually a bit of a sequel to 2000's Dino Crisis 2, as both involve time travel & dinosaurs; not surprising, considering that Noboru Sugimura co-wrote both games. Dino Stalker stars Mike Wired, a World War II fighter pilot who gets caught in a time slip after getting seemingly killed during battle in 1943, only to wind up on a mysterious island filled with dinosaurs. Over the course of the story Mike encounters Paula & Dylan Morton, two major characters from Dino Crisis 2 whose ultimate fates were left uncertain by the end of that game. The main idea is that following the events of Dino Crisis 2, the area of land affected by the Noah's Ark Project (i.e. the source of all this time travel zaniness) is now stuck in hyperspace, and the only way to return everything to normal is to shut down "Mother Computer", which has created a Troodon named Trinity that can command all of the dinosaurs in order to prevent anyone from shutting down "Mother". In short, Dino Stalker is more of a third proper game in this franchise than the actual Dino Crisis 3 (a.k.a. "[Not Really] Dinosaurs... in Space!") would be a year later!
So with the previous Gun Survivor games we saw two unfortunate complications. With RE: Survivor we had a convoluted GunCon control scheme due to a lack of extra buttons, while with RE: Survivor 2 we had extra buttons, but the GunCon 2's placement of them wasn't ideal. With Dino Stalker, though, Capcom not only offers the usual controller & GunCon 2 options, but now adds in a third option: Controller+GunCon! Yes, you can hold the PS2 controller with your left hand for movement options, while you use the GunCon with your right hand for shooting, which just honestly makes sense. Unfortunately, there's one hitch with this third control option, which is that it only works with the original GunCon, not the GunCon 2; this is despite the manual literally stating that the PS1's DualShock & GunCon are incompatible. This is because, for whatever reason, having a GunCon 2 plugged into your PS2 makes the DualShock 2 100% useless; the analog indicator still lights up, but none of the buttons do anything. However, while I first chalked this up to bad programming on the half of Capcom, I then proceeded to beat the game using just the GunCon 2, which is perfectly doable but not really ideal (& a bit cramping for the hands)... Which then unlocked "Duo Mode", a co-op mode which allows the DualShock 2 & GunCon 2 to be used in tandem.
Yes, Capcom literally hid away the ideal control scheme for Dino Stalker as an unlockable after beating the game in an unideal fashion, unless you happen to own a GunCon 1. I have only question, Capcom: WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!?!?!?!
Anyway, Dino Stalker essentially splits the difference by splitting up its seven stages between two different forms. Stages 1, 3, & 5 are rail-shooter experiences, only with the ability to spin left & right, while Stages 2 & 4 are free-movement experiences, where you have get from Point A to Point B on your own; Stages 6 & 7 are also free-movement, but are nothing more than boss fights in arena-like environments. This is also a very arcade-like game, as you're constantly under attack from dinosaurs that appear from all over, you have a time limit for each stage, and in order to prevent a time-out you have to shoot or touch "tachyons", which come in two colors: Pink (+3 seconds) & Blue (+30 seconds). You can also find various items which can heal you from damage, prevent poisoning from certain attacks (which heavily blurs your screen for about a solid minute), & even revive you from death once. Your default handgun once again has unlimited ammo but needs reloading, but you can also come across a wide variety of "Special Shot" guns (magnum, flamethrower, laser gun, grenades, etc.) with limited ammo that you can switch to at any time. Finally, you also have the "Sniper Shot", which you can switch to at any time, but doing so put you at a standstill so that you can zoom in & shoot far away objects, though aiming this way is done with the d-pad only; to be perfectly honest, I found the Sniper Shot pretty useless, as I rarely ever used it. At the end of each stage you are given a rank based on how much time you have left over, how many dinosaurs you killed (you have to reach a quota to get a big bonus, essential for high ranks), & if you took any damage; accuracy doesn't really count until the overall rank after beating the game. Overall, it's actually a pretty fun & exciting game, and doesn't overstay its welcome at all, as you can beat the entire game in no more than 1-1.5 hours; my clear game said 45 minutes, but I had to continue a bunch against Trinity in Stage 6. If this truly was originally intended to be an arcade game, as is rumored online, then I can certainly see why it's so short.
That being said, though, Dino Stalker quickly shows its flaws in that short time. For example, you fight a pair of Carnotaurus as the boss fight for three different stages, and after the second it's kind of already worn out its welcome. Also, playing with the GunCon 2 is a little tricky, and not just because of A & B being in an unideal place for easy strafing. For whatever reason, Capcom made the d-pad very sensitive, and since the GunCon 2's d-pad (a.k.a. the "thumbcon") is rather small it becomes very easy to start veering off to a side when all you're trying to do is move forward, absolutely messing with your ability to quickly get an accurate shot on enemies when both you & them are moving around; also the game was the pickiest when it came to registering a shot on the edges of my screen. While I couldn't test the Controller+GunCon 1 option, I can definitely say that "Duo Mode" makes for a much more enjoyable time, as the left analog stick allows for easier & more reliable movement compared to the GunCon 2's d-pad, though now you can't strafe, since that mode is meant for two-players, so strafing is mapped to the right stick & shot selection is mapped to the face buttons; that being said, I still managed to beat Stage 2 in Duo Mode, by myself, without taking a single hit. Using the GunCon 1, strafing is mapped to one side of shoulder buttons (L1+L2/R1+R2), depending on which is your non-dominant hand, while shot selection is mapped to either the d-pad or face buttons; yes, Dino Stalker actually does accommodate for lefties, which is cool. The plot is also just sheer nonsensical madness, as while Paula is stuck in hyperspace with Mike, Dylan is apparently 3 million years in the future (Father of the Year, am I right?), hence why Mike (who was pretty much going to die anyway) was pulled into all of this via time slip, with Mike & Paula falling in love after what must only be a few hours, a single night tops; I'd imagine that people hoping for more regarding Paula & Dylan after Dino Crisis 2 were disappointed. Finally, the music found here is absolutely generic & completely forgettable, though the visuals are actually rather good for the time (minus Mike's face during any of the CG cutscenes, the poor guy).
In the end, Dino Stalker almost nails the Gun Survivor concept perfectly, though if you own a GunCon 1 it might actually nail it down rather well, but is held back by slightly touchy (& cramped) GunCon 2 controls, an utterly bonkers plot that likely won't please those who wanted more resolution to Dino Crisis 2 (though it is fun if you just sit back & enjoy the ride), and Capcom bizarrely making the best control scheme of all (though hampered by it being meant for two-player co-op) be something that you have to unlock by beating the game first. Still, this isn't a bad game at all; just a fair bit awkward.
Finally, we end this retrospective with Resident Evil: Dead Aim for the PS2, which in Japan has possibly the greatest video game title of all time: Gun Survivor 4: Biohazard - Heroes Never Die. Coming out in Japan on February 13, 2003, followed by North America on either March 22 or June 17 (both are listed online) & Europe on July 9, primary development for this final entry in the sub-series looks to come from the now-defunct Cavia, which would become more well known later that same year with Drakengard, a.k.a. "That Reason Why You Might Be Playing Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139... in the Year 2021". In terms of the plot, Dead Aim takes place in September 2002, between the events of Code:Veronica & RE 4, & focuses on an Umbrella-owned ocean liner called the Spencer Rain, which has been commandeered & infected with the T-virus by Morpheus D. Duval, an ex-Umbrella employee who threatens to launch missiles filled with the T-virus unless he's given $1 billion in total by the U.S. & China. To combat him, both countries covertly send in their own respective special agent: Bruce McGivern & Fong Ling. To say that Bruce & Fong Ling's relationship starts off as hostile would be putting it nicely, but they play off of each other well enoug; Bruce is a total "dong gua". As for Morpheus, he's interesting in that he very soon injects himself with a new fusion of the T-virus & G-virus to turn himself into a very svelte (& interestingly female) electric Tyrant who's immune to bullets, while still fully maintaing his sanity & faculties. Also, a document you can find reveals that Morpheus is the man who unleashed the T-virus on Raccoon City in RE2, hence why he's an ex-Umbrella employee. Finally, Bruce, Fong Ling, & Morpheus are literally the only human characters you see all throughout the story, making for a uniquely small but focused cast.
What's most interesting about Dead Aim's plot, though, is that while it's pretty much a standalone story, it seems to have wound up becoming rather relevant in the overall RE timeline in retrospect for one reason: It marks the final death knell for Umbrella Corporation. As stated in this extensive plot analysis (see: "10iv. Random Commentary"), the Spencer Rain is home to a giant auction Umbrella is holding to sell off its bioweapons, as part of its efforts to earn capital to keep legal actions filed against it tied up in court. Morpheus' plot winds up in the death & infection of everyone on board, including tons of "high-rollers", resulting in him screwing over Umbrella's chances at fighting off the legal actions, which would then lead to the death of Umbrella itself (though its reach would continue to be felt, even as late as RE Village). Without Dead Aim, Umbrella might have actually continued to operate into RE 4 & beyond, causing even more chaos! Also, Dead Aim would wind up being the last game in the series to be co-written by Noboru Sugimura before his passing, so it's kind of fitting that Umbrella would die out with the man who helped make the corporation the franchise's primary villain. Dead Aim also ties itself into the earliest days at Umbrella somewhat, as you find out little bits of Morpheus' time with the corporation (all prior to the first game's events), and one of the bosses, a giant hulking beast with an exposed brain that relies solely on hearing your movements (named "Pluto"), is revealed in a document to actually be the original prototype Tyrant, "α".
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| Even the Hunters get a new, more fish-like, upgrade. |
When it comes to Dead Aim, the name of the game here is "control flexibility", because this is easily the Gun Survivor game with the most control options. You have Controller-only, GunCon 2-only, Controller+GunCon 2 (replacing GunCon 1 support), and even Controller+USB Mouse or GunCon 2+USB Mouse; Cavia does what Capcan't! Of these, Controller+GunCon 2 is easily the best option of all, allowing for easy movement & menu access while also making for exact & instant aiming, and when the GunCon 2 isn't pointing at the screen the trigger simply acts as the X button for selecting & interacting, while the C button on the bottom is used for cancelling & backing out; that being said, mouse support does sound really nifty, too. This is all backed up by the fact that Dead Aim is the only Gun Survivor game to not be 100% first-person, as you'll actually be playing in a third-person perspective ("objective view", as the game calls it) for the most part, and only switching over to first-person ("subjective view") for combat; pull the trigger once to enter first-person, and move forward or backward to return to third-person. Essentially, all you need from the GunCon 2 are the trigger & maybe the C button, while on the controller all need are the d-pad (or analog stick, though movement itself isn't analog), Start, Select, & L1/L2. The triggers essentially act as multipurpose buttons, acting as the equivalent to X for interacting with items & doors, pressing either one before an enemy attacks you activates "Emergency Evasion", & holding either allows for "Sneak Moving", with L2 allowing for strafing. Sneaking can allow you to get past most zombies without them seeing you, unless you get too close, but also allows for movement while in first-person, which can come in handy at points. Finally, double-tapping down does a 180° spin, and when in combat pressing left or right when an icon appears on that respective side allows you to quickly turn towards an enemy approaching you in that area.
To be perfectly honest, if you want a simple way to describe how Resident Evil: Dead Aim feels to play, I'd actually say "It's pretty much like a prototype Resident Evil 4". While you can spin the camera around you completely while standing still, it's stuck behind you while moving around, ala RE 4. When you ready yourself to fight the camera zooms in closer, much like RE 4, though here's it's a first-person perspective to accommodate GunCon 2 use. While Dead Aim is not quite as action-focused as RE 4, there are still plenty of moments where you'll have a large group of zombies & the like marching towards you, similar to what RE 4 does with the Ganado at times, and the GunCon 2 allows for super fast firing. Likewise, while your handgun(s) do have limited ammo now, save points (which are once again typewriters, though you don't need ink ribbons here) allow you to max out your ammo for it. However, you only are allowed six ammo containers in total, & other guns' ammo will take those spots over time, so you can still run out of ammo if you're rather trigger happy. You also come across a few types of enemies in Dead Aim that only really appear in one small section (Torpedo Kids, Glimmers, Wasps), only to never be seen again, much like RE 4's various only-seen-once set pieces. Both Bruce McGivern (who, yes, is obviously inspired by Brad Pitt's role in the movie SE7EN) & Leon S. Kennedy have Asian female counterparts (Fong Long & Ada Wong) who just absolutely love messing with them at pretty much any & all times, though they obviously do care for them over time; there's rumor that Leon & Ada were initially planned to star, but were removed due to this only being a side story. Even the room-to-room transitions are somewhat similar!
In fact, in other similarities not related to RE 4, the first time you encounter Morpheus as a Tyrant you actually have to just escape through multiple rooms, as he's unkillable, remarkably similar to Alcina Dimitrescu & her "Witches" in RE Village. Finally, when you come across Morpheus' journal at the end, he mentions wanting to build a "beautiful" kingdom in Africa, six years prior to Resident Evil 5's release, which takes place on that continent; Resident Evil: Dead Aim was downright psychic in regards to RE's future!
I'm not saying that Shinji Mikami took direct inspiration from Dead Aim when finalizing the direction RE 4 would finally go in, since the latter went through all sorts of development hell, but the similarities between the two are fascinating to see; I think the team at Cavia probably just had the same idea as to the direction Resident Evil would go in. Also of note is the music done by Namco's Nobuyoshi "sanodg" Sano (Tekken & Ridge Racer series), which is sparsely used but highly effective whenever it is, with his save room theme often cited as one of the best songs in the entire RE franchise by fans. There's even an ending theme, "Gun Shot" by Rize, which is an amusing rock song that goes oh-so hard & is absolutely endearing in how "early 00s" it sounds. The voice cast is also notable in that Bruce is voiced by Raj Ramayya, an Indo-Canadian musician who's worked with the likes of Yoko Kanno & Tsuneo Imahori. In fact, Raj is the singer for "Here Comes the Rain" from the original Gungrave & "Ask DNA" from Cowboy Bebop: The Movie! However, everyone still delivers the cheesy English dialogue that you'd expect from the franchise, and the actors must have been allowed to ad lib their lines a ton, as the subtitles you can turn on are often wildly different from what's being spoken. Finally, much like the prior Gun Survivor titles, Dead Aim isn't exactly a lengthy game, with a casual playthrough taking around 1.5-2 hours; I had 1.75 hours, just a little longer than RE: Survivor. Interestingly enough, the Spencer Rain is realistically mapped out, & it's not surprising that you go through all of it rather fast, so the second half takes place on an old Umbrella base (as in it existed before RE0!) that Morpheus used to be in charge of, though it is also designed rather straightforward. Finally, beating the game lets you play through it again as Fong Ling, who you only get the chance to play as a handful of times in your first playthrough, and always for no longer than a few minutes, tops; this isn't a Separate Ways-esque campaign, it's literally just a character swap, but it's a nice little bonus.
Obviously, I'm not trying to say that Resident Evil: Dead Aim is just as outstanding as Resident Evil 4 is, because that's a remarkably high mark to achieve. However, Dead Aim is an excellent game in its own regard, and by far is the best Gun Survivor game of them all, absolutely delivering an excellent mix of standard RE fare with fast-paced shooting action, making it a bit of a precursor to the direction the franchise would start going in just a couple of years later. Also notable is that 2005's Namco x Capcom features Bruce & Fong Ling as the representatives for the Resident Evil franchise, likely because of their game being based around Namco's iconic light gun, & they'd be teamed up with Regina from Dino Crisis; this would be the final appearance for all three characters in a video game.
Unfortunately, much like their rail-shooter counterparts, Capcom's Gun Survivor sub-series is one that came from a time in which the predominant form of television that people played video games on was that of the cathode ray tube variety, a.k.a CRTs. While there is now tech like the Sinden Lightgun to help make playing these kinds of games possible on modern screens, it's all based around PCs & using things like emulation (or a proprietary console, like the Polymega [whenever it finally comes out]). If you want to play these games on their original hardware, then you only have two options: Use the controller (which kind of removes the very point of these games' existence) or find yourself a CRT (or P/BVM), which is only becoming harder & harder to do over time. While the Wii's pointer control or the PS3's Move controller did manage to bring back light gun experiences for a few years during the late 00s & very early 10s, including those two RE Chronicles games, these kinds of experiences have just more or less become a dying breed, as even VR equivalents aren't exactly the same.
But the focus of this retrospective is on Gun Survivor & if there was any merit in these four games' very existences. Considering the direction Resident Evil has since gone following Dead Aim's release in 2003, is Gun Survivor a sort of "missing link" to modern RE, in particular 7 & Village? Personally, I'd say that the answer is "Maybe", but only in the sense that I do feel that the staff behind these more recent games likely saw what was attempted with Gun Survivor all that time ago & saw what to avoid & what to build off of. That's why I said that I would love to see Resident Evil: Survivor be completely remade in the style of 7 & Village, because I can totally see it work; it was a cool concept that was held back by hardware & a peripheral that couldn't do it proper justice. Meanwhile, Resident Evil: Survivor 2 -Code:Veronica- & Dino Stalker were designed to be arcade-like experiences from the very start, and both honestly do deliver on that well enough, though the former likely still plays best in its original co-op arcade cabinet form, while the latter is held back by Capcom not fully committing to its best possible control scheme. Finally, Resident Evil: Dead Aim was Cavia learning from what came before & delivering the best possible take on the concept, and while its similarities to Resident Evil 4 are likely more coincidental than intentional, that actually results in it holding up the best of these four. Much like the original Gun Survivor game, I wouldn't mind seeing Dead Aim be given its own remake, though in this case it'd be in the style of the RE2 & 3 remakes, though maybe still keep the "switch to first-person for combat" gimmick & have it mimic 7 & Village slightly.
Capcom's Gun Survivor sub-series is often looked at online with disdain, treated as nothing more than a bad joke & stain in the annals of Resident Evil (& Dino Crisis). However, after playing all four of these games in the year 2021, I see a quartet of games that slowly grew better & better with each entry, and while I understand why people hate on the first one, there should seriously be some reassessing in regards to the other three, especially the last one.
Resident Evil: Survivor © Capcom Co., Ltd. 2000
Resident Evil: Survivor 2 -Code:Veronica- © Capcom Co., Ltd. 2001 © 2001 Namco, Ltd.
Dino Stalker © Capcom Co., Ltd. 2002
Resident Evil: Dead Aim © Capcom Co., Ltd. 2003
This was a neat little retrospective for some of the lesser known titles of the RE franchise. Got some fond memories of playing Dead Aim back then.
ReplyDeleteGood job. And thanks for the fun read.
Glad to see that you enjoyed it!
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