First Impressions: When there's no more room in hell, another RE port shall walk the earth.
If you've been living in a cave for the last six months, you may not know that Capcom has pledged full exclusivity of the Resident Evil series to the GameCube. So to start it up right, they are going back and remaking every Resident Evil game ever for the GameCube. Then two new Resident Evil games will see the light of day in a prequel, Resident Evil 0 and the poorly named Resident Evil 4. However, we're starting from the beginning and first will be a remake of the original Resident Evil.
I'm sure many of you out there have played Resident Evil. For those that are late to the party, here is a quick recap. In Raccoon City there is a mansion deep in the words that is home to a top-secret laboratory. Recently, there have been stories of creatures attacking people in the woods surrounding the mansion. The local police force sends in two S.T.A.R.S. (Special Tactics And Rescue Squads) teams to investigate. As Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine, you must explore the mansion and find out just what the hell is going on. Did someone just say "brains?"
They might have except that these zombies don't talk, there is more atmosphere than that. Much like Gus Van Sant's remake of Psycho this is an exact retelling of the first Resident Evil. However, I think it is safe to say this remake won't cause fans of the original to hate it. This is the Resident Evil fans have been waiting for. Capcom has stated that some of the camera angles would change to give a better feel to the game which means that this will not be a shot for shot remake. I say that this is good, some of the camera angles in the original were just plain bad.
Resident Evil: the remake will play exactly as the original Resident Evil did. You will Explore the mansion through a fixed camera perspective against pre-rendered backgrounds. This time around everything is slightly more detailed. First, the detail level is through the roof. Tom Savini would be proud of these zombies with their decaying bodies and blank stare. When you pop the top to one of the walking undead, real-time blood stains will decorate the walls. New sounds and music are also being worked into the remake to give off a scarier atmosphere. Capcom has promised that there will be real-time lighting and shadows as well. Capcom has also promised that the backgrounds are no longer just static pictures, but animated backgrounds you can interact with. Also, all of the character's movements have been motion captured to remove that robot walk the original game had. Finally, in what has to be the coolest graphical enhancement to the game, when lightning cracks against one of the open windows, it will light up the room in real-time.