Killer 7

Written by Jeremy Siegel  on March 09, 2004

First Impressions: ButЕ are you experienced?

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The goal behind most good art is to expand beyond the medium. A painter wants his work to transcend its existence as a painting, for it to be limitless, devoid of boundaries and the mundane limitations placed on it by its three dimensions and physical being. The same goes with all art; the artist doesn't want the audience to see or hear his art or music, but to experience it, to forget that it is constructed of marble or wood, or that it is made up of individual notes. What am I getting at? Well, the artisans of video games (the good ones, anyway) have the same goal; the gamer shouldn't ever think about the lines of code or even think about the controller in his or her hand. They should just experience. There was much outcry about the look of "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker" when screenshots were first released. The cel-shaded style caught me a bit off-guard too, I must admit. But when I popped in the game and started Link's story, I forgot all about any complaints I had. The masterminds behind Wind Waker were doing what the aforementioned artists and musicians do: they were making a masterpiece of story, beauty and challenge rather than just a game.

It is, of course, too early to tell if that's what the people behind Killer 7 are intending to do. Like Zelda, they have adopted the cel-shaded style, and it certainly seems as if the story is the main focus of the game. Yes, cel-shading is still a controversial topic amongst gamers and fanboys alike, and some people are going to stay away from this game simply because of the cel-shading. I personally think that's ridiculous, and anytime you single out a game solely due to its graphics, you're doing a disservice to yourself and the gaming industry. Good graphics do make a great game even greater, but some of my favorite times of my life consist of sitting on the floor and pouring endless hours into great games that weren't graphically ground-breaking. Cel-shading helps define the new revolution in video games, where total immersion in story and character is the goal. I honestly could not imagine The Wind Waker done in any other style because cel-shading complemented the whole game so perfectly.

I didn't mean for this article to turn into a dissertation on the pros and cons of cel-shading. The reason I've talked so much about the Wind Waker - cel-shading marriage is because I honestly get the feeling that it is that upper echelon of games that the makers of Killer 7 are aspiring to. Maybe it's just my instinct, but I think this is going to be one hell of a game.

Killer 7 is one of the "Capcom 5" - a list of games that Capcom was planning on releasing in 2003 exclusively for the Gamecube (although recently it was announced that Killer 7 will be coming out for PS2 as well). The other Capcom 5 games were Resident Evil 4, Viewtiful Joe, P.N.03 and Dead Phoenix. I've used enough space in this article talking about other games, so I'll spare you a rundown of the success of the Capcom 5 up until now. Let's just say sales were probably disappointing. But Killer 7 was one of the games in this group that really got everyone's attention. It is an action/adventure game that, from the trailers, appears to have some first-person shooter elements to it as well. Its cel-shaded look actually seems a bit different from prior cel-shaded games. It has a very dark, noir-meets-anime look to it that should compliment what looks to be a good gaming experience.

Now, of course, this is all speculation. There's really no telling what the final product will be like, and whether it will live up to my expectations based on my initial impressions. Capcom hasn't been releasing a lot of material about the game, but from what they have released, the story at least looks pretty interesting. It involves an older man, Harman Smith, who has seven distinct personalities. The man is or was an assassin, and it seems his seven personalities all possess different capabilities. Really, between the trailers and screenshots and cryptic story blurbs that Capcom has released, you get the feeling you can't really truly grasp what the game is about (or even how it's played) until you play it. One line from Capcom's Japanese Killer 7 website intrigues me: "The player's challenge is to stop a wave of indiscriminate violence that is plaguing the world." Hey, if nothing else, this at least seems unique from everything else flooding the market these days; you're supposed to actually stop the indiscriminate violence, not perpetuate it. Not that I have any issues with games encouraging indiscriminate violence, but this might be a refreshing cleansing of the palate.