Resident Rejoicing!

Oh prepare the street parties, deck the halls, trumpet the fanfairs, prepare the fireworks and break out the bubbly!!!! For today dear readers is the most fabulous of days!!! They Tyrant is dead, the Mansion destroyed, foxy Jill Valentine is safely in the chopper with Brad and Barry and for now (at least) the Evil Umbrella corporation is defeated! Yes for those of you unfamiliar with my love/hate relationship with Resident Evil Deadly Silence, read on...

This was the game that made me fall in love with the DS. It made me realise what a powerful and dynamic system it was... It also was a game which I found maddeningly difficult, ball achingly frustrated with it's impossibly stingy weapon and save systems, and a game which I eventually traded for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attourney. But something made me buy it again and I'm so glad I did...

Now I won't bore you with the story line, I'll asume you know all about it After all it's a 10 year old game ported (some would say cheaply) to the DS. The original video and engagingly awful dialogue from the Saturn/PS1 version included. But the system specific DS features in Rebirth Mode are incredible... For a start there's the knifing... Using the stylus to dispatch zombies is fun. But at various points in the games you can use it to throw darts (honestly!), to reconnect circuitry, turn dials and so on... The microphone is even more cleverly employed... Blow on the screen to repel zombie vomit, to blow out candles, to give mouth to mouth to your injured colleagues... At one point you use your finger to turn a record on an antique gramophone... Highly innovative stuff!


But how pray tell, did I now succeed at a game that had previously defeated me (and frustrated my sage like patron Gnome)... well here's the deal... I discovered an easy mode. Now this is how you do it... Go to the start menu, select Rebirth Mode, then hold the d-pad to the right till the writing turns green, Hey presto! Easy Mode. Now the game already gives you the option of playing a normal game (as Jill) or a hard game (as Chris) but unless I'm missing something obvious, Capcom's definition of 'normal' means rock fucking hard! But Easy Mode gives you more resillience against attack, twice the ammo and twice the save potential. In other words it allows you a fair chance of beating the game.



Now the downside... beating the game in easy mode does not allow you to access the unlockable 'Master Of Knifing' mini-game. Oh well! the main point of me taking this journey again was to give me the background on the Umbrella story for the upcoming Wii release "Umbrella Chronicles".



Plus now I don't need to play it on the Saturn, although I might play the Gamecube remake... This means I now have the honour of completing Resident Evil, Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil Code Veronica and Resident Evil 4.

The next game I'm playing? Resident Evil 3 on the Dreamcast! Plus I've got Resident Evil Dead Aim, Resident Evil Outbreak File 2 and Resident Evil Code Veronica (Gun Survivor) for the PS2, so I should be fairly busy for a while... LOL!


Oh and I'm loving NFSC: Own the Streets and Fifa 07 for the DS, they're both great for short bursts of handheld game play. Plus I've got Prince Of Persia and Silent Hill on my phone at the moment so I might have another topic of conversation soon. Until then I'll leave you a couple of links if you want to know more about this classic series...

IGN Resident Evil DS

Resident Evil Wikipedia

Gamespot Resident Evil DS

Resident Evil DS Official Site

Capcom's Resident Evil Page

New Resident Evil Movie