Resident Evil: What's your perspective?

The Resident Evil series over the years has grown, branched off and changed in a few directions over the years since its first release back in 1996. Some of these changes have been commended and been thought of as good improvements by newcomers and harcore Resident Evil fans the world over, but the one area other than story that has probably divided fans more is that of the camera perspective.

From Resident Evil 1 - 3, Capcom included a fixed third person perspective camera, with pre-rendered backrounds. This led to very dynamic viewpoints of the game that fans fell in love with, horror being created by not quite seeing what was just out of shot and to answer what was there, resulted in the player often venturing into an unknown part of the screen that could result in being grabbed by a zombie or some other kind of monster.

Due to limitations at the time, the actual player environment per screen, was often enclosed and not very big, couple this with not being able to control the camera position, creates a world where you don't quite feel entirely in control, all in all creating a tense horror atmosphere that went nicely with the story unfolding.

[A bit of a side track, but:

The developer also included in the original Resident Evil a very underused in video games 2nd person perspective. At least one in game fmv scene utilises this when the hunters are first introduced and we see through its eyes bounding through the game areas to the players location. Another example, being the title of game when we see something rushin towards someone, that zooms in on their eye and we hear the iconic "Resident Evil" title being announced. THe only other game that comes to mind that has used this perspective well it the Siren series with its 'sight-jacking' feature. ]

As the years were moving on, technology as well as game players were growing and so 3D environments were becoming the norm and were expected by fans. So by the time it came for Capcom to develop Resident Evil: Code Veronica for the Dreamcast, it seemed a natural progression to up the scale of the game and integrate fully 3D play areas. The fixed camera was predominatly kept as it to some degree had become a part of the overall aethetic of the Resident Evil main series, however the developers could now move the camera in certain areas to represent a good use of scale or to better get a look at whatever was on screen. For the potential that this provided, the developing team played it relatively safe and stuck to using a fixed camera for most of the game. Could they have instead tried something a little bit more optomistic?

With Code Veronica, the team included a bonus game mode that due to now fully 3D environments, could be played in a first person perspective. Playing through areas from the game in this new perspective was fun as an alternative but due to the game mechanics being built around a third peron perspective, felt shallow and didn't meet the standards of a fully first person perspective game.

Using first person perspective along with the Resident Evil series was not new as the series branched off with the Gun Survivor series. This series has grown to four instalments over the years, with each getting better as time went on, but never really breaking into a satisfying game that would please most gamers and critics.

As the years were rolling on still and Capcom continued to release the spin-off Gun Survivior series to unfavourable reviews and launched an online game series "Outbreak" (keeping with the old perspectives), they were unsure of how to truly progress their series and so went back in time with their story and created the Resident Evil Remake, again mixing in the 3D environments with predominantly fixed camera positions along with the prequel Resident Evil 0. These games were received rather differently by fans, with Resident Evil Remake being highly praised for its new nostalgic trip wheras, although liked by the most hardcore fans (and by no means a bad game), critics and fans were finding the series becomming a bit stale. Something needed to change!

Residnet Evil 4 was the game where Capcom decided to make fundamental changes to the series. Released in 2005, the game completely changed direction, the horror was drastically toned back, puzzles were simplified and at the heart of it, was a game mechanic that was built  around a new perspecive for the series. By no means a new viewpoint for the game industry, the over the shoulder manoeuvrable camera was integrated and would be copied numerous times after by other developer for their games that followed, most notably Gears Of War.

This over the shoulder manoeuvrable camera was one of the major factors that changed the game. No longer was aiming left to three states of down, straight and up, but specific targeting of any area could now be achieved. No longer would slow moving zombies make for challenging enemies as now you could target them from across the game area before they got close. This would subsequantly lead to a change in story, with the Las Plagas parasite being introduced. As the game was changing more and more, so the action had to be upped to add more of a challenge to the game, with far more enemies on screen and a far larger quantity of ammunition to deal with them being provided. The series had been reinvented and fans and critics lapped it up, in all version relaeases of the game, Resident Evil 4 is one of the largest selling Resident Evil games.

With Resident Evil 5, Capcom decided to stick with their new formula and produced another entry very similar to the previous instalment. Hardcore followers who had prefereed the old ways of fixed camera were hoping the series would revert back or at least take the over the shoulder camera perspective and bring the series back to what they had grown with, but alas it did not come. Arguably the series couldn't go back with this new perspective into the older style because the two styles just don't mix. At the end of the day though Resident Evil 5  has sold tremendously well since its release earlier this year and with a PC incarnation due to be released shortly sales will continue to grow.

So to the future, Capcom continue down a side route with arguably an evolution of the old Gun Survivor series, with its Chronicles series, the game playing well to the control methods of the Nintendo Wii and the recent boom of the 'Casual Gamer' and continuing to hone a  Resident Evil game in first person perspective.

On the cards however is the up and coming Resident Evil Portable for the PSP, little is know about the game at present, but we have been promised a brand new game that will utilise the remodelled PSP Go's features. With portable versions of big franchises on the PSP, developers tend to try new ideas or revert to older game models that have worked previously, so I ask will Capcom take a change of perspective again? Will they revert to older fixed camera perspectives? Will they stick with the over the shoulder viewpoint? Or will they try something entirely different?

The future is uncertain for the series at present and it is unknown how the PSP Resident Evil will ultimately effect the development of a possible Resident Evil 6 in the future, but it will be fun finding out no doubt.

So I ask finally what's your perspective?