Some time long ago Capcom announced five games that they said would bring back gaming innovation to the industry. First up was the Rhythm action styled shooter P.N.O3, and then came the sublime slice of description defying slow motion brilliance that was Viewtiful Jo. These two gems where followed by what many people feel to be the best game of the generation, Resident Evil 4. Somewhere along the way Phoenix sadly bit the dust and the last instalment of the Capcom five was killer7.
killer7 is set in the year 2003, a terrorist group know as the
Heaven Smiles are causing death and destruction across the globe using strange
demonically laughing bombs. The only solution to combat them is Harman Smith
and his seven highly skilled assassin personalities. It is fair to say that the
plot starts out obscure and confusing with the title drip feeding you
information about both the killer7 group and the treachery that is going on in
the governments of the world. It's only during later sections of the game that
things begin to tie up a little more coherently.
The first thing that strikes you about killer7 is the games
neo-noir tinged anime style. Truly there has never been a title presented with
such gloriously detached visuals. To begin with it can be hard to feel part of
the playing experience as the game keeps you at arms length with the obscure
visuals meaning many gamers will see nothing to relate the on screen experience
to. After a while the killer7 ethos begins to wind its way into the
subconscious and once you have become accustomed to it you realise there is
actually an interesting game underneath it all.
Separating the visual aspect of the game from the gameplay is
impossible. Capcom's title turns what we perceive a game to be on its head.
killer7 is as much about what you are taking in visually and sonically as it is
about what you are doing. Controls are simple, press one button to move forward
along a pre-determined path and another to turn 180 degrees. That’s it. At
junctions you can choose which route to take by moving the analogue stick
(something that can be awkward). Combat involves holding R1 to move into a
first person perspective then pressing L1 to scan for enemies, once discovered
they can be shot at. It works like an on-rail light gun game but with a
controller and after a while will become second nature to you.
More so than most titles killer7 is a game you have to become
accustomed to- mainly due to it being rather obscure. It requires players to
re-evaluate how they use their gaming skills and many may become frustrated
early on. Really, you need to make it through the first mission before you will
truly know if you like the game or not and for a lot of people that will require too
much effort. Once the first mission is out the way you should find thinking in
the killer7 way is as instinctive as double jumping or duel wielding.
Helping players along is a very useful (if spoiling) map that
shows the location of objects, save rooms and where each member of the killer7
will be needed to use their unique abilities in order to proceed. It does take
some of the adventure aspect away from the title having everything pretty much
laid out for you but there is so much for your senses to take in that most will
be glad of it.
Each level varies nicely in terms of location and enemy type so
there is always something new to see and explore. Your personalities can also
be upgraded with the blood taken from fallen heaven smiles, giving them new
skills along with the usual health and power upgrades. Couple this with the
excellent cut scenes that appear during and between levels and you may find you
just have to know what happens next. The further you go into the twisted world
the more interesting it gets and the more accustomed you become to it.
It's fair to say that killer7 has probably turned out pretty much
exactly how the developers wanted it to. There are definitely no broken
controls or gaping flaws outside of the players inability to gel with the
subject matter or not being able to adapt their skills to it. It is hard to
imagine any way the game could be changed to make it better, there simply has
never been anything like this before. It's testament to the development team
that it actually works, when for long periods of time no one could quite work
out how on earth there was going to be any actual ‘game’ in there.
With the PS2 version come a few technical problems however. With
the PS2 showing its age at an ever increasing rate upon when the game released it was always
going to struggle with a title initially designed for the Game Cube. The
visuals have not really suffered at all but no doubt due to this there are long
loading times. This would not be so bad but every new room or section you enter
triggers a four second (at least) loading screen. As you will need to move
back and forth a lot to change personalities and use objects this can become
annoying. The PS2 version also suffers from bouts of slowdown during combat. The
slowdown is both very noticeable and highly off putting. Luckily it only seems
to occur after a shot has been fired so at least it will not trouble your
aiming when you are under pressure. The best thing we can say about it is that
you get used to it and it does not detract from the title too much.Playing on the Game Cube removes all the technical issues.
Overall, Capcom has delivered another unique title that makes us
think about gaming in a different way. killer7
represents an original and highly risky concept that could have gone horribly
wrong. But due to the skill of the development team we have a highly innovative
and visually visceral title that pushes both our senses and the boundaries of
what we consider a game to be. We only hope Capcom keep making such wonderfully
unique titles long into the future. There is no denying that it takes some
getting used to but give killer7 a chance and you just may grow to love it.
Overall 8
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