Resident Evil: Dead Aim

"The light gun compatibility makes all the difference!"

Over the years, Capcom has released a lot of main RE games (RE1, RE2, etc.) and a few RE side stories (Survivor, Gaiden). These side stories have mostly been poorly recieved; Gaiden mainly has because it is a GBC game, and Survivor mainly because of the lack of light gun support. After all of this, you\'d think that Capcom would have learnt their lesson. Well, they have. RE Dead Aim comes to PS2 with full light gun support and a totally new story that actually takes place in the future.

The graphics of Dead Aim are dead on (forgive the pun). Yes, they could be better, but I was not disappointed with the visuals in this game at all. I did have a major complaint with the voice acting, however. Most of the time the background music is so much louder than the voices that you can barely hear what the characters are saying. There is an option to have subtitles on during the game, but for some odd reason the subtitles don\'t match what the characters are saying. The other sound effects are all fine and dandy, though, and are definitely up to par the other games in the RE series.

Ironically, this game is like a combination of Survivor and Gaiden. You start off in third person until you run into an enemy, and then the combat is in first person. Unlike Gaiden, however, the combat is like Survivor, and use of a light gun is thoroughly recommended. There are a few times during REDA that the character you control switches, giving it a sort of semi-RE Zero feel. I found that this was pretty interesting. Another thing that is involved in the game is the ability to save throughout the game, an option that was sorely lacking in the original Survivor. The save rooms are also a source of ammo for your handgun. You can take as many bullets as you can hold, and you\'ll need them, believe me. As for movement, you can either use the directional pad on the GunCon2 or a separate controller. Personally, I used a separate controller to move around, I thought that was the best way to go. One thing that I noticed that was different was that the door loading animations were taken out. Although I somewhat miss the old door animations from the old days, I knew that Capcom was going to do it eventually so I wasn\'t that surprised. One thing that did kind of piss me off was the fact that they took out the evil guy saying, \'\'Resident Evil\'\' when you press start on the menu screen. That\'s been in RE\'s since 1996, and it was always one of my favorite parts of the game. Too bad they took that out. Overall, though, the gameplay of REDA is very good. I recommend it to anyone.

The story of REDA is kind of messed up in my eyes. You have sex changing viruses, a Chinese woman beating up a cowboy, and various other weird situations. Of course, this adventure eventually ends up in the labs, something explodes, etc. If you have played one RE game, you know what to expect. I\'m not about to say that the story sucked, but it sure as hell could have been a lot better.

While REDA really can\'t stack up to the main RE games, it is better than the other RE offshoots. With light gun support and fun gameplay, REDA is a good game to take up time while we wait for the other RE\'s to be released. RE gamers owe it to themselves to try what could be remembered as the best RE side story ever. Well, unless you count Code: Veronica, but I don\'t.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/08/03