Nintendo has finally unveiled details for the upcoming release of their new handheld, the Nintendo 3DS. The company revealed their pricing plans and launch strategy for the system at an event held today in New York City. Those of you wanting one of the newfangled portables better start saving now—the system will debut in late March with a price tag of $249.99—under the $300 price point many of us expected, but still far from cheap.
Reggie Fils-Aime assures us there'll be 30 games available for the 3DS by June, but the one that has horror geeks most intrigued has to be Capcom's Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D. The Japanese developer released a new teaser trailer for the game today and my reaction is mostly mixed.
The positive thing to take away from the viewing is that the game looks great—at least in motion. It's easier to spot some of the aliasing issues in the stills, but still…this is a big graphical upgrade from the DS—meaning the game looks like it could have appeared on the GameCube or the Wii. I'm certainly excited about the graphical potential of this handheld—it looks like maybe Nintendo has decided to get back into the cutting edge graphics race after all.
Less exciting is the gameplay. Sure, it takes place in the worlds of Resident Evil 4 and 5, but it's looking like there's no actual story in the game—instead, it's just a mash up of the Mercenary modes from the last few Resident Evil games. You had to finish those games to unlock them, but it's not exactly like this is new material. Instead, players will run through a group of scenarios as different characters from the Resident Evil universe in a race against time to kill enemies and meet objectives.
While that seems at least somewhat disappointing, there is one bit of good news—players will now be able to move while firing their weapons. Maybe some day we'll actually get to play a Resident Evil game where players don't control like tanks with no treads. One can dream…
Below are recent screenshots of Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D:
Mike Bracken
A film critic by trade, specializing in Euro-horror, cult exploitation, and Asian action cinema, Mike has written reviews for a diverse group of print and online publications. He covers horror news, movies, books, and games at TheHorrorGeek.com and Horrorsquad.com and spent two seasons as The Horror Geek on Comedy Central's pop-culture game show, Beat the Geeks.
Mike's childhood was spent playing videogames any time he got a chance. His parents had a Pong console and his grandmother had an Atari 2600, where Mike cultivated his skills by playing hour upon hour of games like Space Invaders, Berserk, and Asteroids. From those early experiences Mike learned one thing: he loved games.
In 1999, Mike became a staff reviewer at Cinescape Magazine's website where he spent a year learning the craft of game criticism. After internal changes led to Mike leaving Cinescape in late 2000, he joined up with RPGFan in 2001 and spent several years writing reviews for them. Happy, but looking for an opportunity to expound on a wider variety of titles, Mike joined GameCritics.com and hopes to help Chi, Dale, and the rest of the GC staff bring a higher level of respect to the field of game criticism.
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Sweet. I knew there was a regular game coming, but I didn’t know they were finally fixing the controls.
If I’m not mistaken, your wish will be granted. I think there’s already a new Resident Evil game being made for 3DS that is not just Mercenaries mode, and it allows for the non-tank controls you’re asking for.