Lots of people have been talking about the latest zombie apocalypse game from Capcom. As the most recent chapter in a storied franchise, Resident Evil 6 deserves the attention. Capcom might wish more of the attention was positive, but the developers made a decision to change aspects of how the game played, and for better or worse they’re finding out what fans think of the modifications.

So many gamers have a history with Resident Evil. I’ve been known to complain about the controls in some recent games, believing them to be a throwback to a time when control schemes were limited by the processing power of the gaming hardware. In my short time with the game, I’ve seen the influence of Capcom Vancouver’s Dead Rising games in that the environments are more expansive, the number of enemies on screen at any given time much greater than with previous Resident Evil games.

There are also more action sequences when all players need to do is click the correct button at the correct time. In these moments, players have little control over the action of their characters and no choice in the decisions being made.

We can assume that new, younger gamers have different expectations. And the developers of RE6 are on the record as saying that they wanted to make changes to the franchise so it would appeal to a broader audience than the 30-year-old and older fans of the classic game Resident Evil, released in 1996 for the PlayStation, and 2005’s Resident Evil 4.

So, leaving aside the mostly negative reviews — a couple of balanced articles include Scott Jones’s in the Gameological Society and Evan Narcisse’s in Kotaku — I wanted to find out what a player with no history with the franchise would think of the latest game in the series.

So I found a play tester to help me. Liam is a 12-year-old who has an Xbox 360 and is very familiar with the PS3 and Wii consoles.

I asked Liam’s parents for permission to introduce him to RE6 in a two-hour session. The game is rated mature, for adults only, but as with many kids his age, he’s already playing many M-rated games. The ESRB ratings are to guide parental decisions; Liam’s parents believe him to be sophisticated enough—and after spending some time with him, I agree—that he can play some games with violent imagery.

Lately, Liam has been playing Borderlands 2 and Skyrim. He’s played Fallout 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and horror games like Dead Island and the shooter series F.E.A.R. He’s also plays sports games like FIFA and NHL, and considers the Lego games to be favourites.

He was clearly familiar with Resident Evil as a franchise, even if he hadn’t played a game in the series before. When asked about his expectations for RE6, he said it would be a game in which his character would be trying to find a cure for a zombie apocalypse, helping other people to survive. He also said that he figured he’d be playing a shooter.

Liam’s expectations indicated his inexperience with the Resident Evil games. Previously, they haven’t been shooters, where ammunition is plentiful and the objective is to shoot as much as possible. Resident Evil games have been about inventory management and squandering supplies. Player movement and perspective has been restricted. These are among the things that have been changed in RE6.

As with most 12-year-olds with lots of gaming experience, Liam had no trouble figuring out the basic controls and getting through the initial tutorial section of the game. He also figured out how to combine items in his inventory, something that is important in the Resident Evil games. I assumed Liam found this instinctive because of his experience playing Skyrim, which allows for a similar kind of item combination.

But at first, Liam was not exploring the environment searching for essential ammunition or health-boosting herbs. At the end of the session, he explained that he hadn’t thought there was a need to explore. But when he ran out of ammunition for his weapons, he changed his tactics.

Overall, RE6 was a “cool game, with lots of twists and turns”, said Liam. “The flashbacks are cool for people who don’t know the game, to get more of the story.”

Combat, said Liam, was moderately difficult. He found the melee combat to be “glitchy and hard” but enjoyed playing the game, giving it a 9 out of 10. “If they make a RE7 I’ll probably buy it,” he said.

Despite some of the criticisms, it seems, Capcom’s desire to find a new audience for its Resident Evil franchise may not be so far off the mark.

Cross-posted in the Georgia Straight

Machinima, a portmanteau of machine and cinema, is two things. As a common noun, the word refers to the use of video-game-graphics software, commonly called engines, to create animated videos. As a proper noun, it refers to the media company, which started life modestly in 2000 as little more than a website created to host machinima productions. But while the roots of Machinima lie in videos created with game engines, the company’s chair and CEO, Allen DeBevoise, foresees a much broader future. Read more

On October 25 and 26, the third annual Merging Media conference, a forum dedicated to tracking and talking about media convergence, will take place at Simon Fraser University’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts. Christine Lim-Labossiere, founder and executive director of the yearly event, told me that consumers have become sophisticated in their tastes and are demanding content that crosses platforms. Read more

At the end of the American Revolution, George Washington opted to usher in a democracy, but what if he had instead crowned himself? Video gamers will be able to explore that possibility with Assassin’s Creed III (Windows, PS3, Xbox 360), developed at Ubisoft Montreal.

In an interview, Ubisoft spokesperson Jaye Acevedo said that “The Tyranny of King Washington” will make up three of the five packs of downloadable content planned for the game after its release on October 30. Acevedo likened the DLC to a single-player expansion that gives players a chance to step into the “what if” scenario.

Acevedo spoke with me at the annual PlayStation holiday preview event yesterday (October 3) and said the “Tyranny” DLC would be included in the Assassin’s Creed III Season’s Pass. Consumers get all five DLC packs for one price of $29.99. Purchasing the packs separately will cost more, according to Acevedo.

At the event, Ubisoft was giving media an opportunity to play a five-minute demo of the naval battles that are part of the Assassin’s Creed III gameplay. Not only did warfare at sea feature prominently during the American revolutionary war of the late 18th century, but Acevedo said that completing naval missions in the game open up trade routes that improve commerce.

As with previous games in the Assassin’s Creed series, players can upgrade their Homestead—in Assassin’s Creed II it was a villa—by undertaking missions to improve the land and infrastructure, thereby attracting a growing population, which leads to a better economy.

It’s one way, said Acevedo, that the Assassin’s Creed games provide a sense of the political and historical state of the setting, which adds to the authenticity of the franchise.

Cross-posted at the Georgia Straight

Sony’s PlayStation brand has a new console being released this fall, and the company is betting the redesigned PlayStation 3 will be a popular item for the lucrative holiday gift-buying season.

At the annual media preview event in Toronto yesterday (October 3), PlayStation Canada marketing director Matt Levitan told me that Sony is taking a different approach this year. “Increasingly, as a whole, studios are staying away from releasing during the holiday season,” he said in an interview at the Palais Royale along the lake-shore strip. That’s to avoid competing against proven franchises, said Levitan, like this fall’s Assassins’ Creed and Call of Duty games that have PS3 versions.

Last year, Sony benefited from the sales of blockbuster title Uncharted 3, but this year Sony’s game publishing division is releasing only a trio of titles: Little Big Planet Karting (coming from Vancouver’s United Front Games on November 6), PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale (November 20), and the first title in the Wonderbooks series, Book of Spells (set in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter universe and slated for November 13).

Instead, PlayStation has partnered with outside publishers to package hardware with the next installments of popular franchises. Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft) is being bundled with a 500 GB hard drive version of the new PS3 and Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation (Ubisoft) is packaged with a new white PlayStation Vita handheld. Both bundles will be available on October 30 when the games are released.

The Assassin’s Creed III bundle is the only way consumers can get the new, slimmer PS3 with the 500 GB hard drive. It will retail in Canada for $299. The 250 GB hard drive model, priced at $269 in Canada, is being packaged with Uncharted 3: Game of the Year Edition and a voucher for digital download content for the upcoming Dust 514.

Levitan expects the former will be the more popular choice, given that $30 brings double the hard drive capacity. “We feel that people will want to upsize,” he said.

And despite not having an internally-developed game on the slate this fall, Levitan said he is satisfied with the pre-order numbers on PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. “It has a great chance at being a big holiday title,” he said, adding that the fighting game is unlike other titles in the same genre that appear on other systems.

Levitan wouldn’t comment on whether gamers can expect to see a PS4 from Sony next year, but reiterated the company is committed to supporting the PS3 going forward. “We feel that the console life cycle is 10 years,” he said. By planning on publishing games for the PS3 for a few more years, Sony is simply being responsible to customers who purchase existing consoles even when new, more powerful systems are on the horizon.

Cross-posted at the Georgia Straight