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Master Gamer's Editor in Chief Ivan Trembow recently spoke with Capcom's Matt Atwood about a variety of upcoming Capcom products. Here's what was said. Resident Evil: Code Veronica Ivan Trembow: When is Resident Evil: Code Veronica coming out in the US? Matt Atwood: It looks like around the middle of January. IT: Why did Capcom hand over Code Veronica to Sega instead of doing the game itself? MA: We didn't hand it over... we're working together with Sega. We certainly didn't hand over our property; it's a cooperative effort. Because the Dreamcast technology is so new, their developers know better than anyone how to use it, so we're working together to have a really successful launch for the game. IT: What kinds of things is Code Veronica going to offer gamers that previous Resident Evil games haven't? MA: First of all, graphics. There's so much more processing power with the Dreamcast. It's not only things like the improvement of texture quality. A lot more body language on the characters, there will be a lot more interaction with the backgrounds, there's just a lot more you can do now with this system. You're just going to see tons of improvements. But the story is still going to fall in line with the Resident Evil story, it's still going to be part of the whole world. So it's not going to change to where you won't recognize it, it's just going to be improved. IT: Does the story line take place after Resident Evil 2's story line concludes? MA: There's not much I can tell you about (the story line). Resident Evil 3 is coming, which is 24 hours before RE2 and 24 hours after. I can tell you that all of the Resident Evil games, including Resident Evil 3, are leading up to Code Veronica. So I guess the answer is yes. IT: Why has Capcom stayed a lot more quiet about Code Veronica than about other upcoming survival horror games when Code Veronica looks to be the most ground-breaking game on the newest system? MA: We haven't remained quiet about it. It would be foolish of us to go out and promote Code Veronica when we've got two really good titles coming (Dino Crisis and Resident Evil 3: Nemesis). But you also keep it quiet until, development-wise, you've got enough of a product to show. We did show a video at E3, but we haven't had playable (versions) yet. And that's just strictly due to the fact that there's still work being done on it, and we're focusing on Dino Crisis and Resident Evil 3, which are really amazingly well done. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis IT: In Resident Evil 3: Nemesis, what will the role of the "Nemesis" character be in the story line and in the actual gameplay? MA: He is a bio-chemical weapon developed by Umbrella. IT: Like Tyrant? MA: Kind of like Tyrant. He's a lot more gruesome... the detail on him, if you've seen the screens, is pretty amazing. Basically, his one goal... he is programmed, and as he runs throughout the game, he says "STARS." He is programmed to kill all STARS team members. That's his role, and throughout the game he basically pursues Jill. IT: Can you also fight him or do you have to run sometimes? MA: You'll be given both choices. It will be automatic in some sequences, and in some sequences a screen comes up saying "Do you want to fight or do you want to run?" IT: Are there lots of other bosses in the game, or is the Nemesis the focal point in terms of enemies? MA: He's the focal point, but there are like 11 different (kinds of) zombies... and there a lot of new creatures and enemies in the game. IT: I understand that Nemesis is going to be more difficult than previous Resident Evil games. Specifically, in what ways is it being made more difficult? MA: In every way. The puzzles... the Nemesis, in Artificial Intelligence, he's incredibly quick. Sometimes you'll get knocked down and you get up and he'll be right on you again and grab you again. The zombies have different speeds they can travel at now. They're much quicker now, some of them, and some of them are the same speed (as before). There's a new character that's sort of a take-off of the Hunters. IT: Resident Evil has been one of the only games in recent years not to throw scantily clad females at gamers just for the sex appeal. Jill Valentine was a pretty conservative dresser in Resident Evil 1, and now I've seen in screen shots of Nemesis that she's wearing a pretty skimpy outfit. MA: Well actually, what the deal is... she's just wearing basically a mini- skirt and just kind of a regular top. The reason for this, actually... the reason behind it is... she's not showing... her butt size has not increased... her... what happened was, when she was in Resident Evil 1, she was in uniform. Now part of the story is Jill wants to get out. She wants to leave. She doesn't want to deal with zombies anymore, and she's had enough. So she is just kind of dressed casually. I don't think it's too skimpy compared to some of the other characters that are out there. If you walk down the street... I mean, I don't think you'll see that exact outfit on anyone, but there would be a lot of stuff like that. It's not as if she's showing anything she shouldn't be. IT: Is Nemesis going to be the last Resident Evil game for the PlayStation? MA: Unless something major changes, yes, that is it. We're on to the Dreamcast and other systems. Dino Crisis IT: How would you respond to claims that the overall concept of Dino Crisis is too similar to Jurassic Park? MA: I don't think that's a negative. Mikami-san (the producer of Resident Evil and Dino Crisis) has gone on record saying that he loves the fear and the panic that Jurassic Park set in. It's in no way based on Jurassic Park, but sure, it has dinosaurs in an industrial area on an island. And the story line explains that. It's on an island because a scientist is doing experiments to try to develop clean energy and a portal opened up... I mean, the story line is different, but with any game that has dinosaurs, people are going to say, "Oh, it's like Jurassic Park." I will tell you that I've played every Jurassic Park game. They don't even come anywhere close, and the story line is nowhere near (Dino Crisis' story line). But yeah, there's dinosaurs, so we're also going to get those comparisons. But that's okay because Jurassic Park is a great movie that had a lot of people on the edge of their seats. That's one of the reasons they compare it, too, because it evokes that panic that a dinosaur's coming at me now and I've got to run. When you play the game, you'll never be like, "Oh, they stole that from Jurassic Park," because they didn't. They didn't take any of the story line or anything like that. IT: Would it be fair to say that Dino Crisis is more action-oriented than any Resident Evil game? MA: It's much more action-oriented. That's another difference, actually. It's a very high-action game. You walk around a corner, and boom! You've got a dinosaur on you. It's not like you hear a moan in the background... you will hear the dinosaurs and things like that, but in this game dinosaurs can smash down doors, and you can't just run away all the time. So yeah, it's a much more action-oriented game than Resident Evil. Mikami went on record and said, "Resident Evil is like a haunted house where Dino Crisis is like a roller coaster." IT: Resident Evil 2 had a lot of individual moments that were really scary, and is Dino Crisis moving more towards that and moving away from Resident Evil 1's kind of underlying tension throughout the whole game? MA: That's kind of a subjective question, but there are a lot of startling moments in Dino Crisis. It's a lot of fear and panic with all these beasts coming after you... the developers actually studied lions, and watched the movements of lions and tigers. They studied the predatorial instinct, and they've captured that pretty well. So picture that kind of fear. It's not creepy horror like Resident Evil 1 by any means, it's a panic... and they're (the dinosaurs) much more vicious creatures. They pick you up and throw you around and claw at you and scrape at you and hit you with their tail. They're a very different type of creature than a zombie is. Resident Evil 64 IT: Why did Capcom wait for so long to bring a Resident Evil game to the N64, and why did it decide to do so now after all this time? MA: Well, there are a lot of reasons. One of the great things about Resident Evil are the opening CGs and the CGs throughout, and that's very difficult to do on Nintendo (64). Amazingly, Angel Studios is achieving it, and achieving it very well. Keep in mind that in Japan, which is where all our games are developed, the Nintendo system had not quite gotten a hold of the market like it did in the US. It took a while, and that's true for other developers as well, it took a while for them to come to the Nintendo. Also, another reason is bottom-line cost. The cost difference between a CD and a cartridge... there's a world of difference. IT: Is Resident Evil 2 going to be more expensive than the average N64 game given its high amount of memory? MA: A price hasn't been set yet. We're working with Nintendo to try to keep costs down. I think Nintendo's really willing to work to keep it reasonably priced. I don't think it's going to tremendously expensive because it wouldn't be worth anyone's time to release it then. It's not going to come out at $19.99 obviously, but it's still a great value. It's a big game with all this CG and some improvements, including some story links to the other Resident Evils, both past and future. And you may not even know they're links until you play the future games. There's going to be more files and things you'll find that support the story. So it's going to introduce Nintendo gamers (to Resident Evil). Nintendo's always been a viable company, Resident Evil was just initially developed for the PlayStation. Capcom's taken a much more multi-platform strategy in the last year or two. Especially in the US, we would have liked to have been on Nintendo sooner, but of course that didn't happen. IT: I know there will be new things in Resident Evil 2 for the N64, but why not just make a new, all-original game for the system? MA: Well, I'll just tell you that it's possible that we may be doing both (RE2 and a new RE game for the N64). The reason we're bringing RE2 to the N64... if you look at the demographics, Nintendo gamers typically don't own PlayStations and vice-versa. Not to say that a lot of them don't, but the majority of them don't; they're either Nintendo gamers of they're PlayStation gamers. We wanted to be able to give Nintendo gamers the Resident Evil experience. RE2 was such a landmark, and they deserve to be able to play it on their system. Certainly... let's just say that Resident Evil 2 might not be the only thing coming for the Nintendo with the words "survival horror." Keep your ears to the Net, because I've heard the rumors already out. IT: Rumors that are true and just haven't been announced by Capcom yet? MA: Yes. Power Stone IT: Why do you think Power Stone has had fairly slow sales in Japan, and do you think that in the US, it will be the mega-hit it probably should have been in Japan? MA: Power Stone actually didn't have real low sales in Japan. It had slow sales when you compare it to the PlayStation, but you've got to look at the Dreamcast's installed base. It was well over 10%, maybe even 20%... the Dreamcast didn't have as big of an installed base as they'd like it to be. With the American market, you're going to have a lot more units out there already at launch. I mean, it's going to be on the cover of GameFan, it got five stars out of five in Next Generation... everyone's really excited about it and impressed by it. So it's definitely going to be a mega-hit, but it's not possible for the numbers to be that large because you've got to get the installed base of the system up first. I think it will be a title that will be around for a while, because it's really a heck of a lot of fun to play with someone else. IT: Would it have helped the game if it had been given Street Fighter's name and characters, or do you feel it needed to stand on its own with all- new characters given that it's Capcom's first free-roaming fighting game? MA: It completely needs to be separate. The whole design behind it is to go in a completely new direction in fighting games. We will always love the Street Fighter series and probably always support it, but that doesn't mean there isn't room for others. There's definitely room for a game like Power Stone. The characters are very unique, and it's not Street Fighter- esque in the gameplay at all. It's a much more strategic type of fighting game. Dreamcast IT: What are your thoughts on Bernie Stolar's abrupt departure from Sega? MA: I don't know enough about that right now, so I have no comment. IT: Do you think his departure will hurt the Dreamcast in any way? MA: Again, I don't enough about what's going on at Sega. We all have our opinions, but unfortunately I can't get into them. IT: Capcom seems to be one of the biggest supporters of the Sega Dreamcast. What about the system makes you excited about it and anxious to make games for it? MA: Well, just look at the capabilities. Yes, there's the PlayStation 2 coming, everyone's talking about it, but it's not here yet. I'm sure we will be working with PlayStation 2 and I'm sure we will be working with Dolphin. What excites us more than anything is the amazing powers of the machine (the Dreamcast). I can tell you right now, you ain't seen nothing yet, because these are the first-generation titles, and some of the stuff I've seen that people don't know about yet are just amazing. IT: Would you say that Capcom has scaled back its PlayStation development and that its primary focus is on the Dreamcast right now? MA: Yeah, certainly. The life cycle of the PlayStation is coming to the end. Scaling back? Yes. Are we done? No. Why would we be? There's still a huge installed base. We've put ourselves in more places now, so we can't afford to just be in one place. So yes, we are scaled back on the PlayStation now because unfortunately we aren't completely made of money and we can't put tons of money everywhere. IT: Do you think it's questionable that the market, as big as it is today, can support three consoles? MA: Sure, it's definitely questionable. I think it's possible it could, but of course it's questionable. It's questionable who will come out on top (in the next generation sales wars), what will happen, and it's definitely questionable if we can support three consoles. I think it's possible, but we'll see. One thing's for sure: The Game Boy's going to be around for pretty much ever. That system... you want to talk about an amazing system, that's it. Talk about a system that has had more success than anything, that's it. Barry Burton IT: Maybe it was just me, but at the beginning of Resident Evil, there seemed to be a lot of funny dialogue, like Barry saying "What is this?" every other line. Was this done intentionally to be funny or was it just an oversight in the translation? MA: Keep in mind, scripting at that point in terms of doing actual audio scripting... yeah, you had seen some on the Sega CD, but Capcom itself wasn't as experienced. It kind of has a campy B-movie type of feel. IT: Yeah, I thought it was funny, but a lot of people just said it was bad voice acting. MA: Well, it is part of the Resident Evil style. Resident Evil is based on a George Romero-type feel like Night of the Living Dead which has some of that style to it... personally, I thought it was kind of funny, too, like the "master of unlocking" and all that type of stuff. IT: I've noticed that there's no sign of Barry Burton at all in any upcoming Resident Evil game. Can we expect to see Barry in any upcoming Resident Evil games? MA: Maybe. That's about as much as I can tell you. The story line... just stay tuned. You won't be disappointed. That's kind of how I have to answer that one. But I mean, they're always interested in returns. That's why you see Jill again, and Brad's back, and... IT: It's just that Barry was a favorite character of mine and a lot of other people, and now they've got some guy named Carlos... MA: Barry actually was a very cool character, I agree... there's probably a really good chance he'll show up again. Send your thoughts on this interview to ivan@mastergamer.com
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