July 26' 2014
The Resident Evil franchise from Capcom has just celebrated its 18th anniversary in Japan and United States. The first game had hit the stores in late March 1996, and since then the series has spawned on to become one of the most successful IP by Capcom, surpassing even street fighter and it has went on to sell more than 50 million units worldwide. There is, however, much more to the game Resident Evil 1 than we normally know. For example, in the early stages of development, the prototype went through a number of changes, before Shinji Mikami and his team settled on the classic zombie romp that we have come to know and love today. Here are some other things that you probably never knew of, about the Resident Evil Series.
The game was originally designed to be an FPS or a First Person Shooter game. The early prototypes of the game were made as an FPS, while keeping the monster-filled mansion storyline intact. If the game was actually made into a shooter, then that would have fundamentally changed the experience of the game, and whether it would have paid off, remains a mystery. Mr. Mikami later abandoned the shooter theme as it was not up to his expectations.
Capcom had planned two other heroes to accompany Chris and Jill in place of Barry and Rebecca. The heroes included Dewey, based on Eddie Murphy, who was portrayed as a slim african-american, also intended to be the comic relief of the game. The second was a slightly more idiosyncratic hero called Gelzer, a half-human half-cyborg, who was more like a hulk. These two characters were both abandoned during the early planning stages of the prototype in favor of a burrly Barry and a naive Rebecca. Dewey lived on in the game, just as a name, when the pilot added to the Bravo Team was named Edward Dewey. Traces of the original Dewey's personality were injected into the Resident Evil: Outbreak survivor Jim. Gelzer has however never left the walls of Capcom's history.
The Resident Evil had generated loads of comic books, of which the most prolofic or sensational were the Wild Storm Comics of the late 90's. However, many people do not know that the original game had led to the production of the first comic book of the series, in the form of a prequel comic book which came free as a pre-order bonus for the first Resident Evil game in the US only. The story in that first book covers the struggles of Richard Aiken of the Bravo Team through the mansion, before the arrival of the Alpha. The story also covers numerous plot points including the death of Edward Dewey, and the eventual betrayal of Albert Wesker against the S.T.A.R.S. The cover art of this particular comic is the same on both the American and the European box art for the Resident Evil - a shotgun wielding man normally thought to be Chris Redfield.
During the development phases of the game, the creator Shiniji Mikami had originally planned to include full Japanese voice-overs in the game, an idea that was also abandoned later, which resulted in the hammy dialogue that characterized all the versions of the Resident Evil, something every fan of the series enjoys.
The Resident Evil had generated loads of comic books, of which the most prolofic or sensational were the Wild Storm Comics of the late 90's. However, many people do not know that the original game had led to the production of the first comic book of the series, in the form of a prequel comic book which came free as a pre-order bonus for the first Resident Evil game in the US only. The story in that first book covers the struggles of Richard Aiken of the Bravo Team through the mansion, before the arrival of the Alpha. The story also covers numerous plot points including the death of Edward Dewey, and the eventual betrayal of Albert Wesker against the S.T.A.R.S. The cover art of this particular comic is the same on both the American and the European box art for the Resident Evil - a shotgun wielding man normally thought to be Chris Redfield.
During the development phases of the game, the creator Shiniji Mikami had originally planned to include full Japanese voice-overs in the game, an idea that was also abandoned later, which resulted in the hammy dialogue that characterized all the versions of the Resident Evil, something every fan of the series enjoys.
July 26, 2014 | 0
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