Killer 7
Publisher: Capcom
Console: Gamecube
8.3
So where to start? This is one of those games that as a reviewer you hope you never have to review as you know that at least half of the readers will disagree with what you say. With that said I’m going to get this straight out the way before jumping into the game, you will either love or totally despise this game, there is very little middle ground. If you don’t like Anime styling and crazy ass plotlines then you simply will not like this game. Still reading? Right for those of you who have an interest in Anime and follow plots to games like Konami’s Goeman series in your sleep, then you are in for one hell of an experience. I say experience rather than game as that is how I feel about this game, the game is more like a comic book or Anime show that you take part in than a game but don’t let put you off. Other games you could compare this statement to include Metal Gear Solid and trust me, there is a lot more gameplay here than in that series.
The Killer 7 are a group of 7 assassins born from the mind of Harman Smith, an old man constrained to life in a wheelchair. Harman has the ability to project each of these different personalities into physical form and in doing so creates the ultimate group of assassins in the world. For gameplay purposes each of the 7 have different attributes and abilities suitable for taking on a variety of different tasks. The game is set in an alternate version of our timeline where the United Nations managed to attain world peace in 1998. Opposed to this world peace is a crazed psycho called Kun Lan who has his own group of twisted terrorists calling themselves the Heaven Smile. They operate under the guise of warriors doing the bidding of Heaven. Harman Smith apparently already killed Kun Lan 30 years ago but he has returned. Obvioulsy pretty pissed, Harman takes it upon himself and the Killer 7 to take Heaven Smile down for good.
So what is Killer 7? That was the question I had been thinking since I first saw it unveiled in the Capcom 5 (don’t get me started…) right up until maybe 2 hours into the game itself. Killer 7 is one of those games that can be more than a little hard to describe in any coherent form so please bare with me! I’ve heard a whole load of people describe this game as being an On-Rails First Person Shooter, this is half true I guess although I don’t think that description does the game any justice. Personally, I’d say this is more of a First Person Adventure with more in common with Metroid Prime than other FPS games. The game is made up of three main gameplay aspects, shooting, exploring and solving puzzles. The bulk of the game is made up of a Third-Person perspective exploration mode. In this mode you navigate the various levels looking for enemies to kill and puzzles to solve. Essentially, you’ll come across a new location; if you hear a freaky laugh you know that there are enemies nearby. You then need to switch over to the First Person mode and scan the environment for enemies (as they are invisible until you do so). Whilst in the FPS mode you are stuck on the spot and need to aim for the enemies using the on screen cross hairs. I’d liken this mode more to the way GoldenEye on the N64 plays than an on rails experience. I’m talking of course in the way that in that game to accurately aim you’d hold the R button down and switch over to a crosshair mode to accurately aim. Whilst in that mode you couldn’t move around but could accurately aim. This whole mechanic is very similar in Killer 7 only that makes up the entire shooting experience. The puzzles I’ll come onto in a moment.
Anyway, back to the shooter sections, you are basically up against an army of crazy freaks who will run at you with explosives attached to their backs kamikaze style. The aim is to try and take them out as quick as you can and to earn as much blood from them as you can in the process. Collecting blood is a very important aspect of Killer 7. It acts as a way to power up special attacks, restore health and also to add new abilities to each of your 7 characters. There are a number of ways to get more blood from your enemies but one of the best ways would be to shoot off their limbs one by one or to pick off their weak spots which will earn a one shot kill. As I previously mentioned, each of the 7 characters has a unique ability to be used in different sections, Dan for example can create a super charged shot, Kaede slits her wrists and sprays blood over things, Kevin turns invisible and Con can run super fast. Each of these abilities can be used to suit different situations and you can switch between each character on the fly which really cuts down any potential backtracking. The puzzles are pretty whacky and unfortunately not that difficult. Most of the puzzles involve finding a ring somewhere in the level and using it somewhere else, there are some silly word puzzles thrown in for good measure but the bulk of puzzles tend to involve simply using one of the characters special abilities – so not much thinking involved.
As you’ll no doubt already know, this is one hell of a nice looking game. It uses some really great cel-shading to attain a really dark animated comic book feel and achieves that goal pretty well. I think sometimes the presentation leaves a little to be desired but gets the job done nonetheless. The game features many gorgeous Anime cut scenes to move the plot forward and these look simply awesome – even on the Gamecube version of the game these are really high quality and show pretty much no signs of degradation due to the smaller disk format. Visually, the game is again a love/hate affair I’m afraid – you’ll either love the style or be put off by it. What I would say is that if you do love the style then this is done very, very well indeed and you’ll really get involved with the game as a result. The graphical style really does help to draw you into the experience, but as I said, if you don’t dig the style then this just isn’t going to be for you.
Now I didn’t really know how I felt about the game after the first few hours of play. I’d normally have a good idea of what the game is at this point but I simply didn’t. After some extended play I really got into this game and I genuinely like it, sure it does things its own way and that really isn’t going to be to everyone’s taste. Grasshopper took a lot of risk in making this game and it will only cater to a fraction of the gaming population, if you aren’t one of them then please don’t pick it up, you’ll only come away disappointed. If however you love the style, you’re really into Anime and don’t mind a “different” control scheme then you’ll come away with a great experience dealing with death, nuclear war, terrorism sex and all kinds of other themes in an interesting and new way.
Bottom Line: You’ll love it or hate it. If you don’t like the style then don’t pick it up, simple as that. Welcome to the first “Art House” game.
Article By: Phil Haymes
The Killer 7 are a group of 7 assassins born from the mind of Harman Smith, an old man constrained to life in a wheelchair. Harman has the ability to project each of these different personalities into physical form and in doing so creates the ultimate group of assassins in the world. For gameplay purposes each of the 7 have different attributes and abilities suitable for taking on a variety of different tasks. The game is set in an alternate version of our timeline where the United Nations managed to attain world peace in 1998. Opposed to this world peace is a crazed psycho called Kun Lan who has his own group of twisted terrorists calling themselves the Heaven Smile. They operate under the guise of warriors doing the bidding of Heaven. Harman Smith apparently already killed Kun Lan 30 years ago but he has returned. Obvioulsy pretty pissed, Harman takes it upon himself and the Killer 7 to take Heaven Smile down for good.
So what is Killer 7? That was the question I had been thinking since I first saw it unveiled in the Capcom 5 (don’t get me started…) right up until maybe 2 hours into the game itself. Killer 7 is one of those games that can be more than a little hard to describe in any coherent form so please bare with me! I’ve heard a whole load of people describe this game as being an On-Rails First Person Shooter, this is half true I guess although I don’t think that description does the game any justice. Personally, I’d say this is more of a First Person Adventure with more in common with Metroid Prime than other FPS games. The game is made up of three main gameplay aspects, shooting, exploring and solving puzzles. The bulk of the game is made up of a Third-Person perspective exploration mode. In this mode you navigate the various levels looking for enemies to kill and puzzles to solve. Essentially, you’ll come across a new location; if you hear a freaky laugh you know that there are enemies nearby. You then need to switch over to the First Person mode and scan the environment for enemies (as they are invisible until you do so). Whilst in the FPS mode you are stuck on the spot and need to aim for the enemies using the on screen cross hairs. I’d liken this mode more to the way GoldenEye on the N64 plays than an on rails experience. I’m talking of course in the way that in that game to accurately aim you’d hold the R button down and switch over to a crosshair mode to accurately aim. Whilst in that mode you couldn’t move around but could accurately aim. This whole mechanic is very similar in Killer 7 only that makes up the entire shooting experience. The puzzles I’ll come onto in a moment.
Anyway, back to the shooter sections, you are basically up against an army of crazy freaks who will run at you with explosives attached to their backs kamikaze style. The aim is to try and take them out as quick as you can and to earn as much blood from them as you can in the process. Collecting blood is a very important aspect of Killer 7. It acts as a way to power up special attacks, restore health and also to add new abilities to each of your 7 characters. There are a number of ways to get more blood from your enemies but one of the best ways would be to shoot off their limbs one by one or to pick off their weak spots which will earn a one shot kill. As I previously mentioned, each of the 7 characters has a unique ability to be used in different sections, Dan for example can create a super charged shot, Kaede slits her wrists and sprays blood over things, Kevin turns invisible and Con can run super fast. Each of these abilities can be used to suit different situations and you can switch between each character on the fly which really cuts down any potential backtracking. The puzzles are pretty whacky and unfortunately not that difficult. Most of the puzzles involve finding a ring somewhere in the level and using it somewhere else, there are some silly word puzzles thrown in for good measure but the bulk of puzzles tend to involve simply using one of the characters special abilities – so not much thinking involved.
As you’ll no doubt already know, this is one hell of a nice looking game. It uses some really great cel-shading to attain a really dark animated comic book feel and achieves that goal pretty well. I think sometimes the presentation leaves a little to be desired but gets the job done nonetheless. The game features many gorgeous Anime cut scenes to move the plot forward and these look simply awesome – even on the Gamecube version of the game these are really high quality and show pretty much no signs of degradation due to the smaller disk format. Visually, the game is again a love/hate affair I’m afraid – you’ll either love the style or be put off by it. What I would say is that if you do love the style then this is done very, very well indeed and you’ll really get involved with the game as a result. The graphical style really does help to draw you into the experience, but as I said, if you don’t dig the style then this just isn’t going to be for you.
Now I didn’t really know how I felt about the game after the first few hours of play. I’d normally have a good idea of what the game is at this point but I simply didn’t. After some extended play I really got into this game and I genuinely like it, sure it does things its own way and that really isn’t going to be to everyone’s taste. Grasshopper took a lot of risk in making this game and it will only cater to a fraction of the gaming population, if you aren’t one of them then please don’t pick it up, you’ll only come away disappointed. If however you love the style, you’re really into Anime and don’t mind a “different” control scheme then you’ll come away with a great experience dealing with death, nuclear war, terrorism sex and all kinds of other themes in an interesting and new way.
Bottom Line: You’ll love it or hate it. If you don’t like the style then don’t pick it up, simple as that. Welcome to the first “Art House” game.
Article By: Phil Haymes
After a long night of podcasting, we finally got around to recording our own show. Which meant we were drunk off our asses..more than usual. We managed to talk about Boom Blox and R-Type Command, however. You can check it all out on this week's Team Fremont Live.
By the way, me were guests on the The Married Gamers Podcast, so if you're not sick of our crap...well...there's more to be had.
What can I say? It's been a slow week. So let's talk about cabins and Pineapple Express, shall we?
Damn it!!! We lost the bet and this episode represents our punishment for the loss! Just a heads up. While we're usually NSFW, this one is REALLY NSFW! You've been warned. Steve Perry really makes us mad.
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All this and more on this week's Team Fremont Live!
I rage about activist douche bags, contemplate buying a pinball table, and pine for pomegranate juice in this week's CWJ.
Damn it! We actually DID do a live show but my drunk ass managed too screw up the recording!So here's the non live version of this week's episode..and I think it's better anyway.
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All this and more on the latest Team Fremont Live!
Dont' forget to tune it next week, Feb. 10 at 7:00pm CST for our live call-in show!
Phil's gone and I'm sad. Let's wish him off in this week's CWJ.
Hey asshole! Get out of my way! I need to buy my kid a Mr. Potatohead! I'll take a Barbie doll and use it to gouge out your fucking eyes!Cooking with John.
It's late. I'm tired. And I'm babbling again. This time about Don Rickles. Kind of. I need sleep.
DAMN IT! I got screwed by Ubercaster again this week. You'll hear where. But despite that, we manage to talk about Guitar Hero 3 and some God of War for PSP. Moe also has some thoughts on Little Nemo for NES.
Special thanks to Mrs. Trickman and Mrs. Cade for the heart warming intro!
Sorry about the shitty audio this week. Not sure what settings I had on the old Ubercaster this week, but they made us sound like we're in an amped up bathtub! But despite the shower like tones, you can hear us talking about Halo 3 and the new Fighter Stick EX2 for the 360!
That and news about John's lisp on the latest Team Fremont Live!
If you'd stop cock-blocking me I'd give that news some super sexy lovin'! Nothing like a rowdy drunk...Anyway, I'm talking NFL, baby tours, motor oil, and public urination in Cooking with John this week. Check it out - uninterrupted - here.
Damn am I tired...It's a bit more baby talk this week as I answer a few of your letters. Enjoy while I go take a nap.
Sigh...10 people drunk out of their minds makes for one HARD editing session. So, this week's TFL will be a little late. In the meantime, we'll tide you over with the latest episode of Team Fremont Puppet Theater!
Enjoy!
The lesson of this week's Cooking with John is "Never try to understand the mind of a gamer." For example, what would inspire someone who doesn't read Japanese and hates Japanese RPGs to buy three of them?Prepare to be mystified. Find it here.
It got a little heated on this week's episode, but we all had a good time in the end, thanks to Sailor Jerry!We talk about The Darkness for the 360 and Super Stardust HD on the PS3 along with Turbo Talk from John!
Check it out on this week's Team Fremont Live!
We're back at the Team Fremont Bar this week and that means we're drunk. And the show is long. Go figure.
Check it out here.
We're back from Midwest Gaming Classic 2007 and man are we tired...But not too tired to bring you pictures and info from the show. So many pictures, in fact, that I broke through the page! Stay tuned for a very special podcast episode. And in the meantime, check out the photos here.
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Check it out on this week's Team Fremont Live!
Despite what you may have heard about Sony's Super Rub-a-Dub, the game's not that bad at all. Find out more in this week's CWJ.
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