Matthew, aka The Switcher , was one of the few fans we flew to Miami for Captivate. You may know The Switcher from his incredibly funny Street Fighter cartoon redubs and his passion for all things Final Fight. While at Captivate, he had an opportunity to try the much-anticipated Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D. Read on for his impressions of the game!

The Switcher’s Preview of Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D

What’s up, Unity folks?!

You may know me for my various Street Fighter and Final Fight related videos that have been posted on Capcom-Unity for the last couple of years, so you`re aware of how I have an unhealthy love for all things Capsule Computers, (I bought the street fighter USA cartoon dvds with my own money). So I was absolutely blown away when I got invited to Captivate 2011 this year, which took place in the heart of Will Smith-country; Miami, Florida.

But enough about my celebrity friends, I`m first and foremost here to talk about games! Specically, 3D games! Even more specially, 3D games about Mercenaries! Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D was on hand at this year`s Captivate, and I was privileged enough to be able to go hands-on with it for a long while. I had played through a good portion of RE4 and RE5`s mercs mode, and I always found them pretty fun…but alas, they always boiled down to an unlockable mini-game mode for me in the end. But playing Mercs 3D on the 3DS however…something definitely “clicked” for me here, and that’s when I came to the realization that mercenaries is almost tailored-made for hand held play.

For those who might not know the ins and outs of it, mercenaries thrusts you in the zombie-blood soaked boots of one of any mainline Resident Evil characters, be they evil, neutral or good. You’re plopped into re-designed maps and your mission is to clear out as many baddies as you can before the time runs out. Good kills, strategic thinking, and wise item management will lead you to bigger scores and in Mercs 3D, that equates to some cool unlockables…the most important of these being the brand new skill system. The higher you score on each level, the closer you will be to unlocking a huge grid of various passive and aggressive abilities such as faster reload times, melee attacks buffed with electricity damage, more health gained from herbs/first air sprays, and dozens more! Whats even cooler is that if you use these skills often, you’ll level each one up individually, up to 3 tiers of effectiveness! This alone changes up a huge part of how the older Mercenaries sub-games worked, since you can literally make dozens of combinations as each character can equip 3 of these skills at any given time. So if you’re more of a defensive player, you can select skills that reflect that. If you want to be more effective against bosses, no problem, there’s skills just for that too.

Speaking of characters, the near-complete build of Mercs I played had 6 characters right off the bat: Chris, Claire, Jill, Wesker, Krauser, and Hunk, with a promise of more to be revealed leading up to launch. Some of the characters work better with each other, especially when playing co-op which can be done locally as well as online. Considering Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition’s incredibly smooth online play, I expect the finished version of Mercs to run just as well. Co-op as you might expect, is a blast as you coordinate your attacks and use various melee combos on the advancing hordes of gannados and majinis. Co-op is also the fastest way to unlock things in the game, as you can easily double your score when compared to going at it solo.

The 3D aspect of the Nintendo 3DS is also put to good use, as the added depth in the maps give you a better sense of how close your enemies are, which gives you an extra advantage when trying to place that critical headshot. This is also helped due to the new optional FPS-style camera you can choose to use when shooting, this definitely gives the game a different feel, but it’s also handy for getting a bead on those faster enemies. The other really impressive thing about Mercenaries 3D is the overall graphical presentation. Few companies know how to push hardware as well as Capcom does, and right now, RE Mercenaries is the best looking title I’ve seen on the system yet. That is…of course until Resident Evil: Revelations comes out. If you missed that bit of news, I’m pleased to report that RE Mercs 3D will also ship with a playable demo of Revelations, which is of course the hand held return to form for the series, which emphasizes horror and atmosphere over running and gunning.

All in all I was pretty blown away by Mercs 3D, as the fast paced but quick matches lent itself perfectly to the on-the-go zombie killer in all of us. Capcom hasn’t pinned down an exact date yet, but you can expect the game to hit this summer with complete…global…saturation.

There were lots of other games I was quivering with anticipating to play at this year’s Captivate, including Street Fighter x Tekken and several others, but all the best games in the world wouldn’t have mattered much had it not been for the awesome crew of Capcom-Unity; Sven, S-Kill, Snow, JGonzo, JH, Heat Man, Zonic and Shockwave, that really made me feel part of the group. After only an hour or two, we were all trolling each other like we had been friends for decades!

It was such a great experience being with a group of people that legitimately love video games, and have just as much, if not more passion than I do for them! Truly a once in a life-time event, and I am so happy I was able to play a part in it! So a big thanks to Capcom-Unity for such an incredible opportunity!

It also doesn’t hurt that I was able to collect Yoshinori Ono’s Mii into my 3DS Mii plaza.

Hugs and kisses,

The Switcher