Nintendo Resident Evil: Deadly Silence Nintendo DS

The fear feels familiar, except now it follows you wherever you go.

Features


New battle elements using touch screen
Knife now permanently mapped for use at any time, reducing one item from the inventory
Up to four player wireless action
Capcom resurrects the original Resident Evil and adds a multiplayer element to the game that put survival horror on the map. Presented in both its original form and a Rebirth Mode, Resident Evil: Deadly Silence may be smaller in size, but it's just as big on scares.

Purists will instantly fall in love with Classic Mode. This mode takes you through an exact port of the original Resident Evil complete with the limited save opportunities, limited ammo and deadly creatures that sometime seem to come out of nowhere.

Ten years later, Resident Evil demonstrates its ageless appeal and even shows some improvement, thanks to the DS dual screens. Now your map is constantly with you on the top screen as you blast zombies and hungry dogs on the bottom screen. Much like Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow before it, the map of Resident Evil: Deadly Silence greatly enhances gameplay and lets you roam around without having to pause the game to figure out where you are.

Rebirth Mode, although still based on Classic Mode, alters the game to take advantage of the touch screen functionality of the DS. In this mode, you'll use the touch screen to wield a knife (slashing from a first-person perspective) and solve interactive puzzles. Rebirth Mode also is more generous with the save opportunities and ammunition but includes more enemies for you to whack. Rebirth Mode also lets you use the touch screen to shake off zombies that have latched onto you.

The most interesting addition to the Resident Evil franchise is the inclusion of two multiplayer modes: vs. and coop. In vs. mode, you aren't trying to kill your opponents. You're instead racing them to get out of the mansion and post the most points at the same time. Although you're made aware of your opponents' locations, you don't actually see them as you're racing through the mansion.

In that sense, coop mode works the same way. Although you're working with another human partner (or 3) to escape the area, you don't actually see each other during the course of the gameplay. When all players are in the same room, however, their firepower increases against the zombies. Since you all share the same health meter, if one person dies, you all fail. Each player must escape the area in order to complete the goal.

Bottom Line
Resident Evil: Deadly Silence packs a powerful experience onto a portable. If you've never experienced the tension, now's a good time to get into the franchise. The new features make it much more than a re-hash for veteran zombie-slayers.

Nintendo Resident Evil: Deadly Silence, Nintendo DS

Nintendo Resident Evil: Deadly Silence. Platform: Nintendo DS, Developer: Nintendo