Ok folks, try to wrap you skulls around this: Resident Evil: Deadly Silence is a remake of Resident Evil for the Nintendo DS. Something that might interest you is that if you hack off the first letters from "Deadly Silence" you get "Resident Evil: DS". Isn't that cute? Because it's on the DS, and it's called DS. Weird how that always happens; like all those Nintendo 64 game titles that ended in "64" by sheer coincidence.

Do we really need to play through that zombie-ridden mansion again? Was it not enough that Resident Evil Zero was really good, must we go cross-eyed staring at two screens at once full of blocky graphics with the words "Barry. Where's Barry?" and "I'm Rebecca. Rebecca Chambers!" rattling around the darker corners of our brains until we all die of old age, natural disasters, or a corporate-developed weaponized virus?

The answer is, of course, yes. Capcom has yet again retooled their classic survival horror game, this time for portable consumption on the Nintendo DS.

Deadly Silence lurks into stores this week, but what do you get for your 35 bucks (besides a game cartridge just the right size to get sucked up by a vacuum cleaner or ingested by a cat)? Horror and survival, baby.

The game plays out mostly how you'd expect. The bottom screen is where the running and dying takes place, and the top screen is used to display the map, inventory screen, and a few deadly forms of miscellany. Don't expect graphics to blow you away, but they pull off the atmosphere we're all used to quite well.

The gimmicky features of the DS do not go unused here. In some parts of the game, the view will switch to first-person and you'll use the touch screen to control knife swings to ward off the approaching zombies. The microphone can be used to solve puzzles, avoid poison gas attacks, and blow your teammates – back to health! That's right, CPR isn't just for drowning victims; it apparently works just as well when your friends take one too many zombie bites to the face.

For once, a multiplayer mode exists that might not be altogether awful. Using the miracle of wireless connectivity, you can compete with friends in time-trials or try and kill the most zombies you can. There's even a co-op mode where you and a pal can crack puzzles, cap baddies, and escape the mansion together. Ah, bonding.

When looking at this title, the first thing that comes to mind is "tired re-hash". Since Resident Evil first came out a million years ago, we've seen countless reiterations just like this. There's no telling how it will be until we actually get our hands on it, but most likely this game will only appeal to RE fans who simply cannot get enough of that big spooky house in the outskirts of Racoon City.]]> Sun, 05 Feb 2006 17:39:50 -0600 Shiva Stella http://www.gamebump.com/go/new_resident_evil_ds_screens http://www.gamebump.com/go/new_resident_evil_ds_screens http://www.gamebump.com/go/new_resident_evil_ds_screens# This article was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Certain formatting, imaged, and embedded content may have been lost in the transition process.