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 | Killer 7 Playstation 2 Capcom  Harlan Smith has seven other personalities. Sounds like a good premise for a psychological drama, but a computer game, I hear you say. But hold on a minute there, captain: don't go jumping the gun. These personalities can manifest themselves bodily, and every single one of them is a trained assassin. Now we're talking. The Smith 'family' (including petite and barefoot young woman Kaede, enormous man-of-colour Garrett, and Mexican wrestler Mask) and their missions to execute various people are at the centre of a sprawling and often impenetrably confusing plot to nuke Japan out of existence. I think. Anyway, they have to assassinate the man who's trying to nuke Japan - or do they have to assassinate the man who's trying to assassinate the man who wants to nuke Japan? Anyway, it turns out that the real enemy is not a man, but a cult of maniacally-laughing ghosts and monsters. Or maybe... never mind. All that you really need to know to play is that you have to shoot the laughing guys - and what a lot of them they are, all with different weaknesses and ways of killing them. Your seven characters have different strengths, too - Mask can destroy barriers, Dan has a super-charged gun attack and Kaede has a ghost who lives in her arm and who can... never mind - and you have to learn how to use them in order to progress through the game. The puzzles you encounter along the way are laughably simple, but the enemies often take skill to defeat. Helping you along is Iwazaru, a spirit who dangles from the ceiling and offers tips and advice. (Incidentally, he's the husband of the spirit who lives in Kaede's arm - or is it ex-husband? Anyway... never mind.) 'Killer 7' is played on a two-dimensional plane, which takes some getting used to after the interactive three-dimensional plane of most recent action-adventure games. The control system is counter-intuitive and initially difficult to master; but in battle mode you control your character's weapon, and that's reassuringly straightforward. The graphics are cartoonish with clean, simple lines (which raises the question of why there's such a long load-time between scenes); quite a nice change from the textured photo-realism I'm used to. Stylish look, surreal plot, plenty of profanity and gore: this is the video game equivalent of 'Ichi The Killer'. And like any cult movie, it'll be one for the devoted few rather than the indifferent many. As long as you don't get too bogged down in the terrifyingly complex story, 'Killer 7' is a winner. Just make sure, when you're fighting the enemies, to shoot them in the right place - that way you can collect their blood, which can be used to... never mind. Just play the game.  | |
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